On May 27, the Solana-based memecoin "Sol" (CAT) suffered a crash after crypto investigator ZachXBT linked its team to the recent hack of the X account of crypto investor Gigantic Cassocked-Rebirth, known as GCR.
In an analysis shared on X, ZachXBT alleged that the CAT team "sniped their own launch," followed by a pump-and-dump scheme via the hacked account of GCRClassic.
In this context, sniping involves insiders purchasing a large amount of a project’s tokens before they are publicly available and then selling them off once trading begins, typically at a much higher price.
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According to Lookonchain, an insider created new wallets and used 1,370 SOL (approximately $230,000) to buy 632 million CAT tokens, representing 63.2% of the total supply. The insider then dumped $5 million worth of CAT and deposited parts of the profits to crypto exchanges KuCoin and MEXC.
ZachXBT built on these findings, adding that to conceal their activities, the insiders moved funds to the decentralized perpetual exchange Hyperliquid, where they opened long positions worth $2.3 million in ORDI.
Simultaneously, the hacked GCRClassic account posted promotional content for ORDI, leading to a price surge. The insiders capitalized on this by securing profits of $34,000 before GCRClassic confirmed from another account that his original X account had been hacked.
Despite this, the hackers continued their activities, posting about ETHFI and opening long positions of $1 million worth of ETHFI on Hyperliquid.
ZachXBT commented on the situation, stating:
People let a scammer farm them for 7 figs just bc they purchased an expensive username and made mysterious posts.
Following these allegations, CAT's value crashed, dropping over 76% in the last 24 hours.
This story highlights not only the growing trend where scammers are transitioning to memecoin scams but also the community's vulnerability to fraud.
In other news, Gala Games recently recovered approximately $22 million in Ether (ETH) from a hacker.
