A Descent Into Crypto Hell Started With a Spam Text From ‘Vicky’

The mysterious WhatsApp message arrived one night in August 2022, while I was out at a bar with a friend: “Hi David, I’m Vicky Ho don’t you remember me?”

This was strange. My name isn’t David, and I didn’t know anyone named Vicky. But I’d been getting a lot of seemingly misdirected messages on my phone. Usually I ignored them. This time, for some reason, maybe because I’d had a spicy watermelon margarita, I didn’t.

After I texted that she had the wrong number, Vicky apologized. Then she awkwardly tried to continue the conversation. “Instead of apologizing for the wrong ...