Scammers have come up with a new trick: they post seed phrases of crypto wallets in YouTube comments using newly created accounts. This is how it works.
"I have a question. I have USDT stored in my wallet and I have the seed phrase. How do I transfer my funds to another wallet?" We found a comment like this on a finance-related video on social media. Then, the seed phrase is seen fully revealed in the comment.
This seemed suspicious: even a complete beginner in cryptocurrencies should know that they should not share their seed phrase with anyone. We were cautious and for good reason… this comment was a scam.
Now, let’s imagine for a second that someone reading one of these comments is unscrupulous and, instead of helping the novice, decides to take a look inside the wallet (after all, they have the key). Upon opening the wallet, they are pleasantly surprised to find it packed with USDT: a TRC20 token from the TRON network linked to the value of the US dollar. The wallet contains the equivalent of eight thousand dollars. Well, what to do next? The correct answer would be to remember that free money does not exist and walk away from the wallet.
However, the scam assumes that our nefarious passerby will want to appropriate all or at least part of the cryptocurrency. But to withdraw USDT, a small fee must be paid in another currency: TRX (the cryptocurrency token of TRON). Unfortunately, the wallet does not have enough TRX, so the thief tries to transfer TRX from his own personal wallet, only to discover that the tokens he transferred immediately ended up in a completely different third wallet.
The problem is that the bait is set up as a multi-signature wallet. To authorize outgoing transactions in such wallets, the approval of two or more people is required, so transferring USDT to a personal wallet will not work, even after paying the 'fee.'
Therefore, scammers are posing as beginners who foolishly share access to their crypto wallets, fooling equally naive thieves who end up becoming the victims. In this scenario, scammers are somewhat like digital Robin Hoods, as the scheme primarily targets other corrupt individuals. But this twist is nothing new: we have previously covered a much more elegant cryptocurrency fraud scheme, also aimed at morally bankrupt individuals.