Paraguay has alerted the public over the hack of its President Santiago Peña’s X account. According to the presidency, the account was used to spread fake messages about adopting Bitcoin. The warning came after a strange post appeared on the post saying the country had made Bitcoin legal tender and would establish a $5 million Bitcoin reserve fund.
The message, written in English, had a Spanish-language image attached that falsely appeared to be an official government notice. The government told the public to ignore anything coming from the account until further notice. Officials said they noticed “irregular activity” that showed signs of “unauthorized entry.” That same morning, the cybersecurity team in Paraguay began working with X’s security department to figure out who got in and how.
Paraguay connects hack to crypto scam wave in Latin America
According to Reuters, the breach is in line with a growing wave of crypto scams on social media. These types of fraud usually show up in the form of sponsored posts or fake official messages pushing people to invest. The hacker behind Peña’s account followed that same method.
The story follows what happened in Argentina earlier this year, when President Javier Milei promoted a token named Libra on his social media, with the token collapsing almost immediately. That scandal blew up in his face and triggered a public backlash, especially after critics accused him of helping to pump a worthless coin.
Bitcoin has been legal in El Salvador for a while, with President Nayib Bukele announcing it back in 2021 and launching tokenized bonds shortly after. But what happened in Paraguay this week wasn’t real policy—it was a digital trap planted by someone exploiting Peña’s account.
However, this isn’t Paraguay’s first brush with hackers. In May, the Communications Ministry tracked at least 18 attacks on over a dozen public agencies, including the civil aviation regulator and justice ministry. Those hacks targeted email systems, cloud platforms, and login credentials, and no official link to Peña’s breach has been confirmed. As of now, Peña hasn’t made any public statements, and the fake post has been deleted. No arrests or leads have been announced.
The post Paraguay President’s X account hacked to promote Bitcoin scam first appeared on Coinfea.
