Twitch streamers are being trolled with mysterious million-dollar donations

A number of popular Twitch streamers are being hit with mouth-watering donations worth millions of dollars. At least, that’s how it appears on the surface thanks to a seemingly new flaw in the system.

Outside of regular Twitch subscriptions, bits, and ad revenue alike, donations are a key source of revenue for streamers on the Amazon-backed platform. Given their direct nature, not having to split with Twitch itself, it rewards the content creator far more than any other method.

Thus, donations are often greatly appreciated by any given streamer, though some more recent examples haven’t exactly gone down well. As a seemingly new issue bubbles up to the surface, some Twitch trolls are giving off the impression they’re multi-millionaires.

A handful of popular figures like Forsen and LoL icon Jankos were caught off-guard by the new issues on September 17. Both received what appeared to be staggering sums of cash, though it’s not quite the case.

36 minutes into his September 17 broadcast, Forsen’s latest Minecraft speedrun attempt was interrupted. A user named ‘Furrsen’ dropped into the streamer with a $999,999.99 donation.

“Bro, what the f***. How did you do that?” Forsen questioned, taking a few minutes to check its legitimacy. Not falling for the trap even for a moment, the streamer never seemed to believe he’d actually been sent that type of cash. Rather, his instinct was to investigate just how it’d gone through.

“Obviously it’s a bug,” he said soon after. “It’s just gonna become a clown fiesta. [Twitch] should probably look into that, whatever it is. It wasn’t even donations, he just bypassed it somehow. First one to do it, props to him.”

So the exact nature of the exploit remains unclear, but Forsen wasn’t the only streamer targeted on the day. Multiple others also appeared to receive large donations, though none proved to be authentic. They’re all merely Twitch alerts, rather than actual transactions.

While some of these donations came from anonymous accounts, others like Furrsen mentioned above, have seemingly been erased from the platform.

Twitch is yet to issue a statement on the matter. So for now, streamers will just have to be cautious of some illegitimate donations slipping through the cracks until the issue is resolved.