Crypto scams by impersonating popular personalities are quite common on YouTube.
With the most-awaited iPhone 16 launch event on Monday, September 9, crypto scammers found the right opportunity to scam people during the Livestream by creating deepfakes of Apple CEO Tim Cook.
A recent report shows that Google’s YouTube was entirely flooded with deepfakes featuring Tim Cook. In a scam stream shared on X on September 9, a deepfake of Tim Cook urged viewers to send Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), Tether (USDT), or Dogecoin (DOGE) to a “contribution address”. The account falsely claimed that Apple would double its contributions in return.
The AI-fake Cook urged:
“Once you complete your deposit, the system will automatically process it and send back double the amount of the cryptocurrency you deposited.”
These are the most common “double your money” scams that promise to send back double the amount of any crypto sent to a particular address. However, in reality, the fraudsters keep the funds.
AI is getting WAY too good
355k people watching a fake “apple” account on @youtube that’s promoting a massive crypto scam lol
The reason there are so many viewers is because the keynote today at 12pm cst@YouTubeCreators pic.twitter.com/O2ufpxdKnF
— BearPig 🧸🐷 (@BearPigCentral) September 9, 2024
The crypto scammers also turned on their livestreams just at the time of Apple’s September 9 “Glowtime” event. One of the scam streams appeared on a YouTube channel designed to look like “Apple US”, even displaying a legitimate verification checkmark.
Crypto scams by impersonating popular personalities are quite common on YouTube. Ripple has complained several times in the past that XRP scams featuring Brad Galinghouse were rampant on YouTube at the time. But this video streaming platform continues to be the preferred destination for crypto scams.
Deepfakes Affecting the Crypto Market
A large number of high-profile individuals have been the victim of the misuse of deepfake technology. Crypto scammers have identified this loophole and leveraged it to their benefit.
In June, Australia’s major broadcaster Seven had its YouTube news channel hijacked by crypto scammers who uploaded videos featuring a deepfake of Elon Musk discussing cryptocurrency. Around the same time, scammers also flooded YouTube with deepfake videos of Musk during SpaceX’s latest Starship rocket launch, promoting a fraudulent “double-your-money” crypto scheme.
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