Chinese artificial intelligence startup DeepSeek, which rocked U.S. markets on Monday, does not have its own cryptocurrency, the company wrote on its social media account.
However, this hasn't stopped memecoin traders from taking advantage of DeepSeek's rise in popularity and flooding the market with tokens purportedly linked to the Chinese AI startup.
Blockchain security platform Blockaid estimated that at least 75 malicious DeepSeek tokens were created on Monday.
The sheer volume of these tokens shows how quickly scammers are exploiting popular items, according to Oz Tamir, an analyst at the platform. A similar surge in fraudulent activity accompanied Trump Memcoins and Melania .
Getting back to the DeepSeek fake tokens, they have attracted a lot of interest from memecoin players hoping to profit from the hype.
Most tokens saw an initial surge in value, then plummeted after their creators sold their holdings, leaving investors with at least $100 million in losses since Monday.
The scammers didn't stop there and created a fake version of the site DeepSeek, through which they lured funds from unsuspecting users.
