Dogecoin investors who waited to see Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s appearance on “Saturday Night Live” were scammed out of their holdings by con artists, according to Business Insider.
How were Dogecoin investors scammed?
A report from TRM Labs, which offers intelligence on cryptocurrency and blockchain, found scammers hosted YouTube livestreams of Musk’s appearance on “SNL.” These livestreams then showed off links to websites where viewers were told they could receive dogecoins.
- “Elon Musk has devoted 500,000,000 DOGE to be distributed to all DOGE holders. Anybody can get some, just visit the website,” one of the livestreams messages read, according to Business Insider.
Users were then asked to send their own dogecoins into a blockchain with the promise that they would get double their money back, Business Insider reports.
But the scammer reportedly received 9.7 million dogecoins worth $5 million at that time, according to Business Insider. Because the dogecoins were transferred by users, it looked like a legit transfer that didn’t raise any flags until users started to notice that they were scammed, Business Insider reports.
- “Giveaway scams are not new,” TRM Labs said in its report. “According to the FBI, mass marketing fraud schemes — like crypto giveaway scams — ‘victimize millions of Americans each year and generate losses in the hundreds of millions of dollars.’”
Dogecoin warns of scammers
The official Dogecoin Twitter account shared a word of caution to investors about scams in the aftermath of this recent incident.
- “A word of warning: Do not send coins to people claiming they will double, triple or otherwise multiply your coins. Those are scams. We cannot return your money to you either. Please watch out and remember if something sounds to good to be true, it likely is,” according to Dogecoin.