Once a labor-intensive operation built on stolen photos and generic scripts, this billion-dollar fraud—where victims are groomed for months before being tricked into investing cryptocurrency on a fake platform—is now being optimized by cutting-edge, black-market AI.

The legend of the Potemkin village has survived for centuries not because of its historical accuracy, but because of its irresistible symbolism.Grigory Potemkin, eager to impress Empress Catherine the Great during her tour of Crimea, allegedly constructed entire fake villages—freshly painted facades, staged crowds, overflowing storehouses—that shimmered with prosperity from afar but dissolved into emptiness on closer inspection.

it’s not only AI or digital tools that are inherently dangerous. It’s us. Humans

"I am fundamentally an optimist.