Prominent cryptocurrency website Bitcoin.org was hacked on Wednesday night, with attackers posting a pop-up message promising visitors could 'double' any money sent to them.
The scam message listed a digital wallet address which collected $17,700 in small transactions before the entire website appeared to be taken offline in the early hours of Thursday morning.
Visitors weren't able to skirt around the pop-up to use the site's other functionalities.
The message read: 'The Bitcoin Foundation is giving back to the community! Send Bitcoin to this address, and we will send double the amount in return.'
Bitcoin.org is not affiliated with the Bitcoin Foundation - a non-profit trade group which promotes the adoption of the digital currency and uses the web address bitcoinfoundation.org.
Bitcoin.org was registered in 2008, in the early days of the cryptocurrency, and is an open-source project aiming to further development of bitcoin, according to tech site beincrypto.
A 'giveaway scam' pop-up appeared on Bitcoin.org on Wednesday asking people to send money with a promise of doubling it. By Thursday morning, the website appeared to be offline
Such scams have been a problem for the cryptocurrency world since at least 2017
The apparent 'giveaway scam' was first reported by cryptocurrency news site CoinDesk.
Such scams are a form of social engineering that manipulate people into giving away money or personal information, and they've been a problem in the cryptocurrency world for years.
'The catch here is that in order to participate
