UPDATE: The Twitter accounts for Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, Square’s Cash App, entrepreneur Elon Musk and distributed ledger startup Ripple have also been compromised, though they have posted messages different from those posted by the exchanges and other accounts.
The Block has contacted Twitter for comment and will update this space if we hear back.
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The official Twitter accounts for at least five crypto exchanges — Binance, Coinbase and Gemini — as well the account owned by Binance’s CEO, Changpeng Zhao, appear to have been compromised.
In tweets issued on Wednesday, the accounts tweeted what appears to be a bitcoin giveaway scam, encouraging their combined 2.7 million Twitter followers to visit a website and get bitcoin back. “We have partnered with CryptoForHealth and are giving back 5000 BTC to the community,” the tweets read. Coinbase’s scam tweet has since been deleted.
Prior to having his Twitter account hacked, Zhao warned his followers to “not click” on the giveaway link and report the Binance account “immediately.” That warning has since been deleted.
Tron founder Justin Sun’s account has also been compromised and used to post the tweet, as well as the account used by the Tron Foundation.
The account for crypto exchange Bitfinex appears to have been compromised, sharing the same tweet, and the account for Kucoin, another crypto exchange, also broadcast the same message. The Twitter account for crypto publication CoinDesk had also been affected by the wave of compromises, but as of the time of writing the tweet was deleted.
A bitcoin address tied to the scam website’s message has collected more than 0.65 BTC in proceeds as of press time, an amount worth roughly $6,000.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
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