Metallica falls victim to crypto scam, X account hacked

• Solana’s popularity among celebrities leads to both endorsements and hacking risks.
• Despite controversies, Solana shows bullish trends. 

Solana [SOL] is making waves as the go-to blockchain for celebrities eager to launch their memecoins. However, this newfound fame also comes with a dark side.

While some stars are voluntarily jumping on the Solana memecoin frenzy, others are finding their accounts hacked and used to promote various coins.

Metallica’s misstep in crypto

The official X account for the heavy metal band Metallica was compromised.  

On 26th June, Metallica’s X account fell victim to a hack, with the exploiters using the account to promote a Solana token under the ticker METAL.

Source: Metallica/X

The hackers posted a fraudulent announcement claiming a partnership with Ticketmaster to launch the token, which was actually created on the Solana-based platform pump.fun.

Upon investigation, it became clear that Ticketmaster had made no such partnership announcement. Following this, Metallica’s team has since regained control of the account and removed all posts related to the token. 

Additionally, in the search for the exploiters, Metallica’s account also accused the fintech firm MoonPay of involvement with the token. 

However, MoonPay’s president, Keith Grossman, responded to these accusations on X and stated,

“Pls be careful. MoonPay does NOT support $METAL on @solana.”

Expanding on the topic MoonPay further noted, 

Source: MoonPay/X

 Later in the day, Metallica went a step ahead and blocked MoonPay’s official account.

Source: MoonPay/X

Metallica is not the only one!

Well, this isn’t the first time such kind of a thing has happened.

Earlier in the month, another SOL memecoin HULKAMANIA [HULK] saw a massive $15 million drop in market capitalization after a swift pump-and-dump on 6th June, all within just two hours.

This incident coincided with claims that WWE icon Hulk Hogan endorsed the coin on social media, an accusation that Hogan, aka Terry Gene Bollea, had later denied. 

Solana memecoins remain unaffected

Interestingly, this incident did not impact the Solana memecoin market capitalization. At the time of writing, the Solana memecoin market cap stood at $6.71 billion, reflecting a 10.1% surge in the last 24 hours.

Meanwhile, other celebrity-linked Solana memecoins such as Jason Derulo’s JASON and Iggy Azalea’s MOTHER demonstrated bullish sentiment.

According to CoinGecko, JASON surged by an impressive 85%, while MOTHER saw a notable increase of 29% in the past 24 hours.