ZachXBT Connects Social Media Hacks to $3.5M Celebrity Meme Coin Scam

Distinguished blockchain detective ZachXBT has uncovered a hacking spree focusing on fashionable accounts on X and Instagram, which fueled a wave of pump-and-dump schemes linked to meme cash launched on Pump.enjoyable.

Celebrities comparable to musicians Usher and Wiz Khalifa, actor Dean Norris, in addition to a Japanese public aquarium fell sufferer to those assaults.

Hacks Concentrating on Celebrities, Huge Manufacturers

In an in depth thread on X, ZachXBT revealed that social media account takeovers (ATOs) began in August 2024. Every incident adopted an identical sample: first, accounts have been breached; then bogus tokens have been promoted; and at last, the proceeds from the token gross sales have been moved to nameless wallets.

Many of the assaults ZachXBT documented have been related, with funds created from one operation used to deploy and snipe one other pretend meme coin that was shilled on a compromised social account.

International quick meals large McDonald’s was among the many first casualties, with its Instagram account hacked and used to promote the GRIMACE token. That specific operation netted the unhealthy actors about $690,000, which was rapidly consolidated into two wallets.

Quickly after, the criminals compromised Dean Norris’s X account and used it to advertise SCHRADER. The meme coin was a nod to fashionable tradition, because it was named after a personality the actor performed within the hit TV present “Breaking Dangerous.”

Linked Operations

Eight-time Grammy Awards winner Usher’s account was used to shill the USHER coin, with 110 SOL used to snipe it coming from the identical handle that acquired the funds reaped from the McDonald’s assault.

The cash created from the USHER rip-off, about 4868 SOL, was then deposited right into a pockets that was later related to subsequent assaults on the Enoshima Aquarium and Fact Terminal creator Andy Ayrey’s social accounts.

The assault on Ayrey’s account was significantly brazen. The exploiters promoted six totally different meme cash over a number of days, together with RNA, TRUTH, INFINITY, and WOAH. They reportedly made greater than $2.1 million from these tokens and deposited $750,000 of that quantity right into a on line casino handle.

The final recorded incident was on November 3, when Wiz Khalifa’s X account was compromised and used to advertise two meme cash, WIZ and WIZZLE. ZachXBT straight linked the Wiz Khalifa ATO to the Ayrey incident and one other rip-off that took over the Instagram account of the proprietor of Kabosu, the well-known Shiba Inu that impressed the Dogecoin branding and used it to advertise the pretend KAI token.

In complete, unsuspecting traders reportedly misplaced not less than $3.5 million, with social media platforms struggling to comprise the harm. ZachXBT has promised to disclose the identities of these behind the compromises later in the present day.