Arbitrum’s forthcoming “ARB” token airdrop seems to have attracted many scammers’ attention, as the community has reported hundreds of phishing attempts to deceive cryptocurrency users.
The Arbitrum Foundation, on March 16, 2023, announced that the airdrop was meant to distribute 10 billion governance tokens that would allow its holders to vote on code changes.
However, the development has prompted numerous attempts by con artists to set up fake token airdrops to defraud victims of their money before the official event.
Redefine, a blockchain security firm, reported in a post from March 19 that it had discovered a website pretending to be the official Arbitrum airdrop website. The website asks users to grant access to their funds; presumably, this ends in the scammer emptying their wallets.
Scam Alert🚨
This website https://arbitrum.drops[.]bio/ impersonates an official @arbitrum airdrop website.
Beware of scams that exploit the $ARB airdrop by tricking unsuspecting victims into joining a fake airdrop.
Don’t interact with this website.
Stay safe! 🛟#DeFi pic.twitter.com/VhHvQPFt8o— Redefine (@Redefine_crypto) March 19, 2023
Another blockchain security company, CertiK, pointed out a fake Twitter account advertising a token airdrop. The firm advised users not to interact with the airdrop and always to verify Twitter accounts and URLs from trusted sources.
Be aware of a fake @arbitrum Twitter account which is advertising a token Airdrop.
Do not interact with this Airdrop.
Always verify Twitter accounts and URLs from trusted sources.
Stay vigilant! pic.twitter.com/gTlSNRzd6l
— CertiK Alert (@CertiKAlert) March 19, 2023
On Reddit, a crypto expert known as CryptoMaximalist, shared his opinion on why there has been an increase in Arbitrum airdrop scammers in the past few days. According to him, scammers are attempting to take advantage of customers’ excitement over free money and the intricacy of cryptocurrency with the announcement of Arbitrum’s airdrop. He further noted a lot of red flags users must look out for to avoid being scammed.
On March 17, 2023, Scam Sniffer, an anti-phishing solution with API and Chrome Extension, announced that they had already detected 273 phishing sites related to Arbitrum since the announcement of Arbitrum airdrop. The platform predicted that the number would keep growing till March 23, 2023, when the airdrop officially drops.
1.
🚨 The #Arbitrum airdrop has been announced, and with it comes an influx of phishing sites looking to scam users.🕵️♂️ #ScamSniffer has already detected 273 phishing sites related to Arbitrum. The number is growing, stay vigilant! ⚠️
— Scam Sniffer (@realScamSniffer) March 17, 2023
Arbitrum employed a points system to decide who qualifies for the airdrop and how many tokens they can receive. Qualifying actions include:
- At least four transactions or interactions with at least four smart contracts.
- Bridging money into the Arbitrum One chain.
- Putting more than $50,000 in liquidity into Arbitrum.
The community owns around 56% of the Arbitrum token, and 12.75% of the community allocation, based on information from a snapshot taken on February 6, 2023, will be awarded in the Arbitrum Airdrop on March 23, 2023.
Arbitrum is a Layer 2 scaling solution for Ethereum. It facilitates the processing of transactions faster and at a cheaper price.
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