Twitter users can no longer share posts containing cryptocurrency addresses. Twitter may have disabled the ability to share strings of letters and numbers following Wednesday’s hacking incident.
The move appears to be a temporary solution in response to the recent hacking incident. Twitter has seemingly made it impossible for any user to post a tweet containing bitcoin addresses. This means that users can no longer share wallet addresses to prevent future “giveaway” scams. The initiative means that scammers can no longer use Twitter to invite innocent victims to send crypto funds for fictitious purposes like charity, crowdfunding, or rewards.
Can No Longer Share Bitcoin
Wednesday’s widespread event caused twitter users to send over $120,000 to a bitcoin address the scammers shared on compromised accounts. The scammers promised outside rewards for anyone who sent funds. Tests conducted by several people have shown that you can no longer share Bitcoin, Ethereum, or Monero addresses on Twitter. Sharing anything that looks like a crypto wallet address returns the following message:
“This request looks like it might be automated. To protect our users from spam and other malicious activity, we can’t complete this action right now. Please try again later.”
The hackers hijacked accounts belonging to prominent personalities and leading corporations. They published tweets inviting victims to send their Bitcoin funds to an indicated address, promising that they could receive back “double the amount sent.” Several people got duped and responded with thousands of transactions of small transactions. The new restrictions affected the legendary Whale Alert twitter account.
Harbinger of Bitcoin
The account monitors large cryptocurrency transactions. The bot which is used to share transaction IDs has now apparently been blocked:
“Due to anti-hack measures taken by Twitter, the Whale Alert bot can no longer post any transfers, and we cannot manually add them either. We hope Twitter will resolve the issue soon. Transfers are still being posted to our Telegram channel: https://t.co/vVRNZuovHX.”
As an aftermath of the incident, members of the bitcoin community have rubbished the comments well-known bitcoin critic and gold bug Peter Schiff. The old crypto nemesis seemed to relish the prospect of a bitcoin hack. He signed off a Twitter post by urging people to flee from bitcoin and stick with gold. He stated:
“It looks like all verified Twitter accounts have been hacked by someone running a #Bitcoin scam. For once, not being verified has its advantages. I wonder if this is a harbinger of Bitcoin itself being hacked? Better to play it safe and just buy #gold.”
Ease of Transferring
In response, Dmytro Volkov, CTO at Cex.io, explained that the hacking of accounts “was only related to the vulnerability of Twitter’s infrastructure.” He added that the request to transfer bitcoins, rather than dollars, stemmed from the popularity, prevalence, and ease of transferring cryptocurrency. He explained:
“What actually did happen? Twitter got hacked, and perpetrators asked to transfer funds. If they had asked to transfer dollars, then, following the logic of Mr. Schiff, should we have said that the dollar is doomed? It is, at least, illogical to link causes and effects in such a way.”
