An investigative report: YouTube channels doing bitcoin scams

[playingwithosint]

I'm sure most of you have came across YouTube LIVE videos promoting scams: "send 1 BTC and receive 5 BTC back!" 

Even today, there are hackers taking over YouTube channels, using names of Elon Musk, SpaceX, Cathie Wood, Gemini, Ripple Foundation to scam cryptocurrency.

As Bitcoin keeps breaking all-time-high records, interest in Bitcoin is reigniting, and some of the growing pool of new cryptocurrency holders may fall into such scam. It doesn’t help when YouTube ranks these scam videos at the top.

I did a little investigation piece on the modus operandi behind these scams, which covers the following:

• Observing the take-over of YouTube channels with high viewership and subscriber count, as it happens
• Exposing hard-coded JavaScript that were used to spoof transactions on scam sites
• Finding similar scam code fragments on freelancer sites
• Tracing bitcoin address that was used to funnel scammed funds
• Uncovering the use of website copier programs for scammers to quickly spin up scam sites

Investigative workflow documented here
https://medium.com/coinmonks/an-elaborate-cryptocurrency-scam-82d2001704c4

Thanks for reading!
Also do share if you found anything interesting!

[Lorence.xD]

The only way I know that works against Youtube giveaway scams is not to give anything from them, or better yet reporting them and ignoring what they are going to say because in the end they are all BS spewed to attract followers that can be tricked into giving their money hoping it will double, triple, quadruple or multiply. I do not think that you can find this funneled scams with just the address because AFAIK, they are using bitcoin mixer/tumbler to hide their transactions.

[AmoreJaz]

The only way I know that works against Youtube giveaway scams is not to give anything from them, or better yet reporting them and ignoring what they are going to say because in the end they are all BS spewed to attract followers that can be tricked into giving their money hoping it will double, triple, quadruple or multiply. I do not think that you can find this funneled scams with just the address because AFAIK, they are using bitcoin mixer/tumbler to hide their transactions.

and if any of us see inappropriate content or potential scam in the making, we can always report it to YT hoping that YT will flag it down immediately or remove it.

Report inappropriate content

such ponzi scheme or offering high ROIs are attracting naive users. as a user, you should do your own diligence before believing such promises. almost all of them are trash!

[Fesatmas]

It's true, I've seen shows like Giveaway a lot, but I haven't done anything yet. first I don't know if it's a scam or not, secondly because I don't understand their language, thirdly I have no interest in giving them 1 Bitcoin and then promise to return 5 Bitcoin, the reason is that in this world nobody does that. fourth, I don't have any Bitcoin material for 1/2 Bitcoin. So I SKIP cheating about things like what is happening right now using the YouTube channel. Maybe they are frustrated because the Bitcoin price is half a billion.

[playingwithosint]

Without a doubt, all this videos are scams!

The aim of the medium article is to highlight the modus operandi of these scammers, how they take over established Youtube channels, how they craft seemingly convincing websites, and how they manage to spin up so many scam sites. The article also shows evidences that some of the javascript code of these scam sites were found on some freelancers profiles, which may suggest possible attribution. Also, funds from multiple BTC addresses (from different scam webpages and different YouTube LIVE videos) were sent to a common BTC address, which may suggest that the same actor is behind different scam campaigns.

Medium article highlighting modus operandi of these scammers: https://medium.com/coinmonks/an-elaborate-cryptocurrency-scam-82d2001704c4

[Vaskiy]

This is getting very common, and people aren't aware of it. I state this, because in those scam approach we can see more than 5k people watching it live. Scams are open without any restrictions, youtube need to take necessary action when such kind of scams are getting broadcast through the livestream.

[plvbob0070]

We have already seen a lot of similar giveaway modus like this on social media platforms especially on YouTube. Although I don't really care nor fall for this kind of giveaway on YouTube since I am already aware of their tactics, however, there are still newbies who don't have any idea and might get fooled. All we can do is to report and alert thousands of people watching giveaway lives by scammers about it. And it's YouTube's job to take down those videos.

