Earlier this morning, a mysterious video called “One World Cryptocurrency” was posted across numerous popular crypto/ finance YouTube channels – without the owners’ permission. The video has all the appearances of a giveaway scam.
The minute-long video features promotion of a supposedly new BSC token called “One World Cryptocurrency” (Ticker: OWCY). It features a “contact address”, and a listed pre-sale price of “0.0001’ (no unit of account was given).
It then lists a number of cryptos through which “investors” can allegedly buy the token, including USDT, USDC, BNB, and ETH. It claims that OWYC will be listed on both CoinMarketCap and CoinGecko – neither of which have done so yet.
BSC and Ethereum addresses were provided for purchasers to buy the new coin. According to BscScan and EtherScan, neither address has pulled in more than a few hundred dollars thus far.
Giveaway scams are rampant in the crypto space, thanks to the potential for anonymity and irreversibility that blockchain transactions provide. These same properties have also made them popular tools for ransomware attacks. Others have been far more lucrative as well, with fake Michael Saylor giveaway scam netting $1.1 million last week.
Numerous Twitter users reported the video having randomly appeared in their YouTube feeds from unexpected posters. One of these was Coin Bureau, a crypto-focused YouTuber with nearly 2 million subscribers.
“So our YouTube channel was just hacked,” he told his followers in a tweet. “Unless someone physically had a security key, I have no idea how they got access…”
The creator claimed that all of his accounts were secured with strong passwords and security keys, and called upon YouTube to address the issue.
Arun Maini (aka Mrwhosetheboss) – a tech YouTuber with over 9 million subscribers – was also impacted. “I think someone got into my YouTube account and posted something,” he said this morning. A screen recording shows that it was the OWCY video. He also requested that YouTube fix the problem, noting that he hadn’t even received a notification that a video was posted to his channel.
Dozens of other YouTubers were affected, including Real Vision, Ivan on Tech, and Bitboy Crypto. Most have since removed the video from their channels.