Bitcoin enters the rap game
GM, we take the latest Web3 news and translate it into plain old English - so you can stay up to date, without your eyes glazing over.
In today’s edition:
Don’t try this at home (unless you want to get robbed)
Airdrop scams and how to avoid them
RESOURCE: This dude reveals how Influencers run crypto scams
The US Treasury might be warming to crypto
Don’t try this at home (unless you want to get robbed)
Rapper, YG, flexed his Ledger crypto hard wallet balance ($30.6M) in his latest music video and there are two things to take away from it:
He just announced to the world that he has $30M on what is essentially a thumb drive (the real world equivalent telling people you keep your life savings under your bed), so someone is definitely going to try and rob him.
Rappers are the original Instagram influencers and, as far as broad influence goes, they still pull rank above all others. Flexes like this could be the ‘canary in the coal mine’ for the broader cultural adoption of cryptocurrencies.
…totally unrelated - does anyone have YG’s home address?
Airdrop scams and how to avoid them
Airdrops are the Web3 equivalent of someone sending free money to your bank account.
Kind of like when your parents don’t know what to get you for Christmas, so they just drop some cash into your account and tell you to figure it out yourself.
In the crypto world it’s often used to reward early adopters for taking a risk on a project when it was unproven.
But (like with many things in the wild west of crypto) scammers have found a way to use this trend to their advantage.
Over the weekend a Twitter phishing scam was run on Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) NFT holders.
Multiple verified Twitter accounts (including sports journalist Gavin Quinn and former CEO of the Cricket Association of Nepal, Bhawana Ghimire) were hacked and used to post notices of a new airdrop.
The posts told BAYC holders to follow a link and approve transactions between their wallets…at which point the scammers pulled funds from the victims’ accounts instead of sending them.
In total, a little over $1M in ETH was stolen from users’ accounts.
The lesson here: if a sports journalist, with no ties to the crypto project in question, offers you an airdrop - unfollow them.
Resource of the day
This dude reveals how Influencers run crypto scams
The US Treasury Secretary might be warming to crypto
Who pays a country’s bills, manages its finances and collects its taxes?
In the United States it’s the Treasury Secretary, Janet Yellen, who has previously stated she’s “not a fan” of Bitcoin.
(Someone get her and Michael Saylor in a room together, stat!)
…or maybe they already have?
Recent statements from Yellen suggest she might be warming up to crypto:
“There are benefits from crypto, and we recognize that innovation in the payment system can be a healthy thing.”
This might not seem like a lot, but Yellen’s power to influence regulatory change is up there (if not above) the likes of the SEC chair Garry Ginsler, so if she continues to warm to the benefits of crypto, there could be some real progress ahead.
Progress brings adoption, adoption brings growth, growth brings price movement, price movement brings lambos.
(or at the very least, a respectable mid size sedan with power steering and great mileage).
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Alright, that’s it for today!
Love to the family,