Input Output Group issued a security warning on September 18 advising Cardano users to avoid its YouTube channel after an apparent account takeover. According to reports from Input Output, the broadcast featured a suspected AI-manipulated livestream promoting a cryptocurrency giveaway using Project Catalyst branding and displaying a QR code directing users toward payments. IOG warned users not to click links, transfer funds, or provide personal information through material appearing on the compromised channel, with the suspicious livestream remaining online for close to two hours at the time of the warning.
The fraudulent livestream closely resembles a type of scam that Cardano has warned users about for years, as reported by Input Output. Cardano's official scam-awareness guide specifically describes ADA giveaway schemes where scammers promise to double a user's holdings after receiving an initial transfer. The Cardano Foundation documented similar YouTube giveaway scams as early as 2020, with the Foundation stating that neither it, EMURGO nor Input Output would promote giveaways requiring users to send ADA or another asset. Community reports have documented multiple fake Hoskinson streams, including one 2024 report describing an impersonation channel using what the user characterized as AI-generated Hoskinson footage to promote a giveaway.
The September 18 broadcast was presented as a Project Catalyst event, using branding associated with Cardano's community-funding program. According to Input Output, Project Catalyst is a genuine Cardano initiative that describes itself as a community funding system through which Cardano users submit, review and vote on proposals, with 2,221 proposals receiving funding across completed rounds. Input Output has historically played a direct role in Catalyst, with administration transferring from IOG to the Cardano Foundation by June, with remaining milestones from one IOG Catalyst project canceled and 2.06 million ADA returned to the treasury.
The YouTube hijack is not the first time a prominent Cardano-linked social account has been compromised, as reported by Input Output. The Cardano Foundation's X account was compromised in December 2024 and used to publish a false claim that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission had sued the organization. Hoskinson responded by identifying the posts as unauthorized, with the fake announcement unrelated to the current YouTube incident. Scam reports involving YouTube stretch back even further, with Cardano's community forum containing reports from users who lost ADA after encountering fake livestreams offering to return twice the amount sent, including one 2022 user who reported transferring 10,000 ADA after seeing a fraudulent Hoskinson-themed broadcast.
The latest video has been described as AI-manipulated, but no technical forensic report has confirmed how the Hoskinson footage was produced, according to Input Output. The distinction remains relevant because scam operators can use several methods, including edited historical footage, altered audio, synthetic voice generation or fully generated video. Cardano's current security guidance explicitly warns that improvements in artificial intelligence are making impersonation scams more sophisticated. IOG has not announced how the channel was compromised, whether multi-factor authentication was bypassed, or whether other corporate accounts were affected, with its official instruction remaining to avoid the channel until the organization issues another notice confirming normal control has been restored.
