The Vatican Bank has issued a firm denial of any association with the ‘Vatican Chamber Token’ (VCT) cryptocurrency project, which has been exposed as a sophisticated phishing scam.
The fraudulent VCT project lured potential victims with promises of exclusive benefits and priority access to tokenized asset offerings, claims now confirmed as entirely false.
Investigations revealed the scam’s website falsely advertised a total supply of 10 million VCT tokens priced at 25 euros each, alongside a purported circulating supply of 7 million tokens.
Adding a layer of deception, an edit attempting to link the Vatican Bank to the scam was briefly added to the bank’s Wikipedia page. This edit was swiftly flagged and removed as vandalism.
The scam employed a common phishing tactic: the prominent ‘buy token’ button redirected users to a suspicious subdomain designed to mimic the legitimate Coinbase cryptocurrency exchange platform.
To enhance its illusion of legitimacy, the fraudulent scheme imposed stringent eligibility criteria for participation, creating a false sense of exclusivity.