Deepfake videos of Tesla Inc (NASDAQ: TSLA) CEO Elon Musk and Ark Invest founder Cathie Wood are reportedly being used to promote a trading platform that steals users’ cryptocurrency.
What Happened: According to a recent report from Bleeping Computer, a fake platform called “BitVex” claims to be owned by Elon Musk and promises 30% returns on any cryptocurrency deposits.
Deepfake technology has been applied to existing public video interviews of Musk, Wood, and other influential personalities to make it look like these individuals are promoting the project.
Further analysis by Bleeping Computer finds that the BitVex platform randomly displays fake withdrawals of several cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC), Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH), and Cardano (CRYPTO: ADA), to make their platform appear more legitimate to users.
Why It Matters: Impersonating Musk seems to be a fairly common theme amongst cryptocurrency scammers. Earlier this year, scammers made $580,000 over the span of one week by using the Tesla CEO’s name in their schemes.
Both Musk, and Dogecoin (CRYPTO: DOGE) creator Billy Markus, have urged Twitter Inc (NYSE: TWTR) to take action against crypto giveaway scams on multiple occasions.
Price Action: According to data from Benzinga Pro, BTC was trading at $29,248 at press time, down 2.8% over the last 24 hours.
Photo courtesy: Steve Jurvetson on Flickr and Ark Investment Management
