Social media platform X is moving toward new rules that would automatically lock accounts and require verification when a user mentions cryptocurrency for the first time. The announcement was made by Nikita Bier, the platform’s head of product, on Wednesday. The proposed measure comes in response to a growing wave of scammers exploiting phishing attacks to compromise accounts and promote fraudulent crypto schemes.
The immediate trigger for the announcement was a scam involving a fake account impersonating Joe Hollins, the veterinarian known for caring for Jonathan, a 193-year-old tortoise living on the British territory of Saint Helena in the Atlantic Ocean. A fraudster posing as Hollins posted that the tortoise had died and linked to a Solana-based memecoin tied to the animal’s supposed death. The BBC and other outlets exposed the deception on Thursday.
Data from CoinMarketCap showed the memecoin, named JONATHAN, surged more than 6,000% following the social media posts before collapsing sharply. At the time of reporting, the token was trading at $0.00007043. The episode illustrates how quickly fraudulent tokens can attract speculative interest before the underlying deception is uncovered.
The real Hollins responded publicly, confirming the tortoise remains alive. “Jonathan the tortoise is very much alive,” he said in a statement to The Guardian. “I believe on X the person purporting to be me is asking for crypto donations, so it’s not even an April fool joke. It’s a con.” His statement helped clarify the situation after the scam had already circulated widely.
Bier outlined the platform’s planned response in a post, stating that X is working on implementing automatic account locking combined with a verification step whenever a user posts about cryptocurrency for the first time in their account’s history. He estimated the measure “should kill 99% of the incentive,” adding criticism of Google for not doing enough to stop the phishing emails that often serve as entry points for such schemes.
Impersonating a famous animal is an unusual tactic, but the broader practice of creating unauthorized memecoins tied to public figures is not. Fraudulent tokens have previously been launched using the likenesses of figures including Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi and US President Donald Trump. Scammers frequently rely on anonymous or pseudonymous accounts to lend false credibility to their schemes and persuade users to send funds under false pretenses.
Beyond fake accounts, hackers have also targeted legitimate X accounts, hijacking them to post scams such as counterfeit memecoins or promises to double users’ money. The proposed auto-lock system represents one of the more direct platform-level interventions aimed at disrupting this pattern before fraudulent posts can gain traction.
Originally reported by CoinTelegraph.
