You might have recently seen stories involving people’s Instagram accounts getting hacked, followed by phones suddenly losing service, and sometimes culminating in threatening messages from sketchy numbers.
Welcome to the world of SIM hijackers and user name marketplaces, where you can trade rare social media accounts –like @rainbow or @power– for Bitcoin from anonymous people on the Internet, and never know for certain if they were procured legally or if you will get scammed.
This post focuses on OG (which stands for “original”) user names for popular and rapidly-growing social media platforms and what you need to know before trying to buy one.