YouTube viewers lose $1.6 million in crypto on fake streams over three days

From February 16 to 18, Group-IB specialists identified 36 fraudulent YouTube broadcasts devoted to crypto investments. They netted the scammers more than $1.6 million.

The scammers assembled videos from old appearances by prominent figures in the crypto community and entrepreneurs. The most frequently used images included Vitalik Buterin, Elon Musk, Brad Garlinghouse, Michael Saylor, Changpeng Zhao and Katie Wood.

A fake stream featuring Buterin drew more than 165,000 viewers. The audience of one such stream ranged from about 3,000 to 18,000 people. During the broadcast, users were urged to transfer cryptocurrencies to the specified wallet, with a claim that they would be returned double.

In total, duped viewers carried out 281 transactions totaling more than $1.68 million (at the February rate). Ethereum was the currency most popular among the scammers — $933,963.

To obtain an “additional bonus,” the attackers offered the investor to disclose the seed phrase of their crypto wallet. If the victim agreed, the scammers withdrew all funds on it.

Group-IB also identified YouTube streams aimed at NFT buyers. The video descriptions contained links to phishing sites where customers were promised a token in exchange for the wallet’s password and seed phrase.

Over three months, experts recorded the registration of more than 580 domain names tied to fraudulent giveaways. This is three times higher than in the entire previous year.

Most of the domains involved appeared from February 13 onward, through the Russian registrar Reg.ru. Some resources are registered to a single person.

Specialists at Group-IB recommend always verifying information about investment terms and, under no circumstances, sharing the seed phrase with third parties.

As reported in late October 2021, Google thwarted massive YouTube-channel hack for bitcoin fraud.

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