DeepSeek’s sudden success as a Chinese AI system is not just sad. Bitcoin and the Stock Market—it has also prompted the creation of dozens of phony meme coins and imposter sites looking to swindle crypto users.
In the last day alone, over 75 coins claiming to be official DeepSeek tokens have proliferated— primarily on Ethereum and Solana—according to BlockaidThe startup is a leader in crypto security.
DeepSeek is not a cryptocurrency company, and has no tokens. The recent popularity of crypto tokens is a good example. AI projects are linked has likely encouraged scammers to assume that traders eager to get in on the DeepSeek hype will make the connection between AI and crypto… and not ask further questions.
“It’s not hard to imagine how a trader who’s not following closely might be led to think that this is a real thing,” Oz Tamir told Blockaid that he is a security research at Blockaid. Decrypt.
Tamir says that President Donald Trump’s launch on the issue of immigration has further fueled the fire. The meme that you can coin earlier this month. The remarkable act of a sitting U.S. president creating their own crypto token—which received decidedly Mix reviews from the industry—has done much to lend credibility to fictional claims of major companies and individuals launching similar projects, the researcher said.
“It can help scammers get away with schemes that would’ve been easy to spot in previous cycles,” He clarified.
Imposters of DeepSeek have taken extraordinary measures to deceive their victims. This site asks the user to link their wallets. It appears as a working copy of the original DeepSeek application. The site creators could then drain all the funds from the wallet.
With crypto at the height of a resurgent bull run, and major public figures like Trump lifting risk-prone corners of the industry—like the meme coin market—to unprecedented levels of exposure, a perfect storm may now be substantially increasing the already significant risk of crypto-related scams and phishing attacks.
But many likely victims of such scams may also be fairly unfamiliar with navigating the complex world of decentralized finance—which could actually be a good thing. Although most memes are published on public blockchains, and therefore cannot be deleted or banned, they can still be found and investigated on sites like Uniswap DexScreener. Blockaid has teamed up with both companies to make sure that users’ search results do not contain scam tokens.
It’s a constant game of “whack-a mole” to find these imposter tokens. DexScreener does not currently have any DeepSeek Tokens, but Uniswap has one. Several DeepSeek tokens can be found on Pump.funThis is the most popular place to launch new Solana Meme Coins.
Even if platforms that list tokens perfect their process for weeding out fraudulent tokens, this solution will only cause tensions to increase. In the independent crypto-world, many people consider decentralization as a positive. Holy principle This is a fundamental right that must never be compromised, not even by the slightest chance of harm. permitting criminality.
As crypto rises further into the cultural and economic mainstream, the risk of scams targeting uneducated traders will only grow—as will, perhaps, the need for censoring said scams. It is unclear whether decentralized finance users will embrace these changes.
Andrew Hayward is the editor