'Most Incompetent' Hacker of the Year Spends Hundreds of Thousands of Dollars to Promote Memecoin $HACKED, Only Scammed $8,000

On Wednesday, a number of prominent Twitter (X) accounts were hijacked by hackers to promote a meme coin, $HACKED, built on the Solana blockchain.

Among the notable accounts affected were Lenovo’s India division, director Oliver Stone, Yahoo News UK, and soccer star Neymar Jr.

The tweets encouraged users to invest in the token with promises of profit through a scheme to pump its value.

Minimal Gains for Hackers

Despite the scale of the attack, the financial impact of the scam was minimal. Crypto investigator ZachXBT revealed that the token only managed to generate around $278,000 in trading volume before losing 96% of its value within an hour. Hackers are believed to have made away with just $8,000, a disappointing outcome considering the high-profile nature of the accounts involved.

The $HACKED token, like many meme coins on Solana, saw an initial burst of activity but quickly collapsed. By the end of the day, the token had a market cap of just $5,700.

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Rise of Meme Coins on Solana

Solana, the blockchain on which $HACKED was built, has become a popular platform for creating meme coins due to its accessibility and low costs. The recent launch of platforms like Pump.fun in early 2024 has made it easier than ever for users to create their own tokens without needing technical expertise.

However, the ease of creating these tokens has also led to a surge in scam-related activity. Meme coins, typically created around internet jokes or celebrities, are highly volatile and often exploited by hackers.

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A Long History of Crypto Scams on Twitter

This attack is not an isolated event. Over the years, Twitter has become a common platform for crypto scams, with hackers frequently targeting high-profile accounts. In 2020, a massive hack compromised the accounts of celebrities and brands, including former President Barack Obama, Apple, Uber, and Kanye West, in a Bitcoin scam.

Despite these frequent attacks, the minimal gains in this case underscore the limitations of such schemes when users are increasingly cautious about suspicious cryptocurrency promotions.

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