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Impersonation

Deepfakes and AI impersonation

Video and voice of somebody real, saying something they never said.

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Updated 2026-08-305 min read
The short answer

Video and voice of somebody real, saying something they never said. Generated video and cloned voice are now cheap and fast, and crypto is the natural payment rail for anyone using them. The pattern is old, only the evidence is new: a person you recognize, on camera, asking you to send crypto or to act quickly.

What it is

Generated video and cloned voice are now cheap and fast, and crypto is the natural payment rail for anyone using them. The pattern is old, only the evidence is new: a person you recognize, on camera, asking you to send crypto or to act quickly.

How it plays out

  1. A familiar face makes an offer

    A founder on a livestream, an executive on a video call, or a family member in a voice note.

  2. The quality is good enough

    It does not have to be perfect. It has to survive a phone screen and thirty seconds of attention.

  3. The ask is urgent and unusual

    Send now, tell nobody, use crypto because it is faster.

  4. The channel is wrong

    A new account, a hacked channel, or a number you do not recognize.

What gives it away

  • A request for money that arrives by video or voice and cannot be verified another way.
  • Urgency plus secrecy, together.
  • Odd lip sync, strange blinking, flat lighting, or audio that never overlaps naturally.
  • A refusal to move to a channel you already trust.

How to not be caught by it

  • Verify through a channel you already had. Hang up and call the number you have saved.
  • Agree a code word with family for anything urgent involving money.
  • Treat any video asking for crypto as unverified by default, whoever appears in it.
  • Remember that no legitimate company runs a giveaway on a livestream.
The hard part is not technical
None of these require technical skill to avoid. They require doing the boring check at the exact moment you feel most rushed, which is the whole difficulty.

If it already happened

  • Stop and verify before sending anything further.
  • If funds went out, report it immediately. Speed is the only thing that helps.
  • Warn the person being impersonated so they can put out a notice.
  • Preserve the video or the recording. It is evidence.
Recovery scams
Anybody who contacts you offering to recover lost crypto for a fee is running the second scam on the same victim. There is no recovery service that can reverse a blockchain transaction, because nobody can. Report it through official channels and ignore everyone else.

Common questions

How common is deepfakes and ai impersonation?

Common enough that it has a name and a playbook. The specific numbers move constantly, so rather than quote a figure that will be wrong next quarter: assume you will meet this one, and set your wallet up so meeting it is survivable.

Can the money be recovered?

Once a blockchain transaction confirms, no. What reporting can occasionally do is get funds frozen at the exchange where a thief tries to cash out, which is why reporting quickly is worth doing even when it feels pointless.

Does a hardware wallet stop this?

It stops anything that needs your keys, because the keys never leave the device. It does not stop you approving a malicious transaction on the device itself, so read what the screen says before you press confirm.

Where to go next

All attacksThe full list, side by side.Security checklistDo the fixes in order.Self custodyHolding your own keys properly.

Check your setup before you need to

An hour on a screen share, going through your wallets, your approvals, your backups and your recovery plan. You click everything and we never ask for keys.

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