How the Scam Works

Scammers reach out on various platforms (Whatsapp, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter) offering exorbitant profits through investments or bitcoin mining. They have their victims send funds to a fake investment platform, where they fake your balance and profits on a dashboard. Scammers use websites such as splitfxtrade.com – cloudcrestmining.com –  blockstreammining.io. Scammers could also be using additional websites that have not yet been reported. Any platform that offers significant profits in a short amount of time is most certainly a scam.

When the victim is ready to withdraw their “profits”, the scammer guides them through the setup of a Blockstream Green wallet. The scammer claims they will send the victim’s profits to this wallet in bitcoin, however the scammer guides the victim through the setup of a Testnet wallet in Green. Testnet bitcoin does not have any value, so the scammer sends actual testnet bitcoin to the wallet in order to trick the user into thinking they have actually received their profits.

When the victim tries to send their testnet bitcoin to an exchange to sell it, they will receive an error. This is because you can only send testnet bitcoin to other testnet addresses, not to an exchange. The scammer claims they are receiving this error because they need to “validate their account” by paying additional fees, but of course this is only to steal more funds from the victim.

The Real…

Testnet bitcoin is only used for testing purposes and does not have any value. Also, any platform that offers significant profits in a short amount of time is most certainly a scam.

Blockstream Mining provides colocation services for Bitcoin mining equipment to enterprise customers.

The Blockstream Mining team does not communicate with potential clients over social media or chat messenger apps. Representatives of Blockstream will never guarantee investment returns and will never ask for a BTC deposit.

Typically, official contact with clients is handled through email using @blockstream.com email addresses only. If you are interested in learning more about Blockstream Mining, contact our sales team via the contact form on our official site.

How to Report the Scam

If you have encountered the scam described above, send us details on our Report a Scam form.

Unfortunately, we are not able to help you with resolving any disputes or recovering any funds, but your report will help us identify high-risk scams, alert the community, and report them to the relevant authorities.

We would also recommend that you take these additional measures:

• Submit an international scam report to econsumer.gov, an initiative of the International Consumer Protection and Enforcement Network (ICPEN).
• Report the scammer on the platform they used to contact you.