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Total Bitcoin newbie here. I have no bitc, nor a wallet, nor am I sure I want one. I've been intrigued for a while, but security is a big passion of mine...

Today just now youtube pointed me to an interesting lecture by Bill Gates and others. [1] Apparently it was at the SF, CA exploratorium in the 'morning', but that would not fit with the current timezone if it is live. (That part just came up at the end of the Bill Gates section a few minutes ago.)

This video is supposedly by Microsoft Europe - but the author has only this video.

There was a big picture on the screen while Mr. Gates was speaking at the "Village Global" event. It advertised free bitcoin if you send in bitcoin, eg they will send you back 10x what you send in from 0.1 to 20 Bitcoins.

The address per "Microsoft admin" in chat is: 1w1AQvpK4ixo9YQ3KHFYi4BgKHuDqg1hR

Online I looked that up [2] and found this:

Total Sent
0.00000000 BTC

I believe that indicates the ad is definitely a scam. Did I get it right???

Are there other ways to check for scammers that I may not know? Thank you so much!

[1] Bill Gates about Microsoft Future, Quantum Power, Bitcoin Evolution - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKzuP-Pljpw

[2] Blockchain Explorer - Search the Blockchain | BTC | ETH | BCH: https://www.blockchain.com/btc/address/1w1AQvpK4ixo9YQ3KHFYi4BgKHuDqg1hR

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  • I found one more thing I can read: Secure Trading - Bitcoin Wiki: en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Secure_Trading
    – AnneTheAgile
    Mar 29 '20 at 1:06
  • The Village Global event with Gates seems to have taken place some time ago, perhaps June 2019 or November 2018. It certainly couldn't be happening live in San Francisco right now, as that city is under a shelter-in-place order due to coronavirus. There is no way that YouTube account has anything to do with the Microsoft corporation.
    – Nate Eldredge
    Mar 29 '20 at 3:34
  • Their address currently has had 8 transactions sent to it. On the one hand, this may unfortunately mean that 8 people have fallen for the scam. On the other hand, it proves that their chat window, which has "people" posting every few seconds about how they got money from the scheme, is just fake bots.
    – Nate Eldredge
    Mar 29 '20 at 4:09
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Yes, this is very obviously a scam.

For some reason, some people seem to lose common sense when Bitcoin (or cryptocurrency in general) is involved. So here is a really quick way to check if an offer sounds legit: Consider the same situation, but using $USD (or your local currency of choice).

For example:

It advertised free dollars if you send in dollars, eg they will send you back 10x what you send in from $500 to $100,000!

Does this sound believable? What about:

It advertised free bitcoin if you send in bitcoin, eg they will send you back 10x what you send in from 0.1 to 20 Bitcoins.

(At the time of writing, 1 BTC is worth approximately $5K USD).

Ask yourself: what business would do well to give away $100K USD worth of anything to random people on the internet?

If it sounds too good to be true it probably is.

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