[imagesource: Twitter / @ben_kew]

If you had lots of money invested in FTX via the various cryptocurrencies on offer, you’re almost certainly going to end up out of pocket.

That’s because the crypto exchange platform has gone belly-up in the most dramatic fashion and Sam Bankman-Fried, or SBF as he has long been known, has turned into a deer in the headlights.

His ill-advised interview with a reporter via Twitter DMs was yet another misstep in an ever-lengthening list, perhaps topped off by his admission that he “didn’t mean to” do “sketchy” stuff with all those customer funds that appear to have vanished.

This is far from a laughing matter for those who now cannot withdraw substantial amounts of money and desperate times breed desperate measures.

Enter the deepfake scammers, reports VICE:

A deepfake of FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried circulated on Twitter on Friday, where the founder of the collapsed cryptocurrency exchange appeared to claim he could make users whole again by doubling their cryptocurrency in a typical giveaway scam. Making matters worse, the account was verified and mimicked SBF’s real account.

While this is far from the best deepfake I’ve seen (this is), I can understand why it would have roped a few people in:

Over the weekend, a verified account posing as FTX founder SBF posted dozens of copies of this deepfake video offering FTX users “compensation for the loss” in a phishing scam designed to drain their crypto wallets pic.twitter.com/3KoAPRJsya

— Jason Koebler (@jason_koebler) November 21, 2022

Old interview footage was used to put the deepfake together, with the aim of redirecting people to a website where they could win crypto in a giveaway, which is a common scam. The website featured SBF’s face and FTX’s logo.

The disgraced founder says he’s still hard at work trying to salvage funds to bail out FTX, according to CNBC:

Despite losing access to his corporate email and all company systems, Bankman-Fried maintains that he can play a role in the next steps. Venture capital investors have told CNBC the 30-year-old had been calling to try and secure funding in recent weeks. Still, investors said they couldn’t imagine any firm with a large enough balance sheet or risk appetite to bail out the beleaguered FTX…

After reviewing the state of FTX’s finances last week, [new CEO John] Ray said he’s never seen “such a complete failure of corporate controls and such a complete absence of trustworthy financial information” in his 40-year career. He added that Bankman-Fried and the top executives were “a very small group of inexperienced, unsophisticated and potentially compromised individuals,” calling the situation “unprecedented.”

There’s that word again.

SBF is currently holed up in the Bahamas and may face years of legal fights from possible wire fraud to civil litigation.

[sources:vice&cnbc]