There’s a new type of crypto scam picking up steam, revolving around multi-signature wallets. Basically, the rule of thumb here is: if it seems sketchy, it probably is. Even crypto newbies know you should never share your secret (seed) phrase with anyone, and always double-check who and what kind of access you’re granting to your wallet (what permissions you’re giving to a particular smart contract upon signing). But, of course, there will always be careless users, especially when you spice up the story with promises of freebies and play on greed.
This scam scheme is actually based on YouTube. Naive-looking comments pop up under videos, where various users pretend they don’t know how to transfer cryptocurrency to another wallet and ask for help. Then, if someone tries to assist, these fake accounts hand out their wallet seed phrases. This way, the real user might think they’ve stumbled upon a fool. They’ll enter the “poor soul’s” wallet using the provided password phrase, and find a few hundred or thousand USDT in the TRON network (TRC20), and, most likely, try to transfer these funds to their own wallet.
And that’s when the trap snaps shut. To transfer these stablecoins to yourself, you need some free TRX tokens to pay the TRON network fee. As soon as the fee is paid, it’s instantly transferred to an external wallet.
The USDT wallet is a multi-signature wallet, which means outgoing transactions require the approval of two or more participants. The scammers effectively lock the funds, ensuring that any TRX tokens deposited are immediately redirected.
The multi-signature wallet is structured in such a way that the scammer retains control over any outgoing funds. After transferring TRX to pay for the commission (gas), the scammer’s control over the second signature allows them to redirect the funds to another wallet.
Thus, the prey turns into the predator.