What is the “Coinbase Crypto Giveaway” scam

“Coinbase Crypto Giveaway” is a fake crypto giveaway that promises to send double any amount of crypto sent to the provided account. These types of scams are very common when it comes to cryptocurrencies. They are often advertised on social media sites like Facebook and X (previously known as Twitter) and video-sharing platforms like YouTube. All of them are fake and just a ploy to trick users into transferring funds into scammers’ accounts.

 

 

This “Coinbase Crypto Giveaway” scam is one of the thousands of crypto giveaway scams you can encounter online. They are everywhere, including social media sites, forums, video-sharing platforms, comments, etc. Users are likely redirected to this particular “Coinbase Crypto Giveaway” scam via links in forum comments, social media posts, etc.

When users are redirected to the site hosting this crypto scam (coinbase-double.net), they are greeted with a message saying that Coinbase is currently hosting its biggest crypto giveaway and intends to give away $100,000,000 in Bitcoin and Ethereum. Supposedly, all users can participate only once. The giveaway will supposedly double any amount users send to the provided wallet address.

The message users are greeted with on the site hosting this scam:

BIGGEST CRYPTO
GIVEAWAY OF $100,000,000

During this unique event, you have the opportunity to take a share of 1,000 BTC & 10,000 ETH. Have a look at the rules and don’t miss out on this. You can only participate once!

Participate

This is nothing more than a scam that misuses Coinbase’s name. If users send cryptocurrencies to the provided wallet addresses, they will receive nothing in return. Users will also have no way of getting back the cryptocurrency. Fortunately, it seems that no transactions have been made to the wallet addresses. When it comes to giveaways, users should remember that if something seems too good to be true, that’s because it is. Cryptocurrency exchange platforms do not host these kinds of giveaways.

How are cryptocurrency scams promoted?

Malicious actors promote cryptocurrency scams in many ways, usually via social media sites and platforms like YouTube. One of the most common ways is impersonating high-profile people like Elon Musk on social media sites. Impersonating other people is particularly simple on media platform X, which is why it’s so common to see crypto scams on it. Comments under Elon Musk’s posts on X are often full of impersonators claiming that Musk is hosting a crypto giveaway. These impersonator profiles are usually poorly done but look convincing enough for beginner crypto or inattentive users to get tricked. Comments from impersonator accounts contain links to scams like this “Coinbase Crypto Giveaway” scam.

Famously, many high-profile Twitter accounts were hijacked to promote a Bitcoin scam in 2020. Accounts that were hijacked belonged to Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, and many more. Accounts that belong to Coinbase, CoinDesk, and Binance were also hijacked. The accounts all uploaded a post saying they’re hosting a Bitcoin giveaway and will double all transferred crypto. Within the first couple of minutes of the posts going live, more than 320 transactions were made. Around $110,000 had been transferred to the scammers’ accounts.

Video-sharing platform YouTube is also commonly used to promote crypto scams. Scammers like to hijack channels with at least a couple of thousand subscribers and start posting videos showing Elon Musk or Tesla conferences and displaying messages of crypto giveaways.