Thread by @CodeLarkin

We recently did a @fantomonftm AMA with @Fantom_Insider on December 15. They tried to scam us and steal our money. All while stealing the time of listeners by lying about their possibility to win a reward. Here's a fun old thread for you guys on this pleasant morning 🙃☕

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@fantomonftm @fantom_insider "Cris | VCM" (tg: cris_vcm  / bd_vcm) from Fantom_Insider joined our discord and asked if we wanted to do an AMA with them. I didn't recognize who they were and immediately responded with the following since we get so many spam marketing requests:

@fantomonftm @fantom_insider "As I said right above, we don't do any paid marketing! You can feel free to learn about our project and help us expand our reach."

@fantomonftm @fantom_insider Someone pointed out to me that Fantom_Insider is prominent in the Fantom space, and I immediately apologized and agreed to an AMA.

I began talking to Cris and Anna on telegram.

@fantomonftm @fantom_insider Very quickly Cris brought up a giveaway and suggested $150. Eventually I agreed to givaway 650FTM to the individuals who submitted the best questions... but what I SHOULD have done is demand that I be the one to choose the winners.

@fantomonftm @fantom_insider The AMA went fine, and Anna was nice enough. But the winning questions were extremely generic as pointed out by @ziggymigs here

https://twitter.com/ziggymigs/status/1603416767015124993

@fantomonftm @fantom_insider @ziggymigs Two days after the AMA on December 17, Cris sent me the 5 winning addresses. I immediately looked them up and saw that all 5 were unused on the most popular EVM chains. So, I asked Cris for their twitter accounts.

@fantomonftm @fantom_insider @ziggymigs He did not respond with that information, but eventually did tweet out the winners from @Fantom_Insider. That tweet has since been deleted.

@fantomonftm @fantom_insider @ziggymigs The 5 winning addresses:
0xC01FE7D6f2e0ac57ca1A01F123AAD49dea679735
0x54E402FF95913755457f2730AecF6c7643bcCA0F
0xE64590a8Ce9d0f8B91BC29610217E6f47065CcCc
0x8e4112dD8f6C03f0C0cdF44552B54180aE0A8834
0xf804B763c2A07419E589DAcED61ec67E9Ee9CA4A

@fantomonftm @fantom_insider @ziggymigs The 5 winners have the following twitter accounts: @HoangWeb3Player @VoQuanDZ @i_am_vuong @TinaHainswort12 @AbbyGussel7

@fantomonftm @fantom_insider @ziggymigs @HoangWeb3Player @VoQuanDZ @i_am_vuong @TinaHainswort12 @AbbyGussel7 This is where things started to look very sus....

Every “winner” account just has a few RTs of @Fantom_Insider or their Cosmos/Near/Polkadot/etc similar accounts. That is when I started looking for other twitter accounts that seemed to follow the tweet pattern of @Fantom_Insider

@fantomonftm @fantom_insider @ziggymigs @HoangWeb3Player @VoQuanDZ @i_am_vuong @TinaHainswort12 @AbbyGussel7 These are the ones I believe are all run by the same group: @fantom_insider, @near_inisider, @polkadotinsider, @cosmosinsider, @near_coverage. I also suspect that @fantom_daily, @cosmosATOMDaily @polka_daily and @near_daily are all run by them.

@fantomonftm @fantom_insider @ziggymigs @HoangWeb3Player @VoQuanDZ @i_am_vuong @TinaHainswort12 @AbbyGussel7 @PolkadotInsider @CosmosInsider @Near_Coverage @fantom_daily @CosmosATOMDaily @polka_daily @NEAR_daily I found their other accounts by doing advanced searches on twitter searching for text that is common in their tweets like "Like RT follow space #ASKTHETEAM #AMA". Also I think they all use the same artist/designer to do their logos.

@fantomonftm @fantom_insider @ziggymigs @HoangWeb3Player @VoQuanDZ @i_am_vuong @TinaHainswort12 @AbbyGussel7 @PolkadotInsider @CosmosInsider @Near_Coverage @fantom_daily @CosmosATOMDaily @polka_daily @NEAR_daily But even more suspicious was that all 5 "winners" had recently won AMAs by @Fantom_Insider or their sibling accounts.

