Over $2M Stolen By Elon Musk Impersonators In Crypto Scams, Says FTC

Investors have lost millions in crypto giveaway scams by Elon Musk impersonators.

What Happened: According to a report from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), Elon Musk impersonators have duped investors out of over $2 million in the past six months alone.

These scams are usually orchestrated by the impersonator promising to immediately multiply cryptocurrency sent to a specific wallet address but instead making off with the received funds.

The FTC’s report revealed that reported losses due to cryptocurrency scams of this nature increased sharply from October 2020 through March 2021 – the period in which Bitcoin BTC/USD grew 450% from $10,700 to over $59,000.

In fact, since October 2020, nearly 7,000 people reported losses of more than $80 million on these scams, which is twelve times the amount reported during the same period a year earlier.

See also: Top 5 Bitcoin and Crypto Scams

Why It Matters: Bitcoin’s high growth attracted a large number of new investors to the space, with some likely being “easy targets” in the eyes of these crypto scammers.

The Tesla Inc TSLA CEO himself appeared to be convinced by Bitcoin as an asset class, TSLA) CEO himself appeared to be convinced by Bitcoin as an asset class, announcing that Tesla had purchased $1.5 billion of the leading cryptocurrency in February," announcing that Tesla had purchased $1.5 billion of the leading cryptocurrency in February.

Tesla’s decision to now revoke the option of using Bitcoin as a means of payment and Musk’s new criticism of the digital asset may have been the reason that slowed down momentum in the crypto bull run.

See also: Elon Musk, Grimes, Miley Cyrus Attended A Crypto-Themed SNL Afterparty With Dogecoin Ice Sculptures

Bitcoin has lost over 30% in the past week alone and was trading at under $40,000 at the time of writing.

Several cryptocurrencies, including Ethereum ETH/USD, Dogecoin DOGE/USD, and Cardano ADA/USD, were down over 15% in the past 24-hours.

Image: Heisenberg Media on Wikimedia Commons