Author: zachxbt, Chain Detective
Original translation: zhouzhou, BlockBeats
Editor's note: This article analyzes how hacker Serpent controlled 9 accounts including McDonald's and Kabosu on X and Instagram, launched a Meme coin scam, stole about $3.5 million, and used it for casino gambling. Serpent was a professional player (Fortnite) and was terminated for cheating. In 2022, the NFT project DAPE he co-founded suffered a rug pull, and the ERROR project launched in 2024 also suffered a rug pull and was eventually banned by X.
The following is the original content (for easier reading and understanding, the original content has been reorganized):
Over the past few months, I have been following a series of related breaches involving McDonalds, Usher, the owner of Kabosu, Andy Ayrey, Wiz Khalifa, SPX 6900, and others, which resulted in the theft of approximately $3.5 million via the release of Pump Funmeme coins.
On August 21, 2024, McDonald’s Instagram account was hacked and a post promoting the bundled meme coin GRIMACE was published, and then the hacker began to spoof. From this pump and dump, more than $690,000 was transferred to two wallets.
4RiNhTwBxYWgb4MSCtt9vXgVk2yuPhoQR3DR9pMVPU1W
2vjnmxwTYNJvTmFhtqxZkPiuCHkaKZK5rcxTLuoC2dPB
On September 3, 2024, the McDonald’s attackers transferred 101.5 SOL to two addresses that deployed and sniped SCHRADER after actor Dean Norris’s X account was hacked.
4s9Uz9pTBXcEaEtcjs8eg98r2TVte3rq3JUm3rVTFMudfewGbNKmqNyYs9bSAMDUaTbTcuA1v39sWr7GRqkDJ6EM
1gxo1pjTqjbee7rHW4cGvuNffX1qP4F8fP17g6SSC5EYbQrnktDrKSFB1uh4ju7PxQjprWFin37WUsAe225b9c6
On September 6, 2024, the proceeds from the McDonald’s APT (account hijacking) were transferred to a casino deposit address.
CuNzegC9DE4CxCMn31ZcYLvtDaYsLD9RX8eRvmtZQrnB
By performing a time analysis, it is possible to find subsequent withdrawals that were made shortly after a deposit.
B2fwZt5nTbdrnJ2CPsgrYMPuB4UnhN82EAM34dXDARLh
On September 12, 2024, B2fw transferred 110 SOL to two addresses that participated in the meme coin rush promoted in the Usher leak.
4FUrwoHz1fuUf4eR6YEAYSG9d9rN5fzbowMXtbjwJAhTDtHXjpnTb1sz6aeF6T79JaiMFyT2xX2EuTxqT5UhFfKD
427zpHF1WWgYgKxcSiUzwXLg2UqsF6xq7K13PU3mh6Wr99mipiVA6GcDTwi7EY93RJeRuEUDZAK9BnoMeki7sU6C
B2fw then transferred 4868 SOL to the casino deposit address ECb5v. There are other APT (account hijacking) incidents directly related to Ecb5v, including the Andy Ayrey and Enoshima Aquarium leaks.
Ecb5vsomUG3MEnLCgiFvkdnnqpggTEXtN17z62iDPuU3
On October 15, 2024, the Enoshima Aquarium account X was hacked and promoted a bundled meme coin. On the same day, 84 SOL obtained from the scam was transferred to ECb5v.
5PDjh74JTLMPW4dXr6fKm3Yue2j3vhbxLSK5dPbQ3oEGK4axE7fua1ngBMas4xpRY6dBr92Ccps7b1WwcLdnxXWL
On October 29, 2024, Andy Ayrey's (founder of Truth Terminal) X account was hacked, which lasted for several days and promoted 6 meme coin scams. 3GVUs was one of the addresses that participated in the rush to buy tokens.
3GVUs2gNr161ohqnVXjUeoNQmf3cELxKSiPrxyQu6pjd
On October 30, 2024, 3GVUs transferred 169 SOL to Ecb5vs.
67nwsLLE3aGua4VeH8p6qHc3SL3rpxi9omMxRnfpeyZVsBpZawnUHo4Pt4tdT5Vxny2uRNRDH3vSZ1fzvKkNCML4
Of the $2.178 million received from the Andy Ayrey ATO, $750,000 was deposited into the casino deposit address Apc3e.
