As more and more Boomers invest in Bitcoin ETFs, scammers target this new audience

If the investment trend of these past few months continues, Bitcoin ETF investors will be the largest group of Bitcoin owners as from next year, outnumbering even Satoshi Nakamoto (who still owns the first million Bitcoins). The well-known Bloomberg analyst Eric Balchunas calculated this remarkable feat a few weeks ago.

Since most of those Bitcoin ETF investors are American ‘Boomers’ (people born between 1946 and 1964), it is clear that the ‘older’ generation has now taken over a large chunk of crypto ownership from the younger generation.

Apple tech support

Scammers have of course noticed this too and that is why they increasingly started targeting older crypto investors in order to cheat them out of their digital coins.

The story of Marilyn LoCascio, a 76-year-old woman from Indiana, went viral last week. She received a message on her iPad to contact Apple tech support after a so-called ‘security alert’ appeared on her screen.

Bitcoin ATM fraudsters scam seniors out of $110M: report https://t.co/rLvE4rbKYB pic.twitter.com/QrKcpoTlhW

— New York Post (@nypost) August 31, 2024

When she scanned the QR code, she was connected to a person claiming to work for her bank and then two people claiming to be from the US government.

Just a few moments later, an automatic payment to a crypto account was made. Marilyn lost $30,000 in a matter of minutes.

“I just called the number without thinking. … It would be anything other than Apple,” LoCascio said. “A gentlemen answered the phone who was supposedly a tech, and he even gave me a case ID, and then it just sort of mushroomed from there.”