Blockchain News: Monad Co-Founder Sounds Alarm on Telegram Ad Scam Ahead of Airdrop

Monad co-founder cautions about counterfeit Telegram advertisements that imitate an airdrop portal, and to be wary in the lead-up to the $7B token event.

The official Telegram announcements channel of Monad was targeted by scammers who bought ads that resembled the upcoming airdrop claim portal of the project. 

This is an unparalleled intrusion into an authenticated crypto channel that has sounded warning bells concerning Telegram’s ad vetting and cybersecurity policies.

Source – X

In a post on X, Monad co-founder Keone Hon vented his frustration about the unusual nature of the attack. He wrote, Crazy that Telegram will push content in a channel that only accepts one-party content. 

These advertisements were placed within the official announcement section, where only official Monad messages should be released, which also made the user more likely to become a victim of the scam.​

Scam Exploits User Urgency Before Major Airdrop

The counterfeit advertisements came right before the most anticipated airdrop by Monad, which was to begin at 1:00 pm UTC on Tuesday. 

The fake advertisements lead to counterfeit websites that aim at duping people into divulging confidential details or linking their wallets too soon.

 The co-founder of Monad even warned users not to hurry, saying, “Do not do in a hurry and triple-check whatever you do.

 He assured the community that they need not rush since the official claim portal will last three weeks.​

The sole authorized claim portal is specifically mentioned as claim.monad.xyz, and any deviation from this address should be considered a red flag. 

Hon’s caution is a reminder of the increased complexity of phishing in the crypto-sphere and is a timely warning to the user to always be alert to hype.​

Telegram’s Ad Policies Under Scrutiny

The event highlights more security issues on Telegram. Under its ad policy, the platform specifically forbids deceptive advertisements, phishing, and manipulation. 

According to the rules of Telegram, ads should not be used to promote phishing, such as services that deceitfully lead a user to provide personal information or other data. 

Nevertheless, these policies were obviously broken by the malicious ads purchased by the attackers, and they still obtained access to the feed of the official channel.​

The inability of Telegram to filter such advertisements has rejuvenated calls to create more effective filters and restrictions on ad content, especially as more crypto projects and users become part of the platform. 

Cybersecurity specialists underscore the vulnerability of the platform because it has an open ad platform, and it is difficult to track phishing content in real time.​

In the meantime, the Monad is popular in anticipation of the introduction of a token. The token MON, which has not been launched yet, is listed on the Hyperliquid perpetual future at an approximate price of $0.07, which means that it has a fully diluted valuation of 7 billion dollars. 

Monad is looking to get into the layer-1 blockchain market by providing high scalability and throughput, and has a processing capacity of up to 10,000 transactions/second with close-to-instant finality through concurrent execution.​

This is a clear-cut alert to the dangers of crypto-airdrop events and the importance of not letting his guard down when engaging with sources and platforms prone to phishing attacks.

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