The buzz surrounding The Merge has attracted a horde of fraudsters who actively use verified Twitter accounts to impersonate Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin and scam investors.
Famous entrepreneurs, including the world’s richest man, Elon Musk, have repeatedly pointed out Twitter’s biggest problem – bots. However, fraudsters have stepped up efforts to hide their malicious intent by using verified profiles.
Cointelegraph has currently identified more than six verified Twitter accounts that duplicate Buterin’s profile picture, name and profile description. The accounts have been actively promoting fake Ether (ETH) giveaways and misleading investors into their crypto wallets.
The easiest way to identify fakes is by paying attention to the Twitter handle, also known as the username of the profile. Recently, fake Twitter profiles impersonating Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao have been added, forcing Musk to publicly call out the problem, as shown below.
And 90% of my comments are bots. pic.twitter.com/A7RKyNJZoR
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 5, 2022
Occasionally, scammers have been found impersonating the Ethereum Foundation – trying to gain credibility with the masses. Especially during bull runs and significant events like network upgrades, it is easy for bad actors to defraud unsuspecting investors among bullies.
This article comes as a warning to crypto investors to help them avoid falling prey to targeted scams and threats to drain their funds.
Related: When the last shadow fork completes successfully, Ethereum is ready for integration.
Equally excited for The Merge, Google has added a countdown timer for the Ethereum blockchain that shows how much time is left to transition from a Proof of Work (PoW) to a Proof of Proof (PoS) consensus mechanism.
Cointelegraph previously reported on recent Google search data, which revealed that searches for the term “Ethereum integration” have generated more than 50 results over the past 30 days, peaking at 100 on September 3rd.