Celebrity crypto scams are climbing recently, as the trend is in a frenzy.
Metallica’s X account was hacked late Tuesday and used to promote a Solana meme coin.
The rise of “celebrity coins” has brought a peculiar trend to the crypto market, with various well-known personalities launching their tokens. Celebrities such as Iggy Azalea, and Rich The Kid have joined this movement. However, this trend has also sparked alarms about celebrity-themed crypto scams.
Recently, even the Twitter account of the renowned heavy metal band Metallica fell victim to such a scam. Hackers gained control of the account and used it to promote a meme coin named METAL, linked to Solana.
The fraudulent tweets promoting the METAL token deleted swiftly within 90 minutes, including posts in Twitter Spaces and replies to users. Despite this, the exploited METAL token managed to accumulate over $10 million in trading volume through more than 30,000 transactions. At its peak, the token surged to $0.003 before plummeting, leaving its market cap at a mere $65K currently.
Posts from Metallica’s compromised account falsely implicated MoonPay, a fintech firm, which MoonPay’s president Keith Grossman promptly denied in a statement, stating, “MoonPay does not support METAL.” Subsequently, MoonPay emphasized on its platform, “If someone offers you a METAL token, they’re not the master of puppets — they’re the master of scams!”
Celebrity Token Scams Surge Amid Craze
The Celebrity Crypto Craze continues to captivate, with actors, musicians, politicians, and athletes diving into various crypto ventures. The celebrity tokens can either be directly endorsed by the celebrities themselves or launched without their involvement. That often leverages meme culture to resonate with the token’s community.
However, many celebrities have faced legal challenges for promoting crypto projects that turned out to be fraudulent. Notable figures such as Kim Kardashian, Floyd Mayweather, and Paul Pierce were embroiled in lawsuits earlier this year.
Recently, tokens associated with Donald Trump’s son Barron and the DJT meme coin on Solana made waves in the crypto space. Meanwhile, American celebrity Caitlyn Jenner launched the JENNER meme coin and Singer Jason Derulo has also joined the fray with JASON as the latest celebrity token on Solana.
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