Crypto Users Beware: X’s New Rules Could Get You Banned

Years of crypto scams running havoc on the social network X, formerly known as Twitter, have resulted in the implementation of a “kill switch” for users talking about crypto.

An Auto-Lock For Crypto Posting?

The announcement of the toughest anti-crypto scam measure to date was made by Nikita Bier, X’s Head of Product, through a post on the same social media on Wednesday.

The measure was brought to public attention after Bier, who is also a Solana ecosystem advisor, replied to a post from UK-based web3 creator Benjamin White. In his thread, White explained how his account had been phished via a fake copyright email. This led to his X account being compromised and used to promote a crypto scam.

Now, according to the new guidelines, X can auto‑lock an account it mentions crypto for the first time, and force extra checks before it can post again. Bier’s argue this should kill most of the incentive, making freshly hijacked or newly spun‑up accounts effectively useless to scammers.

In a different post from the same day, Bier laid out the way suspensions works and reiterated that some financial scams are running “rampant” on the platform.

Bier also replied to a concerned user inquiring about “community-mention spam attacks” (when accounts tag a lot of people at the same time to promote cryptocurrencies) assuring that such activity should also now be blocked on the site.

The platform will also detect fraudulent memecoin activity. Yesterday, Bier corrected a now deleted Community Note explaining that “it is always a hack” when a high-profile account without any previous relation to crypto suddenly drops a memecoin. The social network will now require account ownership verification in such cases.

The usual playbook for this type of scams include phishing emails posing as copyright or security warnings, fake login pages, stealing passwords and 2FA, then using captured X accounts to blast out scam links and tokens. X is a valuable target for scammers because it allows them to tap in the reputation of real users and their follower networks, not to mention the speed at which posts can go viral in “crypto Twitter” culture.

The social network has taken legal action against banned users in the past, including crypto fraudsters, who tried to bribe employees to get suspended accounts reinstated, describing this as part of a broader criminal network. X’s Global Government Affairs account publicly framed this as “strong action against a bribery network targeting our platform,” explicitly linking it to suspended crypto‑scam accounts.

Regulators specifically criticized X’s design of the subscription‑based blue check system, saying it allowed users to buy badges without proper identity checks, increasing the risk of scam accounts appearing “verified”. The European Union fined the social network with €120 million under the Digital Services Act at the end of last year, in part because its paid blue‑check verification “misleads users” about authenticity and exposes them to scams and impersonation.

The new measure of auto‑locking first‑time crypto posters makes hijacked accounts less monetizable, raises costs for scam rings, and could sharply cut opportunistic phishing campaigns. On the downside, legitimate newcomers to crypto, small creators, and journalists could face friction, false positives, or temporary silencing at the exact moment they try to enter the conversation.

Cover image from Perplexity. BTCUSD chart from Tradingview.