Canadian rapper and music giant Drake joined the list of high-profile personalities who fell prey to an X account hack on Saturday night as his account was logged into and utilized to popularize a fake Solana meme coin. It was based on a token referred to as $ANITA, created based on mainstream rapper Drake and his cartoon self Anita Max Wynn.
False Claims Tie Memecoin to Stake Partnership
The compromised posts provided fake information that ‘$ANITA’ was created with Stake, a crypto gambling site supported by Drake. Also, the meme coin’s name correlated with Drake’s “Anita Max Wynn Tour,” through which the artist would return to Australia and New Zealand for the first time since 2017. This connection probably gave them some extra legitimacy, gathering fans and traders to buy the coin.
$5 Million in Trading Volume Before Scam Unveiled
In under 24 hours, the recently promoted memecoin reached a trading volume of more than $5 million USD, as reported by DexScreener. Yet skepticism emerged soon, with the traders who were quick to identify the posts as fake. Drake’s team eventually had the account taken back and the fake posts deleted.
Rise in High-Profile X Account Hacks
Drake is not the first celebrity to become a victim of such cons on the social media platform. Recently, several large X accounts, such as the Cardano Foundation, Cardi B, Doja Cat, and Metallica, were also hacked and used to advertise scam tokens in the last week alone. The Cardano Foundation incident was much less severe in terms of trading volume.
Platform Security Facing Challenges
The series of attacks has provoked doubts over security measures for X’s account since fraudsters use high-profile personalities to promote scams. The followers of those celebrity accounts are encouraged to proceed with caution regarding any cryptocurrency promotion from the suspicious accounts.
