CZ Receives Fake ‘Grok’ Tokens as Elon Musk-Inspired Scams Resurface

The surge in popularity of Elon Musk’s AI chatbot Grok has triggered a new wave of crypto scams, with fraudsters launching fake GROK tokens and sophisticated phishing schemes to prey on unsuspecting investors.

Despite Grok AI having no official cryptocurrency—and no plans to launch one—malicious actors continue to exploit the brand’s credibility, putting the crypto community on high alert.

On April 21, blockchain security firm PeckShield reports that the Former Binance CEO Changpeng "CZ" Zhao was a recipient of 90 million counterfeit GROK tokens.

PeckShield stated that these tokens are most likely a scam, since the deployer also distributed the same fake coins to many other addresses.

The fake GROK token first emerged in 2023, when a scammer deployed an ERC 20 Grok Token on Ethereum. Later, the deployer suddenly sold 0.5% of the total supply, triggering a massive price drop of 90% according to blockchain data visualization platform Bubblemaps.

The GROK token scam is the latest attempt by scammers in a series of AI-driven crypto frauds. Scammers often impersonate and leverage on well known brands, such as Google, Facebook, Apple and more. Sometimes, scammers also make use of celebrities like Elon Musk to cultivate a sense of trust with victims.

According to a study by email security provider Mailsuite, Meta was the most mimicked brand in phishing reports filed throughout 2024 while Coinbase was the most impersonated brand by scammers in the crypto industry. But Meta was targeted by over 25 times as many scammers as the cryptocurrency exchange.

There also has been an increase in Elon Musk related scams and "tokens" as scammers continue vying for investor's crypto holdings. Just last week, a fake announcement that claiming to be an official AI Elon Musk stream promised viewers that it would be doing a $20,000 worth of crypto giveaway.

The trend isn’t limited to Ethereum; similar Grok-themed memecoins have appeared on the BNB Smart Chain and Solana, further amplifying the risk of market manipulation and investor losses.