Artificial intelligence-related investment scams have been all over the news recently. Hundreds of new cryptocurrencies referred to as ChatGPT “tokens” are surfacing on a variety of blockchain networks, news reports disclose.

Clearly, scammers are taking advantage of people’s interest in artificial intelligence and the excitement around new technology to trick them into investing money, hoping to make a quick profit.

In the last few weeks, hundreds of counterfeit tokens bearing the AI chatbot’s name were 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.

The Bad Guys Are Taking Advantage Of ChatGPT’s Popularity

Scammers are exploiting ChatGPT’s popularity to generate quick cash. PeckShieldAlert, a security analysis platform, has lately uncovered thousands of new tokens called “BingChatGPT” tokens that use the name ChatGPT to propagate fraud.

Three of these cryptocurrencies look to be honeypots, while two have a high sell tax.

Honeypots are smart contracts that pretend to leak their funds to a random user if that person pays extra coins to the honeypot.

In contrast, sales tax is the term for the amount of money that is illegally taken from the sale of a token via a malicious smart contract.

#PeckShieldAlert PeckShield has detected dozens of newly created #BingChatGPT tokens, of which 3 appear to be #honeypots & 2 have high sell tax. 2 of them have already dropped over -99%.
Deployer 0xb583 has already 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

Nonetheless, the market for honeypots and other crypto frauds is expanding. According to a research by Chainalysis, crypto investors lost approximately $3.8 billion to hackers in 2022, up from $3.3 billion in 2021.

These fake transactions could be a direct result of the software giant Microsoft’s choice to implement OpenAI chatbots for search services on its web browsers.

ChatGPT was created by OpenAI, however Microsoft’s chatbot is a customized application that is said to be “better” than the publicly available ChatGPT.

No Word From Microsoft And OpenAI

Microsoft and OpenAI have not launched any official cryptocurrency initiatives. So, it means all these tokens linked to ChatGPT and bearing the name of the two companies are clearly bogus.

But, con artists are not passing up the opportunity to capitalize on the hoopla. Despite obvious signs, many “BingChatGPT” tokens have been minted and are experiencing trade volumes in the thousands of dollars.

Two of the tokens masquerading as Bing-related initiatives contain unusually high sales taxes, so when a token is sold, the issuer will receive a substantial portion of the earnings.

Meanwhile, PeckShield has identified “Deployer 0xb583,” the purported creator of another BingChatGPT token, whose prior deployments have included coins with names that reference Tesla CEO Elon Musk and former British Prime Minister Liz Truss.

PeckShield said, pointing to the wallet address of the malicious token issuer:

“Two of them have already fallen by more than 99%. Deployer 0xb583 has already issued dozens of coins using a pump-and-dump strategy.” 

It’s Probably Bogus

Although there has been a sudden uptick in curiosity around AI-powered digital currencies, it’s important to clarify that neither OpenAI nor Microsoft have any intention of launching any digital coins with their namesakes.

Any token that sounds remotely like ChatGPT or Bing is probably a fraud.

-Featured image from Sopa Images/Getty Images