@fantomonftm @fantom_insider @ziggymigs @HoangWeb3Player @VoQuanDZ @i_am_vuong @TinaHainswort12 @AbbyGussel7 @PolkadotInsider @CosmosInsider @Near_Coverage @fantom_daily @CosmosATOMDaily @polka_daily @NEAR_daily @HoangWeb3Player won on Nov 18 here:

https://twitter.com/PolkadotInsider/status/1593651813076520961?s=20&t=ciiUzXprrRExpRw6stAblg

@VoQuanDZ won on Nov 8 here:

https://twitter.com/Near_Coverage/status/1592061524633583616?s=20&t=BeEYmCjmol_rsvhAPobXxA

@TinaHainswort12 and @AbbyGussel7 both won Nov 27:

https://twitter.com/CosmosInsider/status/1596792546654461954?s=20&t=ciiUzXprrRExpRw6stAblg

@i_am_vuong won April 12:

https://twitter.com/fantom_insider/status/1513943810824617984

@fantomonftm @fantom_insider @ziggymigs @HoangWeb3Player @VoQuanDZ @i_am_vuong @TinaHainswort12 @AbbyGussel7 @PolkadotInsider @CosmosInsider @Near_Coverage @fantom_daily @CosmosATOMDaily @polka_daily @NEAR_daily At this point I asked them for the full google-sheet generated by their AMA question form. It listed 1635 AMA questions submitted for the Fantomon AMA. This was another red flag to me as there were not nearly that many listeners in the AMA

@fantomonftm @fantom_insider @ziggymigs @HoangWeb3Player @VoQuanDZ @i_am_vuong @TinaHainswort12 @AbbyGussel7 @PolkadotInsider @CosmosInsider @Near_Coverage @fantom_daily @CosmosATOMDaily @polka_daily @NEAR_daily and not even close to that many likes/RTs on the tweet. Also the word "fantomon" only appears 30 times in the sheet containing all submitted questions.

@fantomonftm @fantom_insider @ziggymigs @HoangWeb3Player @VoQuanDZ @i_am_vuong @TinaHainswort12 @AbbyGussel7 @PolkadotInsider @CosmosInsider @Near_Coverage @fantom_daily @CosmosATOMDaily @polka_daily @NEAR_daily Here is a copy of the original google sheet with all of the twitter/email accounts stripped out (to avoid doxxing people) except the 5 “winners”: docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d…

@fantomonftm @fantom_insider @ziggymigs @HoangWeb3Player @VoQuanDZ @i_am_vuong @TinaHainswort12 @AbbyGussel7 @PolkadotInsider @CosmosInsider @Near_Coverage @fantom_daily @CosmosATOMDaily @polka_daily @NEAR_daily Okay so at this point, I thought.... This is very sketchy but if most of those questions were submitted by bots, it's possible that @Fantom_Insider was actually getting attacked by bots, and were not responsible for the bot questions themselves.

@fantomonftm @fantom_insider @ziggymigs @HoangWeb3Player @VoQuanDZ @i_am_vuong @TinaHainswort12 @AbbyGussel7 @PolkadotInsider @CosmosInsider @Near_Coverage @fantom_daily @CosmosATOMDaily @polka_daily @NEAR_daily So, I wrote this script (with a bit of fun help from ChatGPT) to iterate over every wallet in the google-sheet and check its balance on 40 of the top EVM chains. Feel free to run it yourself: github.com/CodeLarkin/evm…

@fantomonftm @fantom_insider @ziggymigs @HoangWeb3Player @VoQuanDZ @i_am_vuong @TinaHainswort12 @AbbyGussel7 @PolkadotInsider @CosmosInsider @Near_Coverage @fantom_daily @CosmosATOMDaily @polka_daily @NEAR_daily The code is a bit of a mess because I threw it together quickly, and I had power-surge that killed the program after checking 28 chains, but I thought 28 chains was probably sufficient. I expected it to find ~1500/1600 accounts to be fake/empty wallets....

