{"id":37344,"date":"2025-10-28T00:04:06","date_gmt":"2025-10-28T00:04:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/?p=37344"},"modified":"2025-10-28T00:04:06","modified_gmt":"2025-10-28T00:04:06","slug":"coingecko-ceo-warns-of-fake-crypto-summit-scam-using-booking-com","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/?p=37344","title":{"rendered":"CoinGecko CEO Warns of Fake Crypto Summit Scam Using Booking.com"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> \n<br \/><\/p>\n<p>Bobby Ong, the co-founder and CEO of cryptocurrency data platform CoinGecko, has issued a public warning about a new phishing scam.<\/p>\n<p>The fraudulent scheme uses fake emails that appear to come from Booking.com, inviting recipients to a non-existent &#8220;Exclusive Crypto Travel Summit&#8221; in Dubai.<\/p>\n<h2 id=\"a-deceptive-invitation\">A Deceptive Invitation<\/h2>\n<p>The phishing attempt, which Ong <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/bobbyong\/status\/1982635089336152504\">shared<\/a> on social media, presented itself as a legitimate conference announcement, with the fake email claiming that Booking.com and Coinbase have formed a strategic partnership to launch a crypto travel service.<\/p>\n<p>It listed an impressive roster of keynote speakers, including Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong and Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin, for an event supposedly happening in November 2025.<\/p>\n<p>A key red flag is that the RSVP deadline for this future event was set in the past, for September 30, 2025, which pointed to recycled or hastily constructed scam content.<\/p>\n<p>Ong advised anyone receiving such an email to delete it immediately and urged Booking.com to escalate the issue to its security team.<\/p>\n<p>The official Booking.com account later <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/bookingcom\/status\/1982639936558776532\">acknowledged<\/a> the issue in a reply to Ong\u2019s post, saying, \u201cWe regret to hear that you are receiving fake emails,\u201d and requested details via direct message to investigate.<\/p>\n<h2 id=\"a-persistent-threat-in-crypto\">A Persistent Threat in Crypto<\/h2>\n<p>This incident is not an isolated one but part of a wider pattern of scams targeting crypto users. In September, Binance issued two separate warnings about different types of fraud.<\/p>\n<p>In the first one, the exchange <a href=\"https:\/\/cryptopotato.com\/binance-warns-about-a-dangerous-scam-what-every-user-must-know\/\">alerted<\/a> the public about fake &#8220;listing agents&#8221; who were purportedly promising projects a spot on the platform for a fee.<\/p>\n<p>A few days later, company CEO Richard Teng detailed a phone scam where impersonators <a href=\"https:\/\/cryptopotato.com\/binance-ceo-sounds-the-alarm-about-a-dangerous-scam-details\/\">posed<\/a> as customer support agents. He said that the fake helpers then guided users through changing their account&#8217;s API settings, a process that allowed the scammer to steal funds.<\/p>\n<p>The community&#8217;s reaction to Ong&#8217;s warning was one of recognition and frustration. One social media user, SkylineETH, commented on the increasing complexity of these schemes, writing, &#8220;appreciate the warning, these scams keep leveling up.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Another user, Kevin Lee, expressed a common concern, questioning if there was a better way to handle email security to avoid even clicking &#8216;unsubscribe&#8217; links in suspicious newsletters. This sentiment was echoed by Ong, who <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/bobbyong\/status\/1982662710052659366\">noted<\/a> that the adversarial nature of the crypto world requires people to carefully check every email they receive.<\/p>\n<p>The post <a href=\"https:\/\/cryptopotato.com\/coingecko-ceo-warns-of-fake-crypto-summit-scam-using-booking-com\/\">CoinGecko CEO Warns of Fake Crypto Summit Scam Using Booking.com<\/a> appeared first on <a href=\"https:\/\/cryptopotato.com\/\" rel=\"nofollow\">CryptoPotato<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><br \/>\n<br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/cryptopotato.com\/coingecko-ceo-warns-of-fake-crypto-summit-scam-using-booking-com\/\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bobby Ong, the co-founder and CEO of cryptocurrency data platform CoinGecko, has issued a public warning about a&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2774,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37344","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-crypto","cs-entry","cs-video-wrap"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37344","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=37344"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37344\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2774"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=37344"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=37344"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=37344"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}