My friend Sarah recently experienced a devastating financial loss after participating in a fraudulent cryptocurrency giveaway on Twitter. Sarah followed many popular cryptocurrency influencers and often browsed their profiles for investment insights. One evening, she noticed a tweet that appeared to come from Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin’s official Twitter account, announcing a special “Ethereum giveaway” to celebrate Ethereum’s recent achievements.

The tweet looked authentic—it had thousands of likes, retweets, and positive comments from people claiming they received double their Ethereum after participating. Excited by this seemingly rare opportunity, Sarah hurriedly transferred approximately $1,000 worth of Ethereum to the provided wallet address, expecting to quickly receive double the amount in return.

Hours passed without receiving anything. Growing anxious, Sarah checked Twitter again, only to find the tweet had disappeared, and the profile was suspended. She then discovered that scammers had cleverly created fake profiles impersonating well-known crypto personalities, using stolen or hacked verified badges to trick innocent victims like her.

Sarah’s experience taught her—and others around her—a valuable lesson: legitimate crypto influencers never request users to send funds first to participate in giveaways. Always double-check giveaways through official sources and never trust social media posts alone, no matter how convincing they appear.