Scam warning: Circle phishing campaign promises fake USDC DeFi swap

Mar. 16, 2023

By Mike Dalton

The scam attempts to capitalize on USDC's post-depeg recovery.

A phishing campaign falsely promising access to a new USDC DeFi trading platform emerged on social media on March 16.

Fake USDC trading platform emerges

The false blog post promoting the swap platform is located at http-circle-dot-blog, while the false trading platform is located at http-circledefi-dot-center.

The fraudulent platform supposedly allows users to trade Circle’s USDC stablecoin for Tether’s competing USDT stablecoin and touts a supposed partnership with TRON DAO. Its interface appears to be based on the legitimate DeFi platform Raydium.

It is unclear how much money has been sent to the fraudulent service.

Reddit primarily spread the phishing site. Though it did not reach /r/cryptocurrency, it was shared on /r/USDC and approximately 20 other subreddits.

Interestingly, the scammer initially attempted to gain traction on /r/Buttcoin, where they attracted numerous comments. The scammer may have hoped that the subreddit’s skepticism toward crypto would lead commenters to overlook the specifics of the fraud.

A Circle spokesperson confirmed to CryptoSlate that the above websites are fraudulent but declined to say what action it would take. The company has also pinned a recent tweet suggesting that users be “vigilant for scammers and fraudsters with fake accounts.”

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