It’s good to be back on Twitter. When @Twitter is not working, I can’t even tweet to complain about it. Appreciate @jack and team restoring the accounts quickly.

A few thoughts on this incident. 1/n

“Bitcoin hack?” No, bitcoin didn’t get hacked. The hackers want bitcoin, because it’s valuable. When bank robbers want cash, it’s not called a “cash robbery”. It's a bank robbery. "Bitcoin scam?" No, bitcoin didn’t scam anyone. Do we have to explain this every time?

“Twitter hack?” Yes. But this incident highlights a bigger issue. With the increased #crypto adoption, existing social and internet platforms need to revamp their security. Internet platforms are no longer just for selfies, it is used to transfer value.

Most platforms today aren’t equipped to deal with crypto securely. Twitter is targeted first because it has a more active crypto community. There are plenty of “scams wanting crypto” on other platforms. Youtube/Google Ads, Facebook, etc.

Twitter obviously has some security issues. I tweeted about one issue less than 2 months ago. I sure hope this issue gets solved together with whatever changes they are making now. https://twitter.com/cz_binance/status/1268193558806183936

But Twitter is not alone. Most other platforms have relaxed security measures, no 2FA, no U2F hardware key support. Google is probably the strongest in terms of account security, but it still allows scammer ads in its search results and networks. YouTube is a nightmare.

This particular incident seems to be a hack of the Twitter backend. Twitter, and other social media platforms, need to quickly move to a zero-trust security architecture where even compromised internal employees can’t make these types of account take-overs.

Platforms aside, we, as a society, need to learn how to protect ourselves given the advancements of this new innovation. Binance Academy has an educative piece on how people can protect themselves from online scams like these: https://academy.binance.com/security/5-common-cryptocurrency-scams-and-how-to-avoid-them

Looking on the positive side, I believe this unfortunate incident is a net positive for crypto. It raises awareness for the need for stronger security on internet platforms, something we, the industry players, have been asking for for a while.

It also educates the public about how not to fall for online scams, even if your favorite idol asks you to donate or transfer funds, verify before you send.

It is, regardless, a massive “advertising” campaign for #bitcoin . How often do you get all these famous accounts tweeting about crypto, albeit, we all wish they had tweeted about the Binance Academy post instead.

Lastly, on a personal note, feel privileged that my account got hacked before all the famous people above. How often do I get that? But next time, I’d prefer to go second. I was crazy worried until the 2nd guy came along.

Stay #SAFU.