Bitcoin falls fast just as 70,000 Trump supporters click fake Telegram crypto URL
Last Updated on 4 September 2024 by CryptoTips.eu
Bitcoin followed stock markets down yesterday as investors fear a slowdown. US stock markets fell and this morning Asian markets followed suit. At the time of writing, Bitcoin is trading for $56,000.
Bad news for both Pavel Durov (CEO of Telegram and Toncoin) and former President Donald Trump. After Trump announced a new crypto project called World Liberty Financial last week, scammers lured 70,000 of his supporters to a fake Telegram website and promised an airdrop.
This was possible because Trump’s team had launched an official website for the new project, although it does not have any content yet.
You could however surf to the official Telegram and X channel of the project.
A group of scammers rented a banner for the site’s Telegram channel. Some 70,000 Trump supporters clicked on it and landed on a fake website that promised an airdrop if they would just provide their crypto wallet. That was a major crypto scam of course, and unfortunately for Durov it took place on Telegram.
Telegram
The arrest of Pavel Durov last week provided free advertising for Telegram of course. Almost every newscast in the West (the United States and Europe) had to explain to its viewers what Telegram (highly popular in Asia and Russia) actually was.
The Financial Times has also since learned that Toncoin and other digital coins are creating major wealth for Telegram as the company already owns $400 million worth of crypto.
Meanwhile Trump has also been a real crypto fan in recent weeks and months. Seeing how his various memecoins (DJT, MAGA and PEPE to name just a few) made headlines this year, the Trump campaign team decided to start their own crypto project, called World Liberty Financial, in order to raise extra cash.
Thousands of Trump followers tricked by scammers targeting his new crypto project.
— Laura K. Inamedinova (@laurakornelija) September 3, 2024
"Connect your wallet and we'll give you $15,000 worth of cryptocurrency"
I guess it's easy to scam the stupid smh 🤦♀️https://t.co/lmZueOYSgI
There was no real content for the site yet, but the social media pages for Trump’s new project were overwhelmed with the many visitors.
Telegram needs to do something about scams on their platform. This is the official Trump DeFi Telegram channel. It's a broadcast channel so no one can post there but apparently scammers can buy ads targeting the channel. This ad goes to a phishing site that steals accounts. pic.twitter.com/2OgKYtYDag
— Montoya (@MidwitMilhouse) August 31, 2024
Some scammers rented a banner on the Telegram channel of Trump’s latest crypto project, copied the logo and asked Trump supporters if they wanted to participate in an airdrop so they could receive free coins from this latest Trump project. 70,000 Trump supporters clicked on the link. It is unclear how many of them signed up for the scam and provided their crypto wallet details.