Imagine: you start a zoom call with a well-known from the crypto industry. You see her face, you trust the situation, but ten minutes later your wallet is empty. That is exactly what happened with the Japanese crypto-influencer Miss Bitcoin (Mai Fujimoto). And she’s not the only one.
Former Binance founder Changpeng Zhao (CZ) now has An urgent warning shared: Never install software from unofficial sources, especially if someone encourages you during a call. The reason? AI-driven deep fakes are becoming increasingly sophisticated. And the crypto community seems to be the new target.
How did things go wrong?
Fujimoto’s Social Media was hacked on June 14, without the platform intervening. Not much later she received an invitation for a Zoom call with a well-known one via Telegram. Her face appeared, so Fujimoto trusted it. But … it wasn’t her girlfriend, it was a deepfake.
Due to a so -called sound problem, Fujimoto was asked to open a link and adjust settings. Exactly then her computer was infected. The result: her metamask wallets were emptied. Afterwards she says:
“If I had known about this kind of deep-fake attacks, I would never have clicked on that link.”
And she’s not alone
A similar story comes from Mehdi Farooq, former investment partner at Animoca Brands. He also received a message from a well-known via Telegram, and he was also seduced into a zoom call. By a “compliance update” he was asked to update his zoom software.
Eventually he lost six crypto wallets. His entire laptop turned out to be infected. The hackers collective behind it would be linked to North Korean cyber groups, according to White-Hat researchers.
Deep fakes become mainstream and more dangerous
The threat is no longer limited to tech insiders. Investors such as Steven Bartlett and Martin Lewis saw their faces abused in Deepfake advertisements on platforms such as Facebook, YouTube and X. In one case, a viewer for £ 140,000 was scammed.
Bartlett says the following: “We are only at the start of the DeepFake era. The crypto industry is not nearly ready yet.”
What can you do?
- Be extremely careful with video requests, even from acquaintances.
- Never just click on the left in Zoom-Chats or Telegram messages.
- Update software only via the official website.
- Use hardware wallets and offline backups.
Crypto is freedom, but that also means responsibility. Deepfakes are no longer science fiction, but a realistic danger. What you protect today can save your entire portfolio tomorrow. Be alert. Share this with your network. And if someone asks you to open a zoom link? Think twice.
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