Scammers have wasted no time taking advantage of Meta’s new microblogging app, Threads. Despite its recent launch on July 5 and a growing user base of over 98 million, high-profile Crypto Twitter users have been quick to warn about the presence of imposter accounts on the platform.
In the past few days, numerous figures in the Crypto Twitter community have identified fake accounts on Threads that are impersonating others or even themselves. For instance, on July 8, Wombex Finance, a decentralized finance platform, shared a tweet featuring an image of a Threads account pretending to be them. The project promptly cautioned that the account could be associated with scammers, as they are not active on the Threads platform.
Leonidas, an influential figure in the nonfungible token (NFT) community, issued a similar warning to their 93,000 followers on Twitter about impersonators on Threads a day before. They mentioned that they, along with other “large NFT accounts,” are being targeted by “scammers” on the platform. In response, Leonidas has created an account on Threads to address these impersonators directly.
Another Twitter user, Jeffrey Huang, also known as Machi Big Brother, shared his Threads profile on July 6, only to discover that there was already an account on Threads impersonating his Twitter persona. It is worth noting that the mentioned Threads accounts have not shared any scam or phishing links so far. Instead, they have mostly been posting content related to cryptocurrencies.
Twitter has long been targeted by crypto phishing scammers. One common tactic involves hacking into the accounts of well-known individuals and businesses to disseminate malicious links. These links typically aim to deceive unsuspecting users into sharing their crypto exchange login details, crypto wallet seed phrases, or connecting their wallets to crypto-draining smart contracts.
According to a report by Web3 security firm Beosin, these phishing scams have resulted in the theft of $108 million worth of cryptocurrencies in the first half of this year.
