Investment scams related to artificial intelligence have been in the news recently. Hundreds of new cryptocurrencies called ChatGPT “tokens” are appearing on various blockchain networks, news reports reveal.
Clearly, scammers are taking advantage of people’s interest in artificial intelligence and excitement about new technologies to trick them into investing money, hoping to make a quick profit.
In the past few weeks, hundreds of fake tokens in the name of AI chatbots have been released. This includes 132 tokens released on BNB Chain, 25 tokens produced on Ethereum, and 10 tokens issued on other blockchains such as Arbitrum, Solana, OKChain, and Cronos.
Ugly People Benefit From ChatGPT’s Popularity
Scammers are exploiting the popularity of ChatGPT to make quick money. PeckShieldAlert, a security analysis platform, recently discovered thousands of new tokens called “BingChatGPT” tokens that are using the ChatGPT name to spread scams.
Three of these cryptocurrencies appear to be honeypots, while two have high sales taxes.
Honeypots are smart contracts that pretend to leak funds to a random user if that person pays extra coins to the honeypot.
In contrast, sales tax is a term for the amount of money illegally taken from the sale of tokens through malicious smart contracts.
#PeckShieldAlert PeckShield has detected dozens of newly created ones #BingChatGPT token, which 3 appears #honey & 2 have a high sales tax. 2 of them have dropped -99%.
Deployer 0xb583 has created dozens of tokens with a pump & dump scheme #AI #ChatGPT pic.twitter.com/merQikuslk— PeckShieldAlert (@PeckShieldAlert) February 20, 2023
Billions of dollars lost to scammers
However, the market for honeypots and other crypto scams is growing. According to research by Chainalysis, crypto investors lost an estimated $3.8 billion to hackers in 2022, up from $3.3 billion in 2021.
These fake transactions could be a direct consequence of software giant Microsoft’s choice to implement OpenAI chatbots for search services in web browsers.
ChatGPT was created by OpenAI, but Microsoft’s chatbot is a custom app that it says is “better” than the publicly available ChatGPT.
Source: Baotintuc
No Word From Microsoft And OpenAI
Microsoft and OpenAI have yet to launch an official cryptocurrency initiative. So, it means that all the tokens linked to ChatGPT and the names of the two companies are clearly fake.
However, con artists don’t pass up opportunities to amplify the hoopla. Despite the obvious signs, many “BingChatGPT” tokens have been minted and experienced trade volumes in the thousands of dollars.
The two tokens masquerading as Bing-related initiatives contain an extraordinary sales tax, so when the tokens are sold, the issuer receives a large share of the revenue.
Meanwhile, PeckShield has identified “Deployer 0xb583,” another so-called BingChatGPT token creator, whose previous deployments included coins with names referencing Tesla CEO Elon Musk and former British Prime Minister Liz Truss.
Crypto total market cap at $1 trillion on the daily chart | Chart: TradingView.com
PeckShield said, pointing to the wallet address of the malicious token issuer:
“Two of which have dropped over 99%. Deployer 0xb583 has released dozens of coins using a pump-and-dump strategy.
It’s probably bogus
Despite the sudden curiosity about AI-powered digital currencies, it is important to clarify that neither OpenAI nor Microsoft have any intention of launching a digital coin under their name.
Any token that sounds remotely like ChatGPT or Bing is probably a scam.
-Featured image from Sopa Images/Getty Images