David Burt, the Premier, has enthusiastically championed the island as the ideal home for cryptocurrency businesses — but now he has had to respond to a scammer who created a fake X account mimicking him and announcing the launch of a Bermuda National Coin cryptocurrency.

Mr Burt was having dinner with his wife, Kristin, on Valentine’s Day when the scam came to light.

He posted on X: “At Valentines Dinner with my wife, and get multiple calls that someone is trying to scam users. This is a fake account and a scam. @elonmusk & @X, not sure how they get a Grey Verification badge, but people will get scammed due to the lack of controls on this app. Please fix! — DB”

The Premier’s real X account has a blue check mark.

The fake account masquerading as Mr Burt said “national coin of the Bermuda will be launched today on Solana”, which is a blockchain platform.

Some account holders on X issued warnings about the scam, with one writing: “Do NOT touch the Bermuda Coin. It’s a scam. Joined literally this month, probably made this account today. Already messaged by an actual Bermuda national that this is a scam account.”

News of the ruse spread quickly, with Australian publication Crypto News running a story under the headline: “Fake Premier, Real Scam: Imposter Uses ‘Bermuda National Coin’ to Dupe Social Media Users”.

Crypto News said the scam led to reported losses of up to $1.2 million before the fake account was removed.

The publication said: “This scam joins a series of recent cryptocurrency frauds, including similar impersonation incidents involving Argentina’s President Milei and controversies surrounding Trump’s memecoin launch.”

Crypto News added: “The scammer’s account, created this month, had four times more followers than Burt’s, which is over ten years old.”