Cryptocurrency Giveaway Scams: How to Identify and Avoid Them Today

In 2025, cryptocurrency is booming, with Bitcoin now valued at over $100,000. Of course, where there’s money, there are scammers keen to capitalize. According to the FBI, in 2024, Americans lost an estimated $9.3 billion to crypto fraud. One type of crypto fraud on the rise is cryptocurrency giveaway scams. What are they, how do they work, and how can you identify and avoid them?

What Are Cryptocurrency Giveaway Scams? A Case Study

On your favorite social media platform, you see a video of a prominent finance influencer promoting a cryptocurrency giveaway. If you like, comment, and share in the next 12 hours, you will be in the running to be one of 10 people to win $1,000 in cryptocurrency.

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Before long, you get a message that you are a winner. They ask you to send $20 worth of crypto to a specific address to verify your wallet, but you have to do this within the next hour to be eligible.

You make your transfer and then wait, but you don’t hear anything. When you try to follow up, the social media account you were talking to has disappeared. Or worse, you suddenly find that someone has hacked and taken control of your crypto wallet.

How Do Cryptocurrency Giveaway Scams Work? Common Tactics

Scammers create fraudulent social media accounts and websites that look legitimate but are fronts for their scams. They then use AI deepfakes to create videos of trusted individuals to promote the giveaway. Infamously, in June 2024, a deepfake of Elon Musk aired during a YouTube Live event, fraudulently raising around $5 million by January 2025.

When you are, inevitably, declared a winner, you will be asked to share sensitive information to claim your winnings. This could be a crypto wallet key, crypto transfer data, or other sensitive information. The scammers then either disappear with your funds, never following through on the giveaway, or worse, take control of your crypto wallet.

How to Spot a Cryptocurrency Giveaway Scam? Red Flags

How can you spot a cryptocurrency giveaway? As with most scams, there are usually a few red flags.

The deal is promoted on social media on accounts or websites that look like they were newly created and use handles or URLs that look like fraudulent replicas of legitimate business names, such as “1mony” instead of “1money.”
The deal is promoted with video content of a “celebrity,” but it is not linked to that celebrity’s verified account or promoted anywhere else by the celebrity themselves. This is a sign that the video could be a deepfake. Find more advice on detecting deepfakes here.
There is significant time pressure or urgency to act now to secure your prize. Scammers often use a sense of urgency to get you to act before properly thinking through a situation.
You are asked to send cryptocurrency to a specific wallet address as part of a verification process. Normally, this is not necessary to receive money. In the unlikely event that you need to verify ownership of your wallet, you will be asked to do a deposit test on the cryptocurrency platform itself.

In general, when you see a cryptocurrency giveaway, be skeptical. It is rare that anyone will give away free money, even cryptocurrency, for nothing. So, consider what is in it for them before taking part in a cryptocurrency giveaway.

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