Metallica Report Mass Crypto Scams Targeting Fans

Ever since Metallica announced their new album and world tour last week, 72 Seasons, the marketing campaign for the band’s 11th studio album has been met with huge a demand, and to no surprise a litany of scams. However, in a new twist it appears that these recent scams have been disguised under what appears to be Metallica’s own youtube channel. After the band announced 72 Seasons several fake Metallica Youtube channels began promoting the upcoming album/tour cycle via a livestream. The livestreams showcase former press interviews the band did dating back to 2020 and 2021, back when the band was doing press for their COVID lockdown livestreams and last year’s reissue of the Black Album.

It was certainly strange to see these past interviews pop up again but specifically in videos labeled with buzzwords “James Hetfield: 72 Seasons (playing full album) & Lux Aeterna, World Tour 2023.” Metallica of course has not been playing their new record or showcasing it in any capacity in these streams, and these channels are quite obviously fake. Taking it one step further, these channels promote a QR code they advertise as a download link to ‘the new Metallica album,’ but in fact it’s promotion for a crypto scam these fake channels are running.

Given the attention these channels have seen over the last week and just how widespread they’ve gotten, Metallica has taken it upon themselves to make fans aware of these ongoing scams.

“In the wake of last week’s exciting news of our new song, new album, and new tour, unfortunately the ugly side of social media made an appearance. Many of you have let us know about YouTube channels and live streams, as well as websites, claiming to offer Metallica Crypto giveaways in conjunction with last week’s announcement.

Let’s be as clear as possible. These are scams. They’re being streamed on fake YouTube channels posing to be ours and all pointing to websites that we do not run. Please remember — all of our official social media channels are verified. Always look for official verification before believing something wild and crazy to be true. We thank all of you who have been vigilant in reporting these live streams to YouTube and to us… please don’t let up!”

“Be familiar with the symbols that indicate an official channel and report anything that is a scam!”

It’s pretty staggering considering the sheer number of these fraudulent channels that have popped up and haven’t been dealt with by Youtube yet. Some of these channels have already garnered hundreds of thousands of subscribers, with some reports of people loosing as much as $25,000 from these crypto scams. All in all, this is certainly something to be made aware especially with the high demand for Metallica’s 72 Seasons tour, which just had tickets go up for sale last week.