With Bitcoins steadily rising in value, lots of people (some who may not have even heard of them before) are hoping to get their hands on it.
And they¡¯re willing to believe almost anything to do that.
That¡¯s evidenced by a tweet from @Joshwilkyyy yesterday, who claimed he was giving away free Bitcoin to five lucky people. As of the time of writing, it¡¯s racked up over 34,000 retweets.
However, there¡¯s absolutely nothing to suggest that this isn¡¯t a hoax, but that doesn¡¯t seem to matter to most people. In fact, just an hour earlier, another user named Travis Weaver posted a similar offer.
So similar in fact, that the wording of the two tweets is identical. Both users are asking for retweets, after which they will pick the winners from those who followed instructions. It also doesn¡¯t seem likely that either of these characters actually have any Bitcoins to give away in the first place. Firstly, if they were giving away five Bitcoins they¡¯d be giving away approximately $78,000. Secondly, neither of them have ever tweeted about Bitcoins before, not even during the major price surge all of last week that would have turned anyone with 1,500 Bitcoins into a millionaire.
As of now, Travis is sitting pretty in 143,000 retweets, and will supposedly pick his five winners in a few hours. As for Josh, he¡¯s instead straight up asked people to pay him money on PayPal without any confirmation whatsoever he has any of the cryptocurrency to give.
If it wasn¡¯t obvious before, it should be now. If all you¡¯re losing is a tweet then sure go ahead, it¡¯s not much to lose to feel like you¡¯re in the running to win big. But the minute someone¡¯s asking for money, it¡¯s a fake lottery. You wouldn¡¯t buy a raffle ticket from a person off the street, so don¡¯t send some schmuck money for imaginary Bitcoins.