- Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev’s X account was hacked to advertise pretend VLAD tokens.
- The worth of the pretend meme coin briefly soared, netting the hackers about $1.3 million.
- Since its founding on July 1st, Robinhood Chain at the moment has greater than $750 million in property.
Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev’s X account was compromised on Thursday and was briefly used to advertise a pretend meme coin referred to as Vladhood (VLAD). The fraudulent publish described the token because the “official mascot of the Robinhood Chain,” claimed it might be featured on the Robinhood app, and included a token contract tackle for merchants.
The publish reached greater than 175,000 views inside 20 minutes earlier than customers reported it as a rip-off. Robinhood rapidly deleted the publish and confirmed that Tenev’s account had been hacked.
“The X account of our CEO Vlad Tenev was compromised and posted a pretend promotion for meme cash,” Robinhood’s communication account wrote about X. The corporate added that it labored with X to revive entry and that the account has since been secured.
Merchants rushed into the token earlier than it collapsed
The hacked posts emerged at a time when the Robinhood chain was ramping up hypothesis in meme cash. On-chain exercise exhibits that merchants purchased VLAD inside minutes of believing the token acquired official backing from Robinhood’s CEO.
Blockchain information reveals that round 70% of the token provide was managed by early wallets. The token’s market cap rapidly rose from $4 million to $10 million earlier than collapsing.
On-chain screens reported that roughly 650 ETH (value roughly $1.2 million to $1.3 million) was cashed out from wallets linked to the scheme. The liquidity of the tokens was by no means locked or burned, permitting charges to proceed flowing to the wallets managing the liquidity swimming pools.
After the drop, 1000’s of retail buyers have been left holding the tokens. Robinhood Chain’s blockchain explorer then labeled the contract tackle as fraudulent, however blockchain explorer marked the token as excessive threat inside an hour.
One blockchain researcher claimed that the suspected attacker spent simply $126.81 to buy 47.2 million VLAD tokens, which subsequently confirmed an estimated unrealized acquire of roughly $159,000 on the place.
Speedy development of Robinhood chain attracts speculators
The incident occurred lower than a month after Robinhood launched its Ethereum Layer-2 community constructed utilizing the Arbitrum Orbit stack on July 1st.
The community was launched to help tokenized shares and different real-world property. Nonetheless, meme cash have been the mainstream in early actions.
In line with Arbitrum, Robinhood Chain has already amassed greater than $750 million in property throughout stablecoins, tokenized shares, and meme cash. The community had greater than 300,000 each day energetic addresses and processed roughly 10 million transactions per day.
This fast development has led to a mass issuance of latest tokens, with many trying to capitalize on the chain’s reputation. Earlier this month, Tenev himself acknowledged this development, saying that whereas the Robinhood chain was constructed for real-world property, it “works completely for memes as effectively.”
Newest hack follows acquainted cryptocurrency rip-off sample
This assault follows a widely known technique used throughout earlier cryptocurrency market cycles. Hackers compromise verified social media accounts and use the credibility of the accounts to advertise the tokens, attracting patrons for concern of lacking out, and promoting their holdings earlier than the worth collapses.
Well-known X accounts owned by celebrities resembling Sidney Sweeney, Doja Cat, and 50 Cent have been equally compromised through the 2024 meme coin growth for the aim of selling pretend tokens.
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