Death of the oldest living tortoise was just a crypto scam

The reported death of Jonathan, the world’s oldest 194-year-old tortoise, was instead a ploy by crypto scammers to trick people into buying an unaffiliated cryptocurrency.

Major news outlets such as the BBC, USA Today, and Daily Mail reported that Jonathan, the Seychelles giant tortoise, passed away yesterday. 

The publications based the reports on the claims of “@JoeHollinsVet,” an X account that claimed to be his veterinarian. 

The account announced, “Heartbroken to share that our beloved Jonathan, the world’s oldest living land animal, has passed away today peacefully on St. Helena.”

It said, “As his vet for many years, it was an honor to care for him—hand-feeding bananas, watching him bask in the sun, and marveling at his quiet wisdom.”

Thankfully, none of it was true. Jonathan’s real-life veterinarian, still named Joe Hollins, confirmed to USA Today that they don’t have an account on X and that the posts are a hoax. 

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He said, “Jonathan the tortoise is very much alive. I believe on X the person purporting to be me is asking for crypto donations, so it’s not even an April Fool joke. It’s a con.”

Jonathan the tortoise does not care for crypto

Jonathan has lived in a sanctuary on the island of St Helena since 1882. Here, at the plantation house owned by the island’s governor, Nigel Phillips, Jonathan spends his days as one of the oldest known living land mammals to date.

He reportedly suffers from cataracts and has lost his sense of smell. Regardless, he is still healthy and maintains an active libido with two younger tortoises on the island. 

When Phillips woke up to the false reports, he rushed to check if Jonathan was okay and discovered him sleeping under a tree in his paddock.

Phillips told The Guardian that Jonathan often likes to graze on grass and that, “One day a week he is fed fruit, veg and salad to ensure he gets essential minerals. He has a sweet tooth. Tourists occasionally come to view him, but that is carefully managed to ensure the animals are not stressed.”

The pretender account, which is based in Brazil, is claiming that it was all just an April Fools’ joke. 

This is despite the account claiming earlier, while promoting another Jonathan-themed account with a linked memecoin, that it wasn’t an April Fools’ joke.

The X account shared the memecoin’s crypto address and also had it in its bio, but it has since removed it. 

The market cap of the Jonathan-themed token shot up 376% from $25,000 to $119,000 during yesterday’s false posts. 

It has since fallen back down to $34,000 and now sits at $74,000 at the time of writing.

Read more: Inside the $280M Drift hack: weeks of setup, minutes to drain

Messy crypto April Fools

Other questionable April Fools jokes yesterday included a fake acquisition that moved the price of a protocol firm’s token, $LQTY, drawing accusations of market manipulation. 

Another crypto firm called Hyperbridge claimed it was breached as part of an April Fools’ joke. Unfortunately, a crypto protocol called Drift was actually hacked later that day, and I had to stress that it wasn’t an April Fools’ joke. 

The protocol lost roughly $280 million to the hackers after a week-long operation managed to exploit its multisig wallet.

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