Release of the DeepSeek AI Model Triggered the Emergence of Fraudulent Tokens and Projects

Some thematic coins reached market capitalizations in the millions of dollars

After the Chinese startup DeepSeek launched its own AI model, successfully competing with OpenAI, dozens of themed tokens appeared in the crypto space. However, they have no actual connection to the project. This was reported by Money at Home on Wednesday, January 29, citing the news outlet Decrypt.

Chinese developers introduced their model, DeepSeek-R1, on January 20, 2025. The project demonstrates high profitability with performance comparable to OpenAI’s product. The success of the Chinese model led to a decline in the U.S. stock market, primarily affecting technology companies. As a result, most cryptocurrencies also experienced price drops.

At the same time, the popularity of AI-related tokens spurred the emergence of coins falsely positioned as official DeepSeek products. Specifically, over 75 fraudulent tokens were launched on the Solana and Ethereum blockchains. However, DeepSeek’s developers have not announced the issuance of any tokens and are not associated with these coins.

Notably, scam tokens gained significant popularity—some attracted millions of dollars from unsuspecting traders. For example, one coin reached a peak market capitalization of $12,8 million.

Additionally, phishing websites have surfaced, prompting users to grant access to their wallets, allegedly for the distribution of DeepSeek tokens.

Previously, Money at Home reported that hackers had compromised the official Litecoin account on X to promote a scam token.