A German lost 450,000 euros in Bitcoin believing he was competing in an Elon Musk giveaway

The rapid growth of Bitcoin caught the attention of people who wanted to make a profit through other means. Most of the projects that are related to ‘blockchain’ and cryptocurrencies are still in the experimentation phase, which is equivalent to the existence of certain vulnerabilities.

Consequently, a new type of financial scam involving Bitcoin has emerged and is actively spreading through social media.

Real cases

All of this is not just speculation: it is really happening. A German lost the large amount of 450,000 euros in Bitcoin following an alleged giveaway that he saw on Twitter. It was a professional-looking portal that was dedicated to cryptocurrency, there was a countdown timer and on the web it offered participants the possibility of doubling their money.

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Supposedly, the contest was run by Elon Musk's Tesla team, since it invited users to send from 0.1 bitcoin to 20 bitcoins (from 4,900 to 980,000 euros approximately depending on the current value of the cryptocurrency). In this way, the organization was responsible for returning double the amount contributed.

The German told the BBC a few days ago that he even double-checked the verification icon on the account, to make sure it was really Elon Musk. Thinking that he had fallen for a bargain, he tried to decide whether to send 5 or 10 BTC. "'Take the maximum', I thought, this is definitely real, so I sent 10 Bitcoin," he tells the international media.

From his home in Cologne, Germany, this man spent the next 20 minutes, while the timer ran out, waiting for the prize to land in his Bitcoin wallet.Unfortunately, when the timer reached zero, he realized that it was a scam.

Increase in the number of scams

Crypto theft growth has increased 38% in the last two years. This means that the increase in these thefts means for cyber criminals the innovation of new means to combat security measures.

One of the techniques of these criminals focuses on the creation of Twitter accounts or the theft of users verified by this social network to make it appear more reliable.

The most famous scam took place in July 2020, when a Twitter hack allowed scammers to tweet through the accounts of celebrities such as Bill Gates, Elon Musk or Kim Kardashian. This meant that the criminals behind it stole more than 100,000 euros in Bitcoin. This week we learned that the main person responsible has been sentenced to three years in prison.

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