Be careful how much credence you give to so-called celebrities and famous people, especially if you've never met them and vetted them in person. No matter what you've read and what you think you know about them, they're still strangers.

"In the summer of 2020, Elon Musk became the first celebrity in a massive breach followed by a fake giveaway. [The Twitter] Accounts of Bill Gates, Joe Biden, Kanye West, Donald Trump, and many others were hacked and announced they would multiply their followers’ wealth.

This scheme, known as a Bitcoin doubler, is said to have brought hackers over $2 million in October 2020, when they reached Musk’s account. What happened was that scammers posted on his Twitter that he was “feeling grateful” and would double any sum of money sent to his BTC wallet address. Needless to say [sic] that this was never to happen, but many victims felt happy to send their money to someone they don’t know, in the pursuit of profit."

 — ChangeNow.io; "Elon Musk vs. Crypto: How the Billionaire Influences the Market with Simple Tweets"

There's an old saying that if it happened twice, it will happen again.

What I wonder is how much people are influenced by the fact that he's a celebrity, that he's a billionaire and that he's an endorser of crypto. If I, a complete unknown, posted a similar tweet (assuming that I somehow had as large a following, which I don't), how many people would be willing to take the risk of participating in the scam? If I was a celebrity or billionaire (or both), would that number change? If so, it portrays a worrying picture about people's perceptions of how wealth and celebrity status makes a stranger more trustworthy and how willing they are to be gullible when it comes to accepting statements that person makes. Whatever the case/combination of factors may be, it's definitely a concern to me that a single person (whale or otherwise) can have such an impact.

The more people who enter the cryptosphere and stop according undue power and influence to individuals, the better. Personally, I don't give a rat's uncle about Musk and his market-manipulating antics, but a lot of people clearly do and need to have a serious think about why (and if those reasons are valid).

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