@fantomonftm @fantom_insider @ziggymigs @HoangWeb3Player @VoQuanDZ @i_am_vuong @TinaHainswort12 @AbbyGussel7 @PolkadotInsider @CosmosInsider @Near_Coverage @fantom_daily @CosmosATOMDaily @polka_daily @NEAR_daily But what I found was actually more damning.

Of the 1635 accounts entered to win the giveaway, only 12 were unused wallets on 28 EVM chains. Ok so what are the chances that this is a coincidence? Its been a while since I did probability math like this, but I'll give it a try....

@fantomonftm @fantom_insider @ziggymigs @HoangWeb3Player @VoQuanDZ @i_am_vuong @TinaHainswort12 @AbbyGussel7 @PolkadotInsider @CosmosInsider @Near_Coverage @fantom_daily @CosmosATOMDaily @polka_daily @NEAR_daily The number of different 5-wallet combinations that could be chosen is: `1635 choose 5 = 96,771,809,834,952 ~= 96 trillion`. Now since there are 12 accounts with 0 wallet activity, there are `12 choose 5 = 792` different ways to choose 5 zero-activity wallets out of those 12.

@fantomonftm @fantom_insider @ziggymigs @HoangWeb3Player @VoQuanDZ @i_am_vuong @TinaHainswort12 @AbbyGussel7 @PolkadotInsider @CosmosInsider @Near_Coverage @fantom_daily @CosmosATOMDaily @polka_daily @NEAR_daily So I believe the chances of randomly choosing 5 zero-activity wallets out of the 1635 possible winners is `792/96,771,809,834,952 = 8.18e-12`. In other words, there is roughly a 0.000000000818% chance that @Fantom_Insider just randomly chose 5 zero-activity wallets of the 1635.

@fantomonftm @fantom_insider @ziggymigs @HoangWeb3Player @VoQuanDZ @i_am_vuong @TinaHainswort12 @AbbyGussel7 @PolkadotInsider @CosmosInsider @Near_Coverage @fantom_daily @CosmosATOMDaily @polka_daily @NEAR_daily This combined with the fact that these "winner" accounts were recent winners of other "insider" AMAs, has led me to the conclusion that this was intentional; @Fantom_Insider was trying to steal from us by sending us handpicked wallets that are actually their own.

@fantomonftm @fantom_insider @ziggymigs @HoangWeb3Player @VoQuanDZ @i_am_vuong @TinaHainswort12 @AbbyGussel7 @PolkadotInsider @CosmosInsider @Near_Coverage @fantom_daily @CosmosATOMDaily @polka_daily @NEAR_daily They lied to us, our community and their community with the false promise of a chance to win when all along their plan was to pocket the giveaway.

@fantomonftm @fantom_insider @ziggymigs @HoangWeb3Player @VoQuanDZ @i_am_vuong @TinaHainswort12 @AbbyGussel7 @PolkadotInsider @CosmosInsider @Near_Coverage @fantom_daily @CosmosATOMDaily @polka_daily @NEAR_daily We are not the only ones who they tried to scam like this. After all, these same "winners" won other recent AMAs of theirs. They are running a massive operation on many chains at the very least including Fantom, Near, Polkadot and Cosmos.

@fantomonftm @fantom_insider @ziggymigs @HoangWeb3Player @VoQuanDZ @i_am_vuong @TinaHainswort12 @AbbyGussel7 @PolkadotInsider @CosmosInsider @Near_Coverage @fantom_daily @CosmosATOMDaily @polka_daily @NEAR_daily They have even recently done an AMA with the Fantom Foundation itself.

@fantomonftm @fantom_insider @ziggymigs @HoangWeb3Player @VoQuanDZ @i_am_vuong @TinaHainswort12 @AbbyGussel7 @PolkadotInsider @CosmosInsider @Near_Coverage @fantom_daily @CosmosATOMDaily @polka_daily @NEAR_daily At some point Cris asked why I had not sent the funds to the winners. I politely said "turns out you guys actually sent me 5 bot accounts! … No worries, I chose a few winners myself 🙂" He came back angry....

