Kylian Mbappé’s social media was hacked to promote a fake crypto token, leading to large losses for some investors but profits for experienced traders.
French football player Kylian Mbappé is the latest celebrity to have his X account hacked to promote a pump-and-dump scam. The bad actor took advantage of his account to launch and promote a fake token called $MBAPPE, which rapidly gained a market cap of tens of millions.
The incident caused a crypto investor to lose over $1 million in just one hour after falling victim to the pump-and-dump scam involving the fake $MBAPPE token.
Blockchain analytics firm Lookonchain revealed that the investor, who was naive to the scam, created a new wallet and invested 7,156 Solana (SOL), which was about $1.03 million, into the $MBAPPE token in one transaction. However, the value of the investment dropped to just $9,200, which is about a 99% loss.
Someone created a new wallet and spent 7,156 $SOL($1.03M) to buy a #MEMEcoin named $MBAPPE in a single transaction, which is now only worth $9.2K.
This person lost more than $1M in just 1 hour!😱https://t.co/IKsUN14km1 pic.twitter.com/kTF6SQCKT4
— Lookonchain (@lookonchain) August 29, 2024
The dubious $MBAPPE token was created using the Solana-based meme coin platform Pump.fun. This platform is known for being easy to use, letting people create and launch their meme coins with little effort.
Following the post on Mbappé ‘s hacked X account, the price of the $MBAPPE token rose quickly, leading to a pump-and-dump situation. The token shot up in just a few minutes, but it fell just as fast, leaving unaware investors with big losses.
While the exact details of the scam’s origins are unclear, some speculated whether the posts resulted from a hack or if Mbappé was involved in promoting the token. The posts have since been removed from his account.
Even though many lost money to the ugly incident, some people were still able to profit from the scam. Wu Blockchain revealed that an investor put in just 2 SOL, which is about $286, in the token and sold it at a high point. This investor made a profit of around 1,398 SOL, which is about $200,000.
Lookonchain also revealed that a crypto trader spent just 0.2 SOL to buy the $MBAPPE token and sold it three minutes later for 866.14 SOL, about $125,160 — a 4,330x return.
This trader reportedly has vast experience, having worked with 251 meme coins in the last month, and had a win rate of 35.46% and made a total profit of $126,700
Ongoing Exploitation of Celebrities’ Identities for Crypto Scams
Scammers have previously exploited Mbappé’s image to promote fraudulent schemes. Bad actors used his identity in 2019 and 2020 in an online advert to promote crypto coins with false profit for a quick profit. This resulted in the newly signed Madrid player taking legal action against the unauthorized use of his identity.
Mbappé’s incident follows the recent hijacking of McDonald’s Instagram handle by hackers. The fast food company’s IG page was used to promote a dubious meme coin called Grimace (GRIMACE30045-USD). This led to the token’s market cap spiking to $20 million before dropping $1 million as the bad actors withdrew their funds.
The fraudsters revealed on McDonald’s Instagram that they were able to secure $700,000. To make the scam look more legit, the hacker took over McDonald’s senior marketing director’s X account and even claimed that McDonald’s would follow Grimace holders.
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