Twitter Turns a Hotbed For Crypto Scams, CEO Assures Action
These days, anything and everything that is related to cryptocurrencies or blockchain catch a wild fire in no time. In the recent past, with the increase in the demand and popularity of digital currencies, there have also been increasing cases of cheat, fraud and scams. We have seen that just by associating the tag ‘blockchain’ to their businesses, how shares of several companies shotted manifold times thereby manipulating investors.
This time, at the heart of another controversy involving cryptocurrency scams is social media giant Twitter. It has been found out that a number of digital currency scams have severely infected the Twitter platform and multiple fraudulent cases of verified Twitter accounts (involving the blue tick) have emerged out.
In some strange set of incidents, it has been found out that some verified Twitter accounts have been demanding small amounts of deposits with the promise of sending a large amount of Ether tokens in return. It is being said that hundreds and thousands of people have been the victim of such schemes having lost their digital assets.
However, in identifying scamsters, it was recently found that the account of the support team of cryptocurrency exchange Kraken was reportedly restricted in spite of the same account making its users aware of other copycat accounts which mimic and operate by the names of other well-known industry personalities.
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey is now aware of this fact of the misuse of verified accounts and has assured of fixing this problem. While responding to a tweet by Cornell Professor Emin Gün Sirer, Jack Dorsey said that “ we are on it.”
While talking to Bloomberg, Sirer said: “Crypto-spam reached untenable proportions recently.” It was impossible to discuss any topic without having some spammer jump in, impersonate a cryptocelebrity, and try to collect coins from people with promises of easy gains.”
Also, while recently talking to Bloomberg, a Twitter spokesperson said that the company is pretty much aware of the “manipulation” and is taking necessary measures to "prevent these types of accounts from engaging with others in a deceptive manner.”
With the growing worries of crypto scams, other social media giants like Facebook have already initiated action at their end. A few weeks back, Facebook announced that it is banning all ads associated with cryptocurrencies, initial coin offerings, etc. after sighting multiple cases of deceptive and misleading practices.
On the other hand, in order to protect investor’s interests, regulatory bodies from around the globe are seen in swift action and taking necessary measures to plug all the fraudulent activities relating to cryptocurrencies.