Latest Spike in Crypto Scams Focuses on Celebrity Social Media Accounts

• Hacking celebrity social media accounts to promote scam memecoins was the main method of attack in 2024.
• Crypto investors lost more than $500 million to memecoin scams and rug pulls in 2024.
• Rug pulls accounted for 44% of crypto scams in 2024.

It’s bad enough that celebrities are happy to tie themselves to memecoin projects that predictably crash and burn.

But now it would appear that any high-profile individual or entity is fair game as the socials of celebrities and tech figures become the main attack vector for crypto scammers.

Celeb Crypto Scams

As per the latest research from Merkle Science, a new trend of “start to finish” social engineering attacks is becoming the new norm in crypto scams.

The report cites the $460 million market cap garnered by the $MBAPPE memecoin promoted by hackers on footballer Kylian Mbappé’s X account, as a prime example. Other notable mentions include OpenAI , Cardano, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission ( SEC ) and Wiz Khalifa.

As per the report, 33% of the targets were celebrities. The second-most targeted group is tech figures , representing 30% of all cases. Tech brands, accounting for 19% of cases, were third. Government agencies, consumer brands and communities represent 5% of attacks, respectively.

Leading the attack vectors is X, which comprised 75% of all attacks. It’s followed by YouTube with 19% and official websites at 5%. These misleading messages are from trusted, reputable individuals.

After this, they then pull the real victims, the investors, into rug pulls and scam token offerings. Merkle Science notes that investors lost over $500 million to such incidents in 2024.

BBC Hacks

Recently, a more obscure celebrity, BBC journalist Nick Robinson, compromised his account with 1 million followers after following a phishing email link.

The hacker then promptly went to work announcing a Solana-based token, $TODAY, created on Pump.fun, that was linked to the BBC Today radio program. As per CoinGecko, the scam saw $TODAY’s market cap glanced $115,000 before almost immediately collapsing to its current market cap of $4,000.

High-profile individuals, such as government officials and journalists, suggest a troubling level of sophistication on the part of the hackers. That, or a worrisome lack of cybersecurity comprehension from the victims.