Barack Obama is asking you to send him Bitcoin. So is Elon Musk. So is Bill Gates. For a few surreal hours on July 15, 2020, that was actually happening on Twitter.

A group of hackers, led by a 17 year old in Florida, social engineered their way into Twitter's internal admin tools by posing as IT support on the phone. Once inside, they hijacked 130 verified accounts, including Apple, Uber, Biden, Obama, Musk, and Gates, and blasted the same message from each one, promising to double any Bitcoin sent to a single wallet within thirty minutes. Twitter panicked and froze every verified account from tweeting for hours while it tried to contain the bleeding.

The 2020 Twitter account hijacking pulled in just over $118,000 before Coinbase and others started blocking payments to the address. I still find it funny that the "hack of the decade" made less than a mid tier NFT flip.

Twitter rebuilt its internal access controls afterward, and the teenage ringleader pleaded guilty to state charges the following year. Small heist, enormous wake up call.

That's today in crypto history. See you tomorrow.