20 Bitcoins Donated to Twitch Streamer — But Is It Legit?

In 2016, other large donations were made to a series of streamers using dollars as part of a failed scam involving PayPal. The possibility that lightpuma may be attempting to scam Sick_Nerd in the same way remains very real.

A Story of 20 Bitcoins

British Twitch user Sick_Nerd was live streaming while playing old school RuneScape. In the middle of his gameplay, he announced that he had just been donated 20 Bitcoins — which amounted to over £57,000. This was, unsurprisingly, the largest donation Sick_Nerd received that day. The approximately £153 received from the rest of the top 10 donors together amounted to less than 0.3 percent of the amount received by “lightpuma,” the donor of the 20 bitcoins.

Nope. pic.twitter.com/M2Fth3ZV59

— WhalePanda (@WhalePanda) January 13, 2019

Lightpuma didn’t donate all 20 BTC at once, however. The total came in five separate installments. The first three BTC at around three hours and 44 minutes into the live stream. Approximately 2 minutes later, lightpuma donated another four BTC. Another four BTC were donated around seven minutes after that. Around 80 minutes later, lightpuma donated another four Bitcoins. Within an hour, the final four BTC arrived. In total, five donations of four BTC each were donated to Sick_Nerd by lightpuma within less than two and a half hours.

Who is lightpuma?

Little is known about lightpuma. Where Sick_Nerd has nearly 110,000 followers, lightpuma has only 17. Furthermore, lightpuma has no videos or clips uploaded on Twitch. Sick_Nerd, on the other hand, has uploaded over 50 videos. This raises the question about whether or not lightpuma may be orchestrating some sort of scam since, not long ago, a scam was attempted following similar circumstances.

A Failed Scam

In June 2016, Twitch user iNexus_Ninja donated nearly $50,000 to multiple live streamers including LegendaryLea, NoSleepTV, Sodapoppin, and Dizzykitten. It was later exposed that iNexus_Ninja, whose real name is Anthony Archer, was a troll of the worst variety. These donations were made using PayPal. Nearly one month after the donations were made, Archer attempted to cancel them and receive a refund. PayPal, at that time, allowed 30 days for transactions such as these to be canceled. It has been reported that Archer’s intentions were sinister. He donated the money with the expectation that he’d cancel the transactions after the Twitch users had already spent some or all of the funds. Had PayPal granted the refunds, the recipients of Archer’s donations may have faced severe financial harm. Fortunately, PayPal refused to cancel the transactions.

Is This Another Scam?

The donations by both Archer and lightpuma were made in multiple installments. LegendaryLea, for example, received a large number of $250 donations totaling $11,500 from Archer. With little known about lightpuma, it is possible that he may be attempting to orchestrate a similar scam as Archer.

Someone donated 20 btc ($74k) to a twitch streamer to keep streaming.
I would run them a few times through wasabi wallet before using them or sending them to an exchange…https://t.co/yMYoOZL8wC

— WhalePanda (@WhalePanda) January 13, 2019

A major difference, however, is that lightpuma’s donations came in BTC while Archer used fiat currency in the form of dollars. Of course, Archer could not have donated in Bitcoin because Twitch only began allowing cryptocurrency donations in 2018. Nonetheless, there is still too little information to determine whether or not lightpuma is a scammer or a legitimate supporter of e-sports. Do you think lightpuma made his donations honestly? Or is he another scammer like Archer? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!