The LinkedIn Crypto Problem

By Boris Dzhingarov

When it comes to social media, it seems to be way too simple to build profiles that claim to work for a company. This became instantly obvious with the recent case exposed, with LinkedIn and Binance being involved.

Binance is the largest cryptocurrency in the world since it has 642 employees. However, when we look on LinkedIn, there are over 1,600 people claiming to work for the exchange. When this was pointed out, Changpeng Zhao, Binance CEO, quickly stepped up and said that only 30 people employed by Binance have LinkedIn profiles.

The LinkedIn fake profiles problem that Binance faces right now is not the first one in history involving social networks. Twitter is well-known for the presence of numerous accounts claiming to work for different important crypto companies.

The fake LinkedIn profiles have specific motivations. There are incentives for them ranging from lead generation to phishing scam attempts. When looking at the Binance situation, the fake profiles also tarnish the brand since they solicit listing requests for the IEO platform.

Many of the LinkedIn accounts claiming to work for Binance are actually traders. They are usually just investors in the Binance native token, BNB.

According to LinkedIn, the social network utilizes a “variety of automated techniques, coupled with human reviewers and member reporting to keep our members safe from all types of bad actors and abuse.” Even so, identify fraud cannot be stopped on the social network.

As always, be skeptic when it comes to offers or special deals coming from social media accounts. It is really important to use your due diligence since whenever something is offered for free, there is a big possibility you are faced with a scam.