- The phisher posted about a fake airdrop of a “BULL” token.
- Fake accounts of the BOME creator were also popping up.
The meme coin season is in full swing. With new tokens getting launched every other day, traders have been scouring the blockchain space for any and every profit-taking opportunity.
This FOMO, however, has caught the eye of scammers who look to catch these unsuspecting investors off guard.
Impersonators on the rise
On the 17th of March, on-chain sleuth ZachXBT, known for uncovering scams and bad actors in the crypto space, brought to light a phishing scam worth nearly $3 million.
The attacker reportedly impersonated the X (formerly Twitter) account of Ansem, a well-known crypto trader. The modus operandi was straightforward.
They started replying to each of Ansem’s posts, announcing a fake presale event of a token named ‘BULL.’
Source: ZachXBT/X
Naive users, without performing much due diligence, fell for the enticement, ending up losing a significant chunk of their holdings. A single user lost more than $1 million.
Minutes later after the revelation, Ansem also took to X to admit how his name was misused to rob users, calling the developments “insane.”
BOME’s frenzy being exploited?
The phisher exploited the excitement around the so-called presale event, of the latest fan-favorite BOOK OF MEME [BOME] token.
In a nutshell, during the fundraising stage, participants deposited SOL coins to an address specified by the project’s creator Darkfarms, and received BOME in return.
Worse, phishers were not only mimicking successful airdrop programs but also the people who ran them. Darkfarms alerted users about an imposter account that was passing misinformation.
Source: Darkfarms/X
An army of impersonators could be seen if one were to scroll through the comments on Darkfarms’ posts.
The rising evil
Phishing was steadily rising as one of the biggest attack vectors employed by Web3 criminals.
According to Web3 anti-scam platform Scam Sniffer, nearly $300 million was lost due to crypto phishing scams in 2023.
The new year started on a worse note, with more than $100 million already stolen by phishers in the first two months.
