Cryptocurrency Scammers Are Now Stealing From Other Cryptocurrency Thieves
Cryptocurrency scammers have finally found their competition for theft: themselves.
A new scam spreading mainly on YouTube could give even the most savvy scammers away, security firm Kaspersky said in a security update last week.
“I have USDT stored in my wallet, and I have a seed phrase. How can I transfer my funds to another wallet?” Kaspersky noted one such comment. The wallet in question contained over $8,000 worth of stablecoins on the Tron blockchain. A seed phrase is a string of words that grants those who know it access to a crypto wallet.
However, this was not a question from a crypto newbie but a cleverly placed trap. These stablecoins were held in a multi-signature wallet, and theoretically required a gas fee to be able to withdraw funds.
However, when the thieves tried to withdraw the funds by sending Tron TRX tokens to the wallet, the sent tokens mysteriously evaporated into another wallet controlled by the scammers.
The problem is that the bait wallet is set up as a multi-signature wallet. To authorize transactions issued in such wallets, two or more people need to agree, so transferring USDT to a personal wallet will not work and instead it will be transferred somewhere else.
“Scammers pose as novices who foolishly share access to their cryptocurrency wallets, and trick equally naive thieves – who end up becoming victims,” Kaspersky said. “In this scenario, scammers are like digital Robin Hoods, with the scheme primarily targeting other scammers.”
Kaspersky said that this scam is not a lone wolf either, as several cases are rife online with similar comments from new accounts, all dangling from the same initial phrase.
As such, gas fees are typically cheap and cost less than $10 across most blockchains, meaning this activity is likely targeting wannabe thieves rather than a sophisticated operation seeking to steal thousands, or even millions, of dollars.
But expect the crypto criminal to make money whenever he gets the chance.