Popular crypto researcher and Twitter influencer FatManTerra has exposed how easy it is to carry out a crypto investment scam. He recently experimented by creating a fake investment scheme from which he realized over $100,000 worth of Bitcoin (BTC) from crypto investors.
According to FatManTerra, he only set out to teach people a lesson about going in blindly on investment advice. Especially the advice from influencers and celebrities alike.
The Crypto Investment Scam
On Monday, FatManTerra tweeted at his 101,000 followers about having access to a BTC farm which returned a very high yield. He then asked investors who might be interested in partaking to reach out to him. He tweeted in part:
“I’ve maxed out what I could, so there’s some leftover allocation and I thought I’d pass it along.”
On the surface, the initial post saw massive pushback with many tagging it a scam. But despite the backlash, some crypto investors still went in anyway. And barely two hours later, FatManTerra claims to have raised over $100,000 with many more requests still flooding in.
While the influencer claims to have returned all the money to the investors, questions are being raised about his decision to take the money in the first place. According to some, he probably set out to scam people but was not prepared enough for the kind of backlash he got.
Regardless of the accusations, however, FatManTerra insists the crypto investment scam he perpetrated was just an “awareness campaign” all along. Maintaining that free lunches do not exist anywhere, he suggested that influencers and celebrities are beginning to prey on their followers’ belief in them. They do this by leading them to invest in questionable schemes.
According to him, the victims ignore the voice of reasoning and sheepishly follow the advice. In addition, he also showed that perfecting a crypto investment scam was as easy as using simple buzzwords like “high-yield” and “high returns.”
It is worth noting that reports of influencers playing promotional roles in crypto scams are recently increasing. So investors must do more in carrying out their own research before ever putting in their money.
cmb.com 