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Real Madrid star Kylian Mbappé became the latest victim of a social media hack after cryptocurrency scammers infiltrated his X-account to promote a fake token.
On August 29, French soccer star Kylian Mbappé’s X-Account was controlled by crypto scammers who promoted a fake memecoin with the ticker symbol MBAPPE.
The hackers created several derogatory posts that have since been deleted. Some of them were even directed against Argentine World Cup winner Lionel Messi.
While most of these posts gave the impression that the attackers were just having a bit of fun, some aimed to promote a scam token launched on a Solana-based token deployer pump.fun.
Due to its simplicity and cost-effectiveness, numerous similar tokens have been launched on the platform since its debut, allowing users to create and trade tokens with minimal hurdles.
As of August 29, over 1.8 million tokens had been launched on the platform, generating over $103 million in revenue.
Taking advantage of the popularity and hype surrounding meme coins in general, the attackers began promoting the MBAPPE token on the footballer’s account, with one post reading “VAMOSSS!! $MBAPPE” and providing a contract address for the token.
Giving something back to your community
A post was also pinned to Mbappé’s profile claiming that the footballer would “give back” to his community by doubling all cryptocurrencies sent to the promoted contract address.
This was of course not true and this marketing ploy is a common tactic used by scammers who target the gullible.
I support cryptocurrencies and I think you should too! All cryptocurrencies sent to my address will be sent back to you doubled.
Similar claims have been made multiple times by scammers posing as Tesla CEO Elon Musk. Other celebrities have also been targeted, but Musk’s identity is one of the most commonly used by scammers in the crypto space.
Winners and losers
It’s a golden rule in the crypto sector that anything that sounds too good to be true probably isn’t. Still, some users fell for the dubious scheme, as the token quickly reached a market cap of $460 million following the attacker’s posts.
After driving up the price, the attackers quickly liquidated their holdings, causing the token’s market cap to fall below $100,000 less than an hour later.
At the time of writing, the figure was around $62,000, with the token’s price well below its peak, according to Dex Screener data.
The attackers made quick money, but one trader suffered huge losses.
According to analytics platform Lookonchain, a trader invested around $1 million worth of SOL to purchase the memecoin but was unable to liquidate his holdings, after which the value of his holdings quickly fell below $10,000.
However, one trader turned his $289 investment into a whopping $215,100, allegedly in just 8 seconds. Another trader invested $29 worth of SOL and turned it into over $125,000 in just three minutes.
Although these investments seem lucrative, the majority of investors lose their money and are often left with worthless tokens.
For example, on August 22, the Instagram account of fast-food giant McDonald’s was hacked and advertised the GRIMACE token, which is based on the company’s mascot.
After driving the price up by nearly 500x, the scammers liquidated their holdings, causing the token to crash.
In a similar scenario, wrestling star Hulk Hogan’s X-Account was hacked in June and the HULK token was used in a pump-and-dump scheme.
