Sam Bankman-Fried Deepfake Video Attempts to Scam the Scammed

A deepfake video posted to Twitter over the weekend exhibits the face and approximate voice of disgraced FTX founder and former CEO, Sam Bankman-Fried—providing assurance within the type of a crypto giveaway (i.e. a phishing rip-off).

“Hello everyone. As you know our eftex [sic] exchange is going bankrupt. But I hasten to inform all users that you should not panic. As compensation for the loss, we have prepared a giveaway for you, in which you can double your cryptocurrency. To do this, just go to the site ftxcompensation.com,” says the uncanny valley SBF-esque creation. Note: Gizmodo advises that you don’t do that. In truth, Gizmodo advises that you just neither hearken to the precise Bankman-Fried, nor any imitation variations.

Bankman-Fried is the crypto-verse’s most up-to-date fallen founder. He was as soon as hailed by enterprise capitalists and a few media retailers as a young visionary, as he touted “effective altruism” and talked about utilizing the blockchain to make the world higher. But over the course of per week earlier this month, his complete trade platform fell aside and its native token FTT plummeted to zero. FTX filed for chapter 11 chapter and SBF openly admitted to utilizing some inventive (doubtless unlawful) accounting strategies to prop up each FTX and the intently linked agency, Alameda Research. Now Bankman-Fried appears to be hiding out within the Bahamas, whereas the island nation argues with U.S. regulators about one of the best plan of action.

The deepfake video, is a brazen try to rip-off those that have already been swindled by FTX and SBF. It was first reported on by Vice News and was initially posted from the now-suspended Twitter account @S4GE_ETH. But earlier than the account was barred from the platform, it glided by the title “SBF,” had a verified blue checkmark, and a picture of Bankman-Fried as its avatar.

Using manipulated footage initially from a Bloomberg Markets and Finance interview, the video’s creator did their finest to lure potential marks to a web site, the place FTX’s emblem and an image of Bankman-Fried loom giant. In a basic giveaway scam format, the location encourages guests to enter a contest for crypto money by connecting to their crypto pockets by way of the portal, and sending some quantity of funds—beneath the promise that your cryptocurrency can be despatched again, doubled. Spoiler alert: it received’t. Though, the rip-off web site goes the additional mile, making an attempt to instill confidence in its legitimacy with a ticker-esque show, exhibiting pretend accomplished transactions.

It could seem apparent that the video and accompanying web site are a grift. After all, deepfake SBF mispronounces the title of his personal collapsed crypto trade and the web site accommodates a number of typos. But many FTX traders who lost large sums of money within the platform’s implosion are doubtless determined and searching for quick-fixes for his or her monetary losses. And a lot of folks (together with Tom Brady) received taken in by the true SBF, so it doesn’t appear inconceivable that a couple of is also duped by the deepfake model.

Though the Bitcoin deal with at ftxcompensation.com doesn’t maintain any tokens, based on Vice, the outlet identified that the Etherium deal with does at present have greater than $1,000 in ETH.

The incident concurrently highlights the risks of cryptocurrency, Twitter’s floundering moderation and verification techniques, and more and more satisfactory deepfakes. The digital world may be rife with traps—it doesn’t matter what the digital SBF puppet tells you, don’t get caught in a single.