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United States: "fake" Elon Musk stole $ 2 million in cryptocurrency scams

2021-05-19T18:40:25.370Z


The US competition agency, the FTC, announced Monday that people posing as Elon Musk had stolen more than 2 million ...


The US competition agency, the FTC, announced Monday that people posing as Elon Musk have stolen more than $ 2 million from investors since October in cryptocurrency scams.

Read also: Tesla: why Elon Musk turns his back on bitcoin as a means of payment

This type of scam is based on

"the promise that a celebrity associated with cryptocurrencies will multiply the cryptocurrencies you send to their wallet and send them back to you

,

"

says the FTC. The tweets and public statements of Elon Musk, the whimsical boss of Tesla, tend to react strongly to the price of several cryptocurrencies. His enthusiasm for bitcoin has thus contributed to the meteoric rise of the most famous cryptocurrency in recent months.

But in a dramatic turnaround last week, the billionaire entrepreneur announced that Tesla would no longer accept bitcoin as a payment method, deeming virtual currency too polluting, which requires immense amounts of energy to create.

On Sunday evening, in response to a Twitter post, Elon Musk hinted that his company could even get rid of the bitcoins in its possession, which brought the cryptoactive to its lowest level since February.

“To put an end to all speculation, Tesla did not sell bitcoin,”

he however rectified on the social network on Monday, causing the price to rebound.

Rise in attempted scams

Elon Musk's strong support for dogecoin also propelled the price of this cryptocurrency, which was originally created as a joke. The growing interest in cryptoassets has been accompanied by a huge increase in scam attempts. According to the FTC, 7,000 people reported losses amounting to more than $ 80 million in this area between last October and March. Compared to the same period a year earlier, reports have increased almost 12-fold and the amounts stolen have increased by almost 1,000%. The median loss from a cryptocurrency scam is $ 1,900, says the FTC, which says people between the ages of 20 and 49 are the most likely to be scammed.

Source: lefigaro

All business articles on 2021-05-19

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