[Ucy]

The scams are actually shameful to watch, not just because they are scams but due to how easily they thrive on such big sites. Those are the kind of things that damage the reputation of crypto.

Hopefully, such issues could be addressed at our own side, possibly through tagging of addressess linked to such scams... so that people who wish to send or receive coins from them can be warned

[serjent05]

The scams are actually shameful to watch, not just because they are scams but due to how easily they thrive on such big sites. Those are the kind of things that damage the reputation of crypto.

Well, youtube does not censor videos and streaming in real-time.  Unless someone reported the video and after investigation of the management then they can take down those scam videos.  So this one needs the community to step in reporting this kind of scam that happens on Youtube.

Hopefully, such issues could be addressed at our own side, possibly through tagging of addressess linked to such scams... so that people who wish to send or receive coins from them can be warned

I think there are sites that tags address like https://www.bitcoinabuse.com/.  The site tag addresses that were used by hackers and criminals.  Aside from that, there is also a site called Scam-Alert.


We had heard this kind of scam everywhere, it is also rampant in Telegram, Facebook, and Twitter, so we better warn our friends and relatives about this kind of scheme.

[finaleshot2016]

Bitcoin scams can be seen everywhere and expect that a popular social media platform, YouTube can also have those scams. People should think that it's obviously a fake giveaway and just report it to get banned on YouTube. People are too much, always thinking that there's a good samaritan that will give them 1 BTC. lol

Sometimes, scammers are also hacking some popular channels to promote a specific giveaway or altcoin for their own personal desires.

We should learn that everything we want should be got by our own efforts.

[ChrisPop]

I think it is mostly common sense to not get caught in these scams. People got to ask themselves why would anyone giveaway a 500% return with absolutely no work involved when the biggest hedge funds barely make 15-20%/ Year?

It is a matter of financial education in my opinion. It is rejuvenating to see more and more financial education channels and blog popping up.

[dothebeats]

Even though the reports for YouTube accounts getting hacked and replaced with cryptocurrency content became drastically low in recent times, there ate still some that manages to evade arrest and still do this thing on the daily. I’m pretty sure most, if not all, knows that this investment scheme isn’t true, and once no more new players are present the collapse of the ‘investment’ structure will soon follow. These are too good to be true investments; why would anyone in their sane mind dare to see if these things are real? Unfortunately, there are still some that manages to become a part of the statistic, mainly because of greed.

[Dave1]

In any case members are interested, I wrote a [Tutorial]: How to search for Scam Giveaways in Youtube.

[verita1]

I don't understand why the industry giant You Tube still allows these scams to take place. It is easy to evade the guidelines of You Tube because when they realize the damage is done.

Besides being embarrassing is watching live broadcasts to scam people.
You Tube needs to be a safe place the owners have made their fortune thanks to the support of the community now we demand more security.

I wish managers to channel this security flaw to protect naive people who fall for these types of scams.

[ice098]

I think it is mostly common sense to not get caught in these scams. People got to ask themselves why would anyone giveaway a 500% return with absolutely no work involved when the biggest hedge funds barely make 15-20%/ Year?

It is a matter of financial education in my opinion. It is rejuvenating to see more and more financial education channels and blog popping up.

It is inevitable that scammer will spreading untrue statement regarding bitcoin and cryptocurrency most especially how trendy the bitcoin market value today. It is so amazing that bitcoin surpasses a 2017 ATH and up to now it is still record breaking by the new ATH of $40000. If we will going back to the time that bitcoin were new and proving its economic worth people already link an issue to it as a scam and no doubt that people may use the trend of bitcoin to spread scam news.

[LogitechMouse]

~

Not new as this has been in Youtube for quite some time already (possible a year or more).

I always browse Youtube every single day and I always see different Youtube channels being used to scam ignorant investors. I've also seen some popular vloggers here in our country being hacked because of these people and their channel has been used to scam people. They are changing the name of the channel, putting their previous videos into private and make a live video in Youtube.

Right now, Bitcoin is moving higher every single day and scammers are trying their best too to scam people. Just be knowledgeable enough which are scam projects and which are not and you will not get scammed by this hackers who are doing the exact same thing every now and then.