Yat Siu, co-founder and executive chairman of Animoca Brands, is said to have had his X account hacked to promote a fake Token named ANIMOCA.
Animoca Brands' official X account has confirmed the incident and urged investors to stop interacting with Yat Siu's account.
Fake ANIMOCA Token Soars 500% in Just 5 Minutes.
According to an initial investigation by Kenta, the hacker successfully compromised Yat Siu's official X account and posted about Animoca Brands releasing an official Token under his name. It appears that the hacker had created this Token earlier on the pump.fun platform.
The price of the fake ANIMOCA Token skyrocketed 500% in just five minutes. However, the price fell back after the hacker deleted the post.
Price volatility of the fake ANIMOCA Token. Source: pump.fun.
Furthermore, Yat Siu used a secondary account to announce and confirm the incident. He stated that the attacker had bypassed two-factor authentication (2FA) security, and he reported the issue to X's support team. Yat Siu also shared that he would express his views and highlight the security weaknesses of X in this incident.
"Unfortunately, Yat Siu's social network account has been compromised. There is no official Token or NFT release from Animoca Brands. The launch of the Token on Solana mentioned in the post is an action by the hacker. Please DO NOT interact with this account and always remain vigilant," Animoca Brands stated.
Animoca Brands is one of the most active Web3 investors, with a portfolio of over 540 investments, including Yuga Labs, Axie Infinity, Polygon, ConsenSys, Magic Eden, OpenSea, Dapper Labs, Yield Guild Games, and many others.
Additionally, in October, scammers stole $100,000 with a fake CLAUDE Token after attacking Anthropic's X account. They also attacked Drake's X account to promote a fake Meme Coin named Anita.
The main attack vectors for Cryptocurrency hacks from 2022 to 2024. Source: Cyvers.
According to Cyvers' annual report, access control vulnerabilities remain the primary cause of losses in the Cryptocurrency sector. Cyvers data shows that these vulnerabilities caused losses of over $1.9 billion in 2024.