YouTube was full of fake Space X gift scams on April 8. These scams were cleverly hidden in live streams that were about the April 8 solar eclipse.
A research group called Mysk first noticed fake YouTube channels that claimed to be showing live footage of the solar eclipse under the title “Live: Solar Eclipse Spectacular 2024 of SpaceX.” Instead of real material, though, viewers saw a deepfake of SpaceX CEO Elon Musk.
In the fake video, the fake Musk told watchers to scan a QR code on the screen to send cryptocurrency and double their funds. People who scanned the QR code were taken to a website that showed the scammers’ bank addresses and asked for Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other well-known cryptocurrencies.
SpaceX Streams Fuel Cryptocurrency Scam
Mysk found that this live stream quickly rose to the top of the search results for “solar eclipse livestream,” with over 95,000 users at its peak. After that, user Jason Paladino found another livestream, “2024 Total Solar Eclipse: Through the Eyes of SpaceX,” with over 164,000 viewers. Someone faked an Elon Musk YouTube account and used it to spread the same crypto-doubling scam in the chat of the second show.
The thieves told their victims to go to a Russian website they had created that same day to retrieve their stolen cryptocurrency.
These giveaway scams have been around for a long time in the cryptocurrency world. Last year, a similar plan stole $165,000 in crypto from users who didn’t know what was happening. Fraudsters once again used live streams on YouTube to trick people into scanning QR codes that led to fake websites.
These scams involve more than just pretending to be Elon Musk or SpaceX. They also hurt the reputations of many well-known people in and outside the Bitcoin world. One of these was a lawsuit that Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak and 17 others made against YouTube in 2020, asking that similar scams that falsely promoted Bitcoin giveaways in their names be taken down.
Sadly, these kinds of dishonest actions aren’t just happening on YouTube. In February 2024, security researchers at CertiK found scammers pretending to be Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of Ethereum. These scammers used deepfake technology to push a phishing site that was meant to steal people’s cryptocurrency.
A 2023 report also pointed out that TikTok’s famous social media site has become a great place for these kinds of scams to thrive. Scammers similarly use the platform to push cryptocurrency scams while pretending to be legitimate businesses. Elon Musk and SpaceX are two of the most common targets because they are so connected to the cryptocurrency world.