@fantomonftm @fantom_insider @ziggymigs @HoangWeb3Player @VoQuanDZ @i_am_vuong @TinaHainswort12 @AbbyGussel7 @PolkadotInsider @CosmosInsider @Near_Coverage @fantom_daily @CosmosATOMDaily @polka_daily @NEAR_daily Well I decided to pick my own winners. In particular three individuals whose tweets or DMs led me to this investigation in the first place: @ziggymigs, @datboi_dubb, @hrishivelumani

@fantomonftm @fantom_insider @ziggymigs @HoangWeb3Player @VoQuanDZ @i_am_vuong @TinaHainswort12 @AbbyGussel7 @PolkadotInsider @CosmosInsider @Near_Coverage @fantom_daily @CosmosATOMDaily @polka_daily @NEAR_daily @datboi_dubb @hrishivelumani Asking a team to pay you for an AMA is fine. Saying it’s free and then trying to covertly take their community giveaway is theft.

@fantomonftm @fantom_insider @ziggymigs @HoangWeb3Player @VoQuanDZ @i_am_vuong @TinaHainswort12 @AbbyGussel7 @PolkadotInsider @CosmosInsider @Near_Coverage @fantom_daily @CosmosATOMDaily @polka_daily @NEAR_daily @datboi_dubb @hrishivelumani With help from some community members we have discovered some more info about Vibula Crypto Marketing, the team that we believe is behind all of these insider/daily accounts.

@fantomonftm @fantom_insider @ziggymigs @HoangWeb3Player @VoQuanDZ @i_am_vuong @TinaHainswort12 @AbbyGussel7 @PolkadotInsider @CosmosInsider @Near_Coverage @fantom_daily @CosmosATOMDaily @polka_daily @NEAR_daily @datboi_dubb @hrishivelumani We will keep digging, but for now be safe out there friends and remember that it is important to call out scum when we see it!

**Don't trust, verify.**

@fantomonftm @fantom_insider @ziggymigs @HoangWeb3Player @VoQuanDZ @i_am_vuong @TinaHainswort12 @AbbyGussel7 @PolkadotInsider @CosmosInsider @Near_Coverage @fantom_daily @CosmosATOMDaily @polka_daily @NEAR_daily @datboi_dubb @hrishivelumani If you do your own digging or have other important information, please let me know! If you did a giveaway with any of these accounts and let them choose the winners, take a look at the winner accounts/wallets and let us know if the same happened to you!

@fantomonftm @fantom_insider @ziggymigs @HoangWeb3Player @VoQuanDZ @i_am_vuong @TinaHainswort12 @AbbyGussel7 @PolkadotInsider @CosmosInsider @Near_Coverage @fantom_daily @CosmosATOMDaily @polka_daily @NEAR_daily @datboi_dubb @hrishivelumani If you know other accounts that are run by them that is useful information too!

@fantomonftm @fantom_insider @ziggymigs @HoangWeb3Player @VoQuanDZ @i_am_vuong @TinaHainswort12 @AbbyGussel7 @PolkadotInsider @CosmosInsider @Near_Coverage @fantom_daily @CosmosATOMDaily @polka_daily @NEAR_daily @datboi_dubb @hrishivelumani Note: at this time, Fantom_Insider is still tweeting about @FantomonFTM in a positive light. We have no financial or other incentive to pick this fight, in fact quite the opposite.

@fantomonftm @fantom_insider @ziggymigs @HoangWeb3Player @VoQuanDZ @i_am_vuong @TinaHainswort12 @AbbyGussel7 @PolkadotInsider @CosmosInsider @Near_Coverage @fantom_daily @CosmosATOMDaily @polka_daily @NEAR_daily @datboi_dubb @hrishivelumani We know we are making powerful enemies, but we don’t intend to sit by while these accounts run scams across Crypto Twitter.

@fantomonftm @fantom_insider @ziggymigs @HoangWeb3Player @VoQuanDZ @i_am_vuong @TinaHainswort12 @AbbyGussel7 @PolkadotInsider @CosmosInsider @Near_Coverage @fantom_daily @CosmosATOMDaily @polka_daily @NEAR_daily @datboi_dubb @hrishivelumani Okay, thread done 😆Thanks for sticking with me through this thread :)