Hackers have pulled off another stunt, and this time, McDonald’s was the unlucky target. The fast-food giant’s official Instagram account was hijacked to promote a fake meme coin called “GRIMACE” on the Solana network.
Within 30 minutes, this bogus token skyrocketed in value, hitting $25 million before crashing just as fast. The damage? A cool $700,000 swiped from unsuspecting victims.
The marketing director of McDonald’s, Guillaume Huin, wasn’t spared either. He posted about GRIMACE on X (formerly Twitter), seemingly playing along with the hack.
Both his post and the one on Instagram vanished soon after, but the damage was already done.
The scam was tightly orchestrated. The first big buyers quickly spread their tokens across several smaller wallets, all in the same block, at the same time.
This kind of activity might not pop up on Bubblemaps, but if people took the time to read the blockchain before jumping into anything, they’d perhaps be less likely to get scammed.
The attacker used 24 wallets in addition to the developer’s wallet, all of which bought into the coin precisely at 14:40:27 UTC. They didn’t waste a single second, making sure no other buyers could get in early and grab their share. Interestingly, the developer’s wallet still holds its supply and hasn’t sold anything yet.
Meme coin scams have been tearing through the crypto market in 2024. They’ve become a playground for scammers looking to cash in on the hype.
Just how bad is it? In one analysis of 1,000 tokens launched on the Base layer 2 network in a single week, 1 in 6 were outright scams.
Security vulnerabilities in these coins are off the charts, too. 91% of new meme coins on Base have at least one serious flaw that could lead to your money being snatched.
These vulnerabilities are often hidden in poorly coded smart contracts, making it easy for scammers to drain funds from anyone foolish enough to invest without doing their homework.
What’s fueling this? Hype. Plain and simple. Scammers are tapping into whatever’s trending, like the 2024 Olympics, to lure in victims. They’re throwing up fake initial coin offerings (ICOs) and using AI-generated images to make their websites look legit.
What’s left in the wake of these scams? A lot of anger and a lot of lost money. And the scammers? They’re laughing all the way to the bank, or rather, the crypto exchange.
