The video is almost convincing: it shows Solana co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko announcing a “historic day” for Solana. Thank the “SOL” community and offer a giveaway via a QR code and website. Sure, he sounds a little robotic (his voice is monotone, which is unusual for him) and he barely makes eye contact with the camera, but it's a video and seeing is believing, right?
It's false, of course. And it's been uploaded to YouTube for a day. Not only that, at least One Internet user says he saw it as an advertisement.. It's not just about YouTube, either. The fake video is appearing in ads for the platform formerly known as Twitter that Elon Musk would prefer you call X.
“There has recently been a substantial increase in deepfakes and other ai-generated content,” says Austin Federa, head of strategy at the Solana Foundation. (He points out that this is not just a cryptographic problem.) He told me that Solana takes these fakes seriously and reports them as quickly as possible. But Solana is not in charge of cracking down on counterfeits. That depends on platforms like YouTube and X. And they're picky about it: Solana reported that video to YouTube last night.
Google, YouTube's parent company, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
crypto industry participants have complained for years that Big tech platforms do not act quickly enough to root out scams. But deepfakes are getting better, scams are getting more convincing, and quick takedowns are becoming more and more important.
This is a moderation problem, of course, but it has real consequences, especially because bitcoin-etf-is-probably-almost-here.html”>the possibility of a bitcoin ETF looms on the horizon. One of the advantages of that type of financialized product is that it is handled by financial professionals, which makes it seem relatively safer. After all, those participants are less likely to be fooled by this type of fake video.