Apc3eA9ScQksuZvfURQswZwVkusEYRaqeKEv4eXXbRZm
0.1 SOL from the Kabosu ATO funded an address participating in the Andy Ayrey ATO.
On October 17, 2024, the Instagram account of Kabosu’s owner was hacked and a meme coin scam was promoted.
On the same day, 191 SOL from the scam was transferred to the casino deposit address:
6kwZ7tz8Xs7jaVqVJXZSRrZ2FtS2PPChEVuLXKrmMgCm
Kabosu and Andy Ayrey’s APT (account hijacking) incidents are directly related to Wiz Khalifa’s APT incident.
On November 3, 2023, the attacker published a wallet address on Wiz Khalifa’s account. 29 SOL was transferred to 6kwZ7, just like what happened in the Kabosu ATO.
NFCs23ddXQc9Zff2VJotEn2zaSAh4tvw6U6kb7fdXovZ8YPQgJMGQkXmtWiTutqnoBf6wR2khaKvFpyEKNhHfjJ
WIZ deployers were funded from the Andy Ayrey ATO. Other addresses participating in the rush transferred all proceeds from instant redemptions to the casino deposit address 0x83ee.
0x83ee6b53a0ae76b71bed0c32721a451776dbdb3a
On October 16, 2024, 0x83ee received 0.54 ETH from the scam’s deployer, and SPX 6900 was hacked on October 11, 2024.
On Solana, another scam promoted by a hacked SPX 6900 account was funded by the Ken Carson attackers.
To further prove the relationship between Kabosu owners, SPX 6900, Ken Carson, and the Enoshima ATO, each meme coin deployer provided funds to the previous deployer address through instant redemption of funds in an attempt to obscure the source of funds.
Investigating how threat actor Serpent went from being a professional Fortnite player to helping steal $3.5M via a memecoin scam leaked from 9+ accounts on X and IG, and using the proceeds for online casino gambling.
Serpent (SerpentAU) is a former professional Fortnite player from Australia who was released by the esports organization "Overtime" after being found to have been involved in cheating in June 2020. He then co-founded the NFT project DAPE in March 2022 and later rug pulling.
In March 2024, Serpent launched another project called ERROR, but the project performed a rug pull, which led to him being banned from the X platform.
Deployer Address:
0x8233873ee35547097ccb9098adbab955d7120ee8
On October 23, 2024, ERROR deployers transferred a total of 29 ETH to two instant exchanges.
By performing a timing analysis, it can be seen that these funds were received into Solana and transferred to the same casino deposit address.
Ecb5vsomUG3MEnLCgiFvkdnnqpggTEXtN17z62iDPuU3
Multiple ATOs (aggressive transaction activities) directly connected to the deposit address Ecb5vs include: McDonald's, Usher, Andy Ayrey, Dean Norris and Enoshima Aquarium. (See the beginning of the section for detailed tracking)
Serpent gambles millions of dollars a month on Roobet, Stake, BC Game, and Shuffle, and often shares his screen with friends on Discord.
I obtained recordings of him gambling, which accidentally revealed multiple deposit and withdrawal addresses.
Discord ID：1269557350486904945
In a screen share from November 1, 2024, Serpent shared a $100K deposit and $200K withdrawal to the following addresses.
When mapping the transactions, it was found that the address had a high exposure to addresses associated with McDonald’s, Andy Ayrey, and Usher ATO.
0xb8c9c8a5756a7992df65f949b7c1423eeb435aa5
In the Andy Ayrey security breach, another threat actor was involved in snatching these scam projects, using the alias “Dex” (from Massachusetts, USA).
He started panicking after I mentioned him in my Telegram channel last week and made up a story about being blackmailed, claiming he lost $700K.
Funds associated with these security breaches are currently held at the following addresses:
0xeb60a5242c1c97eb54195ec83de43bb26813c0d1
0x2355ac2929bb7051814de3c48670fccbb515d8be
4jjWZ8RaXZBqntnhu2JFidXEQWXgfKRbJQZdTHrdaqbv
Today after publishing part 1 of my investigation, Serpent started deleting all of his posts on the new X account. I suspect there are some related ATOs (aggressive transaction activity) that I have not yet been able to track directly on-chain. I have shared a detailed investigative report on one of the accounts that was compromised with a victim I am working with.
