Elon Musk has long been involved in the crypto world, both in negative and positive ways. At press time, it looks like the negative waves surrounding his crypto presence are taking a little more precedence than the positive ones given that his face and likeness are still being used for crypto scams across social media platforms.
Elon Musk Is Still the Face of Crypto Fraud
This has been an ongoing problem. For several years, many scams on sites like YouTube, Twitter, and others have featured the likeness of the South African billionaire and entrepreneur to promote phony digital currency giveaways and similar scams, and now it looks like it’s beginning to happen all over again on YouTube. Musk is seen in several videos telling individuals to send bitcoin, Ethereum, and other forms of cryptocurrency to assorted addresses. In doing so, people who send funds can potentially double their money.
This is the same tactic traders witnessed nearly two years ago when a scam was rung up on Twitter that targeted some of the biggest and most high-profile users on the platform including former president Barack Obama, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, and – of course – Elon Musk. Many of their accounts were hacked and featured messages asking people to send bitcoin to anonymous addresses. If they did so, they could double their funds.
Sadly, nothing like this was ever set to occur. As a result, people wound up losing a total surpassing the $100,000 line, though the culprit was eventually caught and sentenced to prison in a juvenile detention center (he was only 17 years old at the time) as part of a plea deal.
Thus far, the videos on YouTube featuring Musk have garnered the attention of anywhere between 3,000 and 10,000 individuals. One has gotten as many as 20,000 views. That video uses an old clip of Musk talking about bitcoin and other forms of crypto at a conference years ago. At the end, all viewers are instructed to send in BTC as part of a 5,000-unit giveaway.
The video says:
Hurry up and take part in the giveaway. We believe that blockchain and bitcoin will make the world fairer. To speed up the process of cryptocurrency mass adoption, we decided to run a 5,000BTC giveaway.
A Heavy Crypto Presence
Musk has had a rather illustrious and prominent presence in the crypto space. Last year, he caused controversy when he announced that all crypto fans looking to purchase Tesla electric vehicles could do so with bitcoin. However, he later rescinded this decision on account of being worried about mining emissions, and he didn’t want to promote the space any further if miners were not willing to be transparent and use energy efficiently.
By contrast, he has promoted Dogecoin on several occasions and allows Dogecoin use for purchasing assorted Tesla merchandise.
