‘Scammers’ impersonate Crypto Twitter users on Threads as users near 100M

Scammers appear to have wasted no time since the launch of Meta’s new microblogging app — with several high-profile Crypto Twitter users already warning of imposter accounts on Threads.

Threads was launched on July 5 and has seen sign-ups climb above 98 million in the days following. It’s still far away from Twitter’s estimated 450 million users.

However, over the past few days, multiple Crypto Twitter figures have already pointed out fake accounts on Threads impersonating others or themselves.

On July 8, decentralized finance platform Wombex Finance tweeted an image of a Threads account impersonating it — warning it could be a scammer as the project isn’t on the platform.

Attention, #WombexWarriors!

Please be aware that Wombex Finance DOES NOT have an account on the Threads platform.

Any account claiming to be Wombex Finance on that platform is fraudulent and is operated by a scammer!

To avoid scams, always refer to our official channels:… pic.twitter.com/uU8fc2lTiB

— Wombex (@WombexFinance) July 8, 2023

The nonfungible token (NFT) influencer Leonidas tweeted a similar warning a day earlier to their over 93,000 followers, saying that they and other “large NFT accounts” are being impersonated by “scammers” on Threads. Leonidas said they have now made an account on Threads to combat impersonators.

Jeffrey Huang, known on Twitter as Machi Big Brother, tweeted his Threads profile on July 6 with one user pointing out there was already a Threads account impersonating his Twitter persona.

Damn dude you already have a scam account on threads pic.twitter.com/QTDv3V39H7

— Nataly (NLC) (@NLC972) July 6, 2023

So far, the Thread accounts mentioned have avoided sharing any scam or phishing links, with most posting crypto-related content.

Related: Elon Musk accuses Mark Zuckerberg of cheating: Twitter vs. Threads

For years, Twitter has been a popular channel for crypto phishing scammers, with a common tactic involving hacking into the Twitter accounts of well-known people and businesses and posting malicious links.

Such links usually attempt to dupe unwitting targets into sharing either their crypto exchange login, a crypto wallet seed phrase or have them connect a wallet to a crypto-draining smart contract.

In the first half of this year, $108 million worth of crypto was stolen in such phishing scams according to a report by Web3 security firm Beosin.

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