Mastermind Behind 2020's Bitcoin-fishing Twitter Hack Sentenced To Three Years Of Prison

Graham Clark, the teen convicted of pulling off July 2020's Bitcoin-fishing" 'I Am Giving Back' Twitter hack, has been sentenced to three years in prison, according to the Tampa Bay Times.

Clark's scam involved hacking dozens of celebrity accounts, including the likes of Kanye West, Joe Biden and Bill Gates, and posting a message promising that any Bitcoin sent to a certain address would be "paid back double." Clark was able to scam people out of $100,000 before the operation was shut down.

Clark, now 18, was facing a minimum of ten years of prison but his lawyers negotiated the sentence down to three on the basis of him being a "youthful offender"—Clark was 17 at the time he orchestrated the hack. He could possibly spend some of his sentence in what is described as a "military-style boot camp," then face three years probation. Violation of the probation will send Clark to prison for ten years.

While Bitcoin scams are nothing new on Twitter, the scope of Clark's scheme made it particularly noteworthy. Clark was able to compromise the login identifications of Twitter administrators, then used those powers to reset the passwords of the high-profile accounts. His initial Zoom hearing, held in August of 2020, was then porn-bombed by a viewer in the Zoom's chat.