Kylian Mbappé’s X account hack causes $1M loss for Solana trader

Real Madrid star Kylian Mbappé became the latest victim of a social media hack after cryptocurrency scammers infiltrated his X account to promote a fake token.

On August 29, French football star Kylian Mbappé’s X account was in control of crypto scammers who promoted a fake memecoin with the ticker MBAPPE.

The hackers created several derogatory posts, which have now been deleted, some of which were even targeted towards Argentinian World Cup winner Lionel Messi.

While most of these posts seemed like the attackers were having a bit of fun, some were aimed at promoting a scam token launched on a Solana-based token deployer pump.fun. 

The platform has seen numerous similar tokens being launched since its debut due to its simplicity and cost-effectiveness, allowing users to create and trade tokens with minimal barriers.

As of August 29, over 1.8 million tokens had been launched on the platform, generating over $103 million in revenue.

Cashing in on the popularity and the hype around meme coins in general, the attackers started promoting the MBAPPE token on the footballer’s account, with one post stating, “VAMOSSS!! $MBAPPE” along with a contract address for the token. 

‘Giving back’ to his community

A post was also pinned on Mbappé’s profile that claimed the footballer was “giving back” to his community by doubling any crypto sent to the contract address that was being promoted.

Of course, this was not true, and the marketing scheme is a common tactic amongst fraudsters who prey on the gullible.

I support crypto and I believe you should too! All crypto sent to my address will be sent back to you doubled.

Similar claims have been made on several occasions by scammers masquerading as Tesla CEO Elon Musk. Other celebrities have also been targeted, but Musk’s persona is one of the most used by scammers in the crypto space.

Winners and losers

It’s a golden rule in the crypto sector that anything that seems too good to be true likely isn’t; however, some users still fell for the dubious scheme, as the token quickly reached a market capitalization of $460 million after the attacker’s posts.

Having inflated the price, the attackers swiftly liquidated their holdings, pushing the token’s market cap below the $100,000 mark less than an hour later.

When writing this report, the number was hanging around $62,000, with the price of the token significantly below its high per Dex Screener data.

The attackers made a quick buck, but one trader lost big.

According to the analytics platform Lookonchain, one trader invested roughly $1 million worth of SOL in buying the memecoin but couldn’t liquidate his holdings time, with the valuation of the holdings quickly dropping below $10,000.  

However, one trader flipped their investment of $289 to a whopping $215.1k, reportedly in just 8 seconds. Another trader invested $29 worth of SOL and turned it into over $125,000 in just three minutes.

While these investments seem lucrative, the majority of investors lose their money and are often left with worthless tokens. 

For instance, on Aug. 22, fast food giant McDonald’s Instagram account was hacked, and the GRIMACE token, based on the company’s mascot, was promoted.

After pushing the price by almost 500x, the scammers liquidated their holdings, crashing the token.

In a similar scenario, wrestling star Hulk Hogan’s X account was breached in June, and the HULK token was used in a pump-and-dump scheme.

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