The chairman of MicroStrategy, the institution with the largest Bitcoin holdings, Michael Saylor, announced that his team is working daily to remove at least 80 fake videos created by artificial intelligence from social media platforms, most of which promote some type of scam related to Bitcoin. Analysts continue to make striking statements about videos created using the deepfake method.
Michael Saylor’s Warning on Deepfake
In a post on January 13th, Michael Saylor warned his 3.2 million followers about numerous deepfake videos on YouTube, cautioning that scammers continue to share more videos on social media platforms.
Last week, several users on the platform brought attention to videos, allegedly created by artificial intelligence, claiming Saylor was offering to double people’s money. These videos ask viewers to scan a QR code to send Bitcoin to the scammer’s address.
A similar situation occurred in 2022 with a series of fake Elon Musk videos appearing on the video streaming platform YouTube. At the beginning of January, a deepfake video featuring Anatoly Yakovenko, the co-founder of Solana, was shared on YouTube and social media. Austin Federa, the strategy director of the Solana Foundation, made the following statement in an interview:
“There has been a significant increase in deepfake and other content produced by artificial intelligence recently.”
Striking Warnings from Security Experts
In December 2023, cybersecurity experts warned that as artificial intelligence technology advances, AI-powered deepfake videos will become more realistic. Jesse Leclere, a blockchain analyst at the blockchain security company CertiK, stated that phishing has evolved in a sophisticated manner and that one of the main driving forces behind the process is generative AI tools.
Jerry Peng, a researcher at 0xScope, added that in the field of artificial intelligence, more realistic deepfake videos could become a significant component in deceiving crypto investors. On January 9th, United States law enforcement warned that generative AI tools could lower the technical barrier for scammers.
With all these developments, Rob Joyce, the cybersecurity director at the National Security Agency, also argued that the AI sector could help authorities more efficiently catch illegal activities.
