The cryptocurrency market has experienced a surge in popularity, capturing the interest of a global audience.
Unfortunately, this heightened demand has also attracted unscrupulous individuals looking to exploit the situation.
In the digital era, social media scams and hacking incidents have become all too common within the cryptocurrency market.
In recent weeks, high-profile individuals, including celebrities, have fallen victim to these cybercriminals.
American actress Sydney Sweeney, known for sharing personal updates with her fans on social media, has found herself in the news for an unwelcome reason: her X account was hacked.
This is not the first time Sweeney has faced challenges on social media, with previous incidents dating back to the release of her breakout series, Euphoria.
Just yesterday, Sweeney appeared to be the victim of another crypto-related Twitter hack.
Her account was seen aggressively promoting a new Solana meme coin, which was quickly followed by the deletion of the posts.
Despite the obvious signs of fraud—part of a series of meme coin-focused Twitter hacks targeting celebrities—crypto traders astonishingly invested $13 million into the token within the span of an hour.
Sweeney's account began tweeting rapidly about a newly minted Pump.fun meme coin named SWEENEY shortly after 2:00 pm ET on Tuesday.
The tweets falsely claimed the token was an official offering from the star of Euphoria and White Lotus.
The hacked account also utilised crypto jargon, referring to Sweeney as the "Queen of Sol" and mentioning figures like Sahil Arora, the controversial celebrity meme coin marketer.
According to the tweets, Sweeney was purportedly set to discuss the token live on X Spaces, previously known as Twitter Spaces, and the account also made posts about a token burn and a giveaway.
Many users on Crypto Twitter seemed fully cognizant that the posts were likely a hoax.
Yet, today, some traders could not resist the allure.
They posted that even though they knew the token was probably created by hackers, they still believed they could profit from the confusion and excitement surrounding the new coin.
Furthermore, Sweeney experienced a crypto-related Twitter hack earlier in the year.
In January, her account was compromised by hackers who used it to endorse a sexually themed Solana meme coin.
The Hollywood actress inadvertently became the face of an obscure shitcoin over the weekend when hackers took over her X account and declared to the world:
"I have the best t**ts in crypto."
This assertion was accompanied by a meme featuring Sweeney's smile, which gained popularity after she appeared on the YouTube series Hot Ones.
Hackers seized control of her X account and exploited it to promote $MILK, a Solana-based altcoin created just days prior.
The anonymous hacker paired the viral image with a price chart adorned with a crudely drawn pair of breasts, purportedly mimicking the crypto's price movements.
The hacked post garnered at least 4.5 million views, 20,000 likes, and 3,900 reposts.
Unfortunately, the meme's fame attracted some undesirable attention.
Although fans were initially taken aback by the post, it was quickly revealed to be another cryptocurrency scam.
Accounts pushing the crypto were using Sweeney's meme in a sexualised manner to inflate its value.
One X user, going by 'sweeneyonsol,' employed a collection of fan edits and suggestive phrases centered around milk to promote the coin.
At that time, MILK boasted a 24-hour trading volume of $2.92 million.
Despite the ongoing promotion of the MILK meme coin, Sweeney's official X account has since removed the post.
Currently, MILK is trading at $0.0001069 with a market cap exceeding $850,000.
In a pattern characteristic of many trending meme coins, the value of SWEENEY surged by over 2,500% within a mere 15 minutes, only to plummet back toward zero over the subsequent hour post its launch.
During this brief interval, the token astonishingly recorded a trading volume of $13.6 million.
This surge occurred just two hours after its 2 July debut.
The price of SWEENEY fell by nearly 90% in slightly over an hour, starting at 6:15 pm UTC.
Moreover, DEX Screener data indicates that its market capitalisation currently stands at $476,000, a decrease from its peak of $3.85 million.
Within an hour, Sweeney seemed to regain control of her X account, promptly removing all mentions of the token.
As of yet, she has not issued a public statement concerning the hack.
The situation took an even more intriguing turn when the creators of the Sweeney token's Telegram account openly confessed to hacking her account and further asserted their responsibility for hacking other celebrities, including 50 Cent and Hulk Hogan.
In their Telegram channel, they boasted of their intention to hack another celebrity, one even "more popular" than Sweeney.
They suggested that savvy crypto traders could participate in the token's presale by sending 10 SOL (valued at approximately $1460 at the time of writing) to an anonymous Solana wallet, if they were willing to trust the offer.
However, it seems that faith in profiting from a crypto scam has its limits.
As of this posting, no one has accepted the hackers' proposal.
Many Crypto Twitter users appeared to be fully aware that the messages were likely fraudulent.
A series of similar incidents involving celebrities like 50 Cent and Hulk Hogan have occurred in recent weeks, consistently leading to the emergence of dubious, Pump.fun-generated Solana meme coins.
More recently, the renowned heavy metal band Metallica has also become entangled in this trend.
With the hacker's ominous threat to target a celebrity even more prominent than Sweeney, the specter of this menace looms large over high-profile individuals.
While it is not for me to predict who might be next, the possibility invites speculation, as our perceptions of who constitutes a "bigger target" may vary.
Which unlucky star, pun intended, will find themselves on the chopping board?
In this article, I propose adding a liquidity or milestone-based dimension to enhance and improve upon the existing token vesting schedule models we most commonly observe today.
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