Narendra Modi’s Tweet on Adopting Bitcoin as Currency Is Fake

Early on Sunday, a tweet appeared on Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s account saying, out of the blue, that the nation had adopted bitcoin as authorized tender and can be distributing 500 cash, or $24 million at current market prices, to residents. Sorry to rain in your parade cryptocurrency stans, however the publish was pretend.

Modi’s account, @narendramodi, was briefly hacked on Sunday to advertise bitcoin and, presumably, steal information or rip-off lots of people. The tweet included a hyperlink to what appears like a Blogspot web site (extremely sketchy) concerning the “Bitcoin giveaway,” and it inspired folks to rush up and get their cash (so many warning bells). However, Modi and his workforce managed to regain entry to his Twitter account on Sunday and deleted the hacker’s message.

The Indian prime minister’s workplace stated the account had been “briefly compromised” in a tweet on Sunday. The subject was subsequently escalated to Twitter and the account was instantly secured.

“In the brief period that the account was compromised, any Tweet shared must be ignored,” Modi’s workplace added.

Twitter instructed Gizmodo on Sunday that there have been no indicators every other accounts had been affected.

“We have 24/7 open lines of communication with the PM’s Office and our teams took necessary steps to secure the compromised account as soon as we became aware of this activity,” a Twitter spokesperson stated. “Our investigation has revealed that there are no signs of any other impacted accounts at this time.”

The social media platform added that in line with its investigation to date, it appears like Modi’s account had not been hacked as a result of any breach of Twitter’s techniques. It additionally provided a link to Twitter’s finest practices for protecting accounts protected.

Even although the tweet was coming from Modi’s account, it made no political sense given India’s robust stance on cryptocurrency. Modi himself stated in late November that every one democratic nations needed to work collectively on cryptocurrency to “ensure it does not end up in wrong hands, which can spoil our youth,” according to CNBC.

Back in March, a report acknowledged that the nation was contemplating criminalizing the mining, buying and selling, and holding of cryptocurrencies. Investors in India are presently waiting to learn more particulars concerning the nation’s upcoming invoice on cryptoforeign money, which has not but been launched in its Parliament.