Twitter Hacking Incident – BTC Transactions Contain Hidden Messages Promoting Monero July 16, 2020 July 16, 2020
Twitter accounts of prominent personalities across the globe were hacked to advertise fraudulent Bitcoin giveaway schemes. While the mainstream media is busy discussing about the hacking incident, crypto enthusiasts on Reddit forum have identified a string of hidden message in transaction outputs related to the Bitcoins sent to scam related wallet addresses.
Popular personalities whose Twitter accounts were hacked include Bill Gates, Joe Biden, George Wallace, Mike Bloomberg, Kim Kardashian, Elon Musk, Kanye West, Wiz Khalifa, Warren Buffett, Barack Obama, and Jeff Bezos.
The accounts were hacked with a message promising that if users sent BTC a particular address they’d get a 2:1 return. As per blockchain data, a user remitted 0.00005348 Bitcoin (BTC), almost 50 cents via seven transactions to the BTC wallet address linked to the Twitter hacking incident.
For remitting the BTC, the sender paid 0.00121639 BTC in transaction fees, roughly $11.19 and sent the following message:
“Just read all transaction outputs as text you take risk when use Bitcoin for your Twitter game Bitcoin is traceable why not Monero.”
At the time of writing this article, scammers have swindled 12.86 BTC (~$118,000) from Twitter users. There is not clarity regarding the message i.e., whether it was aimed at hackers or those who got fooled by sending their crypto.
Crypto advocates know very well that Monero (XMR) has better privacy features than Bitcoin and is regarded as the cryptocurrency of choice for swindlers and carrying out illegal activities in dark web.
A Reddit user, identified by the named ethereumflow, stated that the message had a plan of convincing people to compare BTC with XMR:
“I doubt anyone that has Monero would fall for this scam but a lot of gullible people have BTC, no disrespect. I’m sure the intention was always to eventually swap for Monero. Questions will be directed at whichever exchange this happens with I’m sure. Is this good press for Monero? I don’t know. But it does advertise the high level of privacy and security.”
At the time of writing this article, the price of Monero was trading at $71.28, up 4.1% in the past 24 hours. BTC was trading almost flat at $9202.