The tech mogul Elon Musk, the Co-founder and CEO of SpaceX, Tesla, Inc. and Boring Co., had tweeted about cryptocurrency for the first time, but in his comment, he only mentioned the crypto scam bots epidemic. He wrote: "I want to know who is running the Etherium scambots! Mad skillz…”
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1016032769082716161
- elonmusk
I want to know who is running the Etherium scambots! Mad skillz …
Elon Musk (
) July 8, 2018
Immediately, the Ethereum (ETH) Co-founder, Vitalik Buterin, retweeted Elon's post expressing his disappointment that the very first mention of Ethereum made by the SpaceX’s founder was not about the technological breakthroughs but about the fraudulent bots on Twitter. Vitalik called for help from Jack Dorsey (Twitter CEO) and the ETH community to develop another two-layer filter to get rid of scam accounts. Surprisingly, Vitalik did not complain about Elon misspelling the word ‘Ethereum’.
https://twitter.com/VitalikButerin/status/1016224550688878592
- VitalikButerin
I do wish
's first tweet about ethereum was about the tech rather than the twitter scambots........
help us please? Or someone from the ETH community make a layer 2 scam filtering solution, please? https://t.co/biVRshZmneVitalik "Not giving away ETH" Buterin (@VitalikButerin) July 9, 2018
Since cryptocurrencies became a big hit in late 2017, the scam bots on Twitter have dramatically increased. Scammers have developed bots that imitate influencers in the blockchain and cryptocurrencies world. Each time a celebrity writes a tweet, the bots will automatically leave a comment inviting other followers to participate in a giveaway. Apparently, the participation is free of charge and those invited are even assured to received some ETH or BTC, but it's all just a dead giveaway as to receive anything first they need to send ETH or BTC to the scammers.
Not only the influencers in the crypto world but also giants like Warren Buffett, Bill Gates and Elon Musk are scammers’ targets. The scam bots are becoming more and more complex as they are able to change their usernames while still keeping the verified badges, which makes it harder for users to distinguish the real accounts from the fake ones.
Vitalik Buterin added the phrase "Not giving away ETH" to his user name but that did not really stop the scam bots. It might be the reason why an online news outlet mistook Elon Musk’s twitter for a scam bot.
In recent days, all the attention has been drawn to the dramatic rescue of Thai soccer team from a flooded cave in Thailand, Elon has been constantly updating the situation, giving advice on how to organize a rescue plan and willing to provide the devices needed to get out the victims safely on his Twitter. The news outlet was mistaken for a fake account, and it even was reported that Elon had a 'little surprise' which would improve people's mood by giving away a Tesla car. Although the article was later deleted, many followers took a screenshot of the article and sent it to Elon, perhaps this is why he spoke out about Twitter bot scam.
Although many users have complained about the scam bots, Twitter has yet to find efficient solutions to this problem. In May and June, Twitter suspended more than 70 million fake accounts by means of which people had spread the rumours about the US presidential campaign in 2016.
Written by nami.today