Paraguayan President Santiago Peña deleted a post on his X account after a likely hack by crypto scammers who claimed the South American nation would recognize Bitcoin as legal tender.
No, Paraguay Didn’t Actually Make Bitcoin Legal Tender
In a Monday post on X, the president’s official account falsely announced (in English) that Paraguay had made Bitcoin legal tender and established a BTC reserve worth $5 million. It also provided a Bitcoin wallet address for investors to “secure [their] stake” in the project. Peña’s previous posts were all written in Spanish, hence, the latest post raised immediate doubts of a potential hack.
Less than an hour later, the official page of the Presidency of Paraguay posted on X: “The president’s official account on social media network X has irregular activity which suggests possible unauthorized use.”
Paraguay is home to massive Bitcoin mining operations, largely belonging to HIVE (HIVE). However, El Salvador is the only country in the region to have adopted Bitcoin as legal tender. The President Nayib Bukele-led government also frequently buys the top cryptocurrency for its reserve, despite the International Monetary Fund urging it to revoke its Bitcoin law.
Crypto Scammers Target High-Profile X Accounts
Even before eccentric tech billionaire Elon Musk acquired X (formerly known as Twitter) in 2022, hackers took over accounts belonging to celebrities or politicians.
Back in 2020, hackers hijacked Twitter accounts run by former U.S. President Barack Obama, ex-President Joe Biden, Apple, Uber, Kanye West, Elon Musk, and Bill Gates as part of a Bitcoin-related scam.
And in 2021, cybercriminals compromised Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s X account to falsely announce the country had made BTC legal tender.
More recently, a hacker in the US was able to breach the Securities and Exchange Commission’s X account through a SIM swap attack, falsely announcing the Wall Street regulator had greenlighted the introduction of spot BTC exchange-traded funds (ETFs) on American exchanges. The culprit, Eric Council Jr., was arrested by the FBI and later hit with a 14-month prison sentence for his role in the scheme.
