[codedokode]

Whenever I open Youtube via an EU proxy, I see "a crypto scam" video at the front page, the first one. The title is "+35 ETH generated last month by effectively using the contract bot for trading" and the account name is "Web3 developer", and the label says "Sponsored". The thumbnail displays a happy bearded man's face resembling that famous Youtuber who gives away money, a fire emoji and words "+35 ETH in July personal bot".

So you cannot really blame Telegram.

[DaiPlusPlus]

Forgive my scepticism, but I’m going to have to ask you for a screenshot and which country YouTube thought you were connecting from.

I’m asking because, at least according to my understanding of YouTube’s ad policies, that shouldn’t be allowed: https://support.google.com/adspolicy/answer/14009787?hl=en&r...

[codedokode]

Link to the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vvlbunSGDmU

Screenshot (title has changed from what I wrote earlier or this is another ad): https://imgur.com/a/TX0xB9y

Country is the one in Europe.

Maybe this is not a scam and therefore is allowed? Maybe it is a joke video? I didn't watch the video, but the title and thumbnails looks like a "scam".

[qingcharles]

I don't know. I analyzed the code from below the video with GPT[0] and it flagged a bunch of stuff it considered shady.

[0] Every time I mention using AI my posts get downvoted to infinity, so take the above with a grain of salt :)

I don't know anything about coding crypto, but it looks to me like it has a bunch of functions which each return a little hex string which it merges together into a wallet address which it then transfers all your funds to. I could be totally wrong and it's all above board.

Here's the code from the video:

https://hastebin.com/share/paxisehuki.php

[codedokode]

You can see that most functions deal with converting hex strings to bytes or parsing utf-8 despite their name. For example, checkLiquidity seems to just convert hex representation to binary and not what its name says.

[arctek]

The contract is payable, i.e. will accept ether as payment but doesn't actually do anything. From a glance looks like the withdrawal function is setup to generate the address of the scammer - through all of those obfuscated functions that have hex string slices - so ultimately only they can remove the funds.

[codedokode]

It also looks like the contract requires the user to deposit 0.4 ETH for it to work.

[DaiPlusPlus]

The first wallet address in that file has a balance equivalent to $8m USD - dang.

https://etherscan.io/address/0xc02aaa39b223fe8d0a0e5c4f27ead...

[codedokode]

I think this might be not an address belonging to the scammer, but an address of an exchange or something like that. Why would he write his address in clear text.

[hnfong]

I can corroborate GP's claim. I've used AdBlock at home, but at work my Youtube main page has a persistent ad that's like what GP described. Location: Hong Kong with an office network that presumably VPNs to USA.

[dmix]

He said video not ad

[codedokode]

It has a "Sponsored" label and doesn't match my interests at all, but is still displayed at the first place.