Scam ChatGPT-Style Web3 Firm’s Press Release Was Auto-Scraped Into Bloomberg

BlockGPT’s official Twitter account as well website is currently inaccessible.

OpenAI’s sensational chatbot service ChatGPT has taken the world by storm. This explosion of interest has translated into a proliferation of new apps that trick users with savvy ads before rug-pulling them. In the latest development, a ChatGPT-style Web3 firm BlockGPT has been confirmed to have carried out a rug pull, stealing $256,000 in pre-sale funds.

Bloomberg has now come under fire for lack of a proper disclaimer after a paid press release of the scam project made it to its website.

BlockGPT Scam
The blockchain security firm CertiK confirmed that the recently launched Web3 company – BlockGPT – is a scam. The rug pull claims were further validated by PeckShield, which revealed that over 800 BNB raised in a presale contract have been deposited into Tornado Cash.

Earlier this month, BlockGPT pushed out a press release outlining its vision to create a ChatGPT-style artificial intelligence system on the blockchain. Unfortunately, the press release, which was originally delivered via Globenewswire, was then auto-scraped into Bloomberg.

It is important to note that the article published on Bloomberg had very few signs that could have helped readers identify it as a paid press release and not news. In fact, the press release on the website had no clear disclaimer or “Paid” content mark. Flagging the mishap, Blockfence, a security aggregation provider, tweeted,“FYI Bloomberg and Bloomberg Crypto, your readers deserve a bigger disclaimer, and maybe even a little DD from your side, in order to prevent future publications of pure scam projects.”

Meanwhile, there are two tokens associated with the project. One is BlockGPT’s governance token – BGPT – which aimed to incentivize individuals who provide helpful questions and data. The other is a token for community-based governance – AIBGPT- that was created by BlockGPT AI using the Solidity contract and introduced on the Binance Smart Chain network.

Multiple reports have surfaced suggesting that the latter is unsellable/honeypot.

Dark Side of ChatGPT’s Popularity
OpenAI’s ChatGPT has stoked investor interest in generative artificial intelligence (AI) technology. As the chatbot positioned itself as one of the fastest-growing consumer applications in history, the dark side of its popularity has come in the form of a flurry of scammers looking to benefit from using wording and domain names that appear related to the site.

According to a recent investigation, Unit 42 researchers observed a 910% increase in monthly registrations for domains related to ChatGPT between November 2022 through early April 2023.

During the same period, they also noted a 7,818% growth of related squatting domains from DNS Security logs. What’s even more alarming was the surge to 118 daily detections of ChatGPT-related malicious URLs captured from the traffic seen in its Advanced URL Filtering system.