BNB Chain Hackathon Winner Accuses Binance
Binance, the cryptocurrency exchange, has been accused of “blatantly” copying the winner of the BNB Chain hackathon after releasing Bicasso, an AI-based NFT creation tool. Binance is accused of stealing a Chatcasso tool just two months after awarding them first place in a BNB Chain hackathon held in Seoul from December 17-19, 2022.
Binance CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao announced the launch of Bicasso, an AI product that can “turn your creative visions into NFTs with AI” on March 1. However, community member “ggoma” believes Binance stole and misrepresented the Chatcasso project.
Binance, on the other hand, dismissed the plagiarism allegations. A Binance spokesperson said Bicasso is an experimental project built by a small team at Binance as a test, and that NFTs and AI are common concepts worked on by many industry players.
Chatcasso won the first prize in the BNB Chain hackathon for creating an AI-powered tool for creating NFTs, receiving $5,000 in Binance USD. However, ggoma was shocked to see Binance launch a similar platform within two months, stating:
“A big company like Binance copying everything down to the name? It’s not only unethical, but it’s also confusing for users. The names are so similar that it’s hard to tell them apart.”
In addition, ggoma shared screenshots of the two projects to showcase the similarities between the user interface and capabilities.
Binance maintains that the similarities do not imply theft of ideas. The exchange’s spokesperson told: “Despite the similarities, after conducting an internal review, we’re confident that Bicasso was designed and developed independently more than two weeks before the BNB hackathon.”
Binance’s Bicasso quickly became popular among NFT investors, with the AI-powered NFT generator producing 10,000 mints in 2.5 hours.
CZ recently warned investors that a photoshopped image containing false information was circulating on WeChat, China’s social media platform.
CZ also emphasised the importance of dismissing fear, uncertainty, and doubt, advising investors to disregard false allegations that surface from time to time.
(With inputs from Shikha Singh)
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