Changpeng Zhao, a co-founder and former chief executive of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange Binance, has issued an important warning to the global crypto community.
The warning is about deepfake videos, in which CZ promotes crypto. Zhao urged users to beware and not fall for them. CZ specified that he found these deepfakes videos are circulating other social media platforms, but not on X.
“There are deepfake videos of me on other social media platforms. Please beware!” he tweeted.
There are deepfake videos of me on other social media platforms. Please beware!
— CZ 🔶 BNB (@cz_binance) October 11, 2024
When somebody jokingly asked if in those deepfakes CZ was spotted drinking a sixpack of beers, the crypto influencer stated that those are videos where his AI-generated model promotes a crypto coin he has never even heard of.
No, of "me" promoting some coin I have never heard of.
— CZ 🔶 BNB (@cz_binance) October 11, 2024
As AI becomes more and more sophisticated, scammers continue to use it more actively. As 2024 started, Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson, commenting on his own deepfake video promoting a scam ADA airdrop, stated that in a couple years, AI deepfakes will be impossible to tell from real videos with real influencers.
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As reported by U.Today, nearly two weeks ago, CZ was released from prison after doing a four-month-long sentence that started in May. In November last year, the U.S. Department of Justice charges Changpeng Zhao and Binance with violating the U.S. securities law and CZ personally got a charge of helping some of the exchange’s customers to launder money via trading.
Binance agreed to pay an immense fine of more than $4 billion and CZ stepped down as the platform’s chief executive officer. A high-ranking exec of Binance, Richard Teng, was appointed to take over that position from CZ. After Zhao was released from prison, Teng banned him from running Binance ever again, which was basically the main condition of CZ leaving this position in the first place.
Before going to prison, CZ started a new education online project called Giggle Academy to teach unprivileged children blockchain, English, math and so on, free of charge. He also looked into the bio-tech sphere, eying an opportunity to integrate crypto into it. CZ’s release coincided with the start of what was expected to be “Uptober” and many hoped that after these two events and the Fed Reserve reducing the interest rate by 50 basis points Bitcoin would start a bull run to a new all-time high. Contrary to many expectations, that has not happened so far.
