Twitch battles fake Elon Musk streams again with scam bitcoin giveaways

Scam Twitch streams pretending to be Elon Musk are taking over the website’s Just Chatting category, advertising bitcoin giveaways using clips featuring the Tesla founder’s previous comments about the popular cryptocurrency. 

As various cryptocurrency continues to gain popularity, ill-intended users of the blockchain advertise false giveaways of the most popular token. Sometimes, these users can gain access to the winner’s wallet to drain any valuable assets.

In November 2020, Bitcoin ‘giveaway’ streams began rapidly popping up on Twitch, using old Elon Musk clips and botted viewers to move to the top of the Just Chatting category.

The platform quickly banned the streams, but they would almost instantly show back up with another account. Now, those fake Twitch streams are back — amassing over 10 thousand viewers before quickly getting banned.

Scam Elon Musk bitcoin giveaways take over Twitch

Thanks to the account using thousands of botted viewers to move to the top of the category, these accounts quickly caught the attention of real viewers who wanted to see what was going on.

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On April 13, Twitch acted quickly after reports of the botted accounts came to light by banning them. However, new accounts were created and quickly moved to the top of the “Just Chatting” directory.

The channel names were simply ‘elon_musk’ with a series of random numbers attached to the end. Luckily, it appears that the botted accounts have disappeared — at least for now.

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It’s important to note that at the time of writing, Elon Musk does not have a Twitch account of his own. If he were to create one, it would likely adorn the platforms coveted partner checkmark beside his name.

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As a prolific name in the cryptocurrency scene and one of the richest men in the world, this is not the first time the Tesla founder’s likeness has been used with fake giveaways.

In July 2020, Musk, MrBeast, and other high-profile names’ Twitter accounts were hacked, and the hackers used their accounts to run fake crypto giveaways.