Over the weekend, several high-profile crypto influencers and celebrities had their X accounts hacked.
These accounts were promoting various tokens, including Luna2, ORDI, and celebrity-themed memecoins.
Among those affected were crypto investor Gigantic Cassocked-Rebirth, known as GCR, as well as Rich The Kid and Caitlyn Jenner.
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On May 26, GCR's X account promoted ORDI and Luna2.0, causing spikes of 6% and 274% in their values, respectively. GCR confirmed the hack on the same day, telling his followers to ignore posts from his accounts.
Crypto analyst Miles Deutscher criticized the hacker's choice, noting that ORDI’s market cap of over $800 million limits its growth potential compared to smaller tokens:
GCR hacker fumbled the bag hard. Bro could've picked ANY believable micro cap to pump 10-20x, yet chose to shill ORDI and LUNA2 for a measly 10% wick.
Bitcoin developer Udi Wertheimer warned that GCR had informed the community about an ongoing operation targeting major X accounts. Wertheimer highlighted that many niche celebrities were launching memecoins, particularly during the long weekend when platform engineers were unavailable.
American rapper Rich The Kid had his X account with 2.3 million followers post a link inviting people to purchase the new token "RICH," created using Solana's memecoin platform, pump.fun. The token achieved a $90,000 market cap within the first two hours. Whether Rich The Kid’s account was hacked remains unconfirmed, though the post has since been deleted.
Simultaneously, Caitlyn Jenner’s X and Instagram accounts promoted a new memecoin named "JENNER," which amassed a $27.1 million market cap within hours of its launch. Videos of Jenner and her manager, Sophia Hutchins, confirmed the legitimacy of these promotional posts, however, some suggested that the videos might be deepfakes.
In one of the videos, Jenner addressed her 15.6 million Instagram followers, saying:
My account is real <...>. If you wanna get in on this, get in in a hurry, OK? Get in right now.
Interestingly, the wallet associated with Jenner’s promotion is the same as that used by adult content creator Kazumi, who promoted the ZUMI coin on May 20 and was also suspected of having been hacked.
Further connections are suggested between the RICH, DOLL, and SOULJA tokens and the JENNER promotion, although Hutchins denied Jenner’s team had any knowledge of these links when questioned in the X spaces.
This wave of account hacks highlights the growing trend of targeting influential figures in the crypto space, underlining the need for heightened security measures and caution among users.
In other news, the blockchain gaming platform Gala Games recovered approximately $22 million in Ether (ETH) from an attacker responsible for a major security breach.