Real Madrid’s Kylian Mbappe is the latest victim after scammers targeted his X social media account in order to spread a fake cryptocurrency.
Crypto scammers controlled the X account of French footballer Kylian Mbappe on August 29. They promoted a fake memcoin called MBAPPE.
Hackers created several offensive posts that have been removed. Some of them were directed at Argentinian World Cup champion Lionel Messi.
Some of the posts appeared to be a joke, but others were meant to promote a fake token that was launched by a token deploier based in Solana.
Since its launch, the platform has been used to launch many similar tokens. Its simplicity and low cost have allowed users to easily create and exchange tokens.
By August 29, more than 1.8 million coins had been issued on the platform. This generated over $103 millions in revenue.
The attackers, aiming to capitalize on the buzz and popularity of meme coins, started promoting MBAPPE on the account of the footballer, one posting stating “VAMOSSS!! The attackers posted “$MBAPPE”, along with the contract address of the token.
Giving back to the community
Mbappe also had a post on his profile claiming that he was giving back to his community. This was done by double the amount of crypto that is sent to the address being advertised.
This was obviously not the case, but it is common practice among fraudsters to use this marketing strategy.
Crypto is something I am passionate about and you should be too. You will receive double the amount of crypto you sent me.
Scammers posing as Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla Motors have made similar claims on numerous occasions. Musk has been used as a persona by crypto scammers more than any other celebrity.
There are winners and losers
The crypto industry has a rule that says anything that sounds too good to true is probably not. However, some users fell for this dubious scam, and the token’s market cap quickly reached $460 million following the attackers’ posts.
After inflating the price of the token, attackers quickly liquidated their stock, and the market capitalization fell below $100,000 less than one hour later.
The price per token was significantly lower than the high according to Dex Screener when this report was written.
One trader was a big loser.
Lookonchain’s analytics show that a trader bought the memecoin for $1,000,000 worth of SOL but was unable to liquidate it in time. The value of his holdings dropped below $10,000.
One trader, however, turned their $289 investment into a staggering $215.1k in only 8 seconds. One trader turned $29 of SOL into $125,000 within three minutes.
These investments may seem profitable, but the vast majority of investors end up with nothing more than worthless tokens.
On Aug. 22, the Instagram account of fast-food giant McDonald’s was hacked and a GRIMACE token, based off the company’s mascot was promoted.
Scammers, after pushing up the price almost 500 times, liquidated all their tokens and crashed the token.
A similar scheme was carried out in June on the X account of wrestling superstar Hulk Hogan, where the HULK token was used as part of a pump and dump.
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