Binance’s new NFT platform accused of copying Korean startup’s Chatcasso

Binance has been accused of copying a South Korean startup’s ideas and design of its artificial intelligence (AI)-powered non-fungible token (NFT) platform after the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange by trade volume unveiled Bicasso, its new NFT art program on Thursday.

Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao on Thursday announced the launch of the beta version of its AI-backed NFT generator Bicasso in a Twitter feed, touting it as a new generative AI-powered NFT platform that allows creative images to be automatically transformed into NFTs.

Immediately after the announcement, Korean startup Hunt Town accused Bicasso of copying the operation and interface designs and name of its art NFT wizard Chatcasso, which won first place at BNB Chain’s first hackathon in Korea, which was held in Seoul in December last year.

BNB Chain was launched by Binance in 2019 as a distributed blockchain network where developers can build decentralized applications (DApps). This is the world’s largest smart-contract blockchain in terms of transaction volume and daily active users.

“Binance has officially launched its NFT art program that offers the exact same tools of our program developed for Binance’s hackathon (last year) simply after changing the first part of our platform’s name,” Steemhunt said in its Twitter post. “This has happened without discussion with us, and we are sure that our ideas have been stolen given the similarities of its features and name.”

CHATCASSO VS BICASSO

Steemhunt is the core team of Hunt Town, a Web3 builder guild set up to expand Web3 culture and products focusing on the development of DApps. The team built Chatcasso, which won first place in the "Lifestyle in Web3 track" session in BNB Chain's first hackathon in South Korea late last year.

Chatcasso is an AI-powered NFT wizard that allows its users to create their own NFT contracts, artwork and on-chain broadcasting.  

Bicasso is promoted by Binance as its new generative AI-powered NFT platform allowing its users to turn their creative works into NFTs with descriptive prompts that AI uses to create NFTs in combination with pictures.

Steemhunt said it has been preparing the official launch of Chatcasso after adding other new services. Binance also wooed developers to join its first Korean hackathon last year with its possible investment pledges for the winning teams.  

“We interviewed with Binance officials about our platform in detail after we won the BNB Chain Hackathon, which was also announced in the official blog,” said an unnamed official from Steemhunt. “It (Binance) has launched the app that is so resemblant of ours after our win at the hackathon, suggesting piracy.”

But given that Chatcasso was developed for the hackathon held only for three days, and an idea can’t be patented, the Korean startup cannot wage a legal battle against Binance.

Binance has not yet responded to Steemhunt’s accusation that Bicasso is a copy of Chatcasso.

Piracy accusations between startups and large corporations have been frequent hot-button issues.

Lotte Healthcare Co. under Korea’s fifth largest conglomerate Lotte Group has been embroiled in a copycat controversy with a local healthcare startup, Algocare, over an AI-controlled supplement dispenser.

Korea’s top mobile carrier KT Corp.’s AI Voice Studio was also accused of stealing ideas from Typecast, an AI voice generator that allows users to create videos through text and speech, when it was released last year. Korean startup Neosapience Inc. was the developer of Typecast.

Write to Da Eun Choi at max@hankyung.com

Sookyung Seo edited this article.