@DeepBinanceExec

Buckle up, cuz this is one for the books. The chief communications officer at Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange, is claiming that scammers successfully created a deepfake of him to trick contacts into taking virtual meetings.

🤔 Wait, what?... Binance exec Patrick Hillmann published a blog post last week saying he received five different messages over the past month thanking him for taking the time to meet – which was odd, considering he’d never met with any of them before.

After doing some more digging, Hillmann discovered a “sophisticated hacking team” had used video footage of his interviews and TV appearances to create a fake persona of him.

• The scam reportedly involved using a hologram of Hillmann to approach leads of up-and-coming crypto projects, then ask them to pay a fee in exchange for being listed on Binance’s platform.

✋ Yes, but… The only direct evidence Hillmann provided to back up his claim was a screenshot of a conversation with an anonymous individual who said they’d been on a call with the hologram. Hillmann later told The Verge he was advised by investigators that “specific details of the deep fake being made public might result in further copycats.”

📸 The big picture: While the potential for deepfakes to impersonate people in video calls has been widely discussed, there haven’t been any confirmed cases to date – until maybe now.