Popular rapper Curtis James Jackson III, better known as “50 Cent,” claimed that his X account and website were hacked by hackers promoting a cryptocurrency pump-and-dump token scam.
The fraudulent developer, also known as “Rug Pull,” created a new cryptocurrency token, “GUNIT,” and used Jackson’s large I pulled it up. Afterwards, the token price plummeted to $0.00016.
On June 21, Jackson posted to his 32.8 million Instagram followers claiming that his
“Twitter worked quickly to relock my account. “Whoever did this made $300 million in 30 minutes,” Jackson said before declaring he had “nothing to do with this cryptocurrency.”
He posted three images showing posts from other people discussing the GUNIT memecoin in the cryptocurrency community. The chart shows a typical lug-pull pattern, with a sharp price spike followed by a sharp drop.
Cointelegraph’s review of GUNIT memecoin’s transaction data from Dex Screener shows a significant amount of tokens were sold from multiple wallet addresses. After a promotion on the rapper’s X account, more than $100,000 worth of meme coins were sold across four accounts.
50 Cent claimed that users were scammed out of more than $300 million as a result, a figure that grossly overstates the value gained from selling GUNIT tokens by anonymous traders. At the time of issuance, the total trading volume of the token was $19.4 million.
This news comes after a string of recent celebrities have been linked to the launch of the cryptocurrency.
Increase in celebrities promoting meme coins
Caitlyn Jenner, one of the latest celebrities to enter the cryptocurrency memecoin market, has caused confusion within the industry due to mixed messages following the launch of her token.
Speculation that her X account had been hacked was initially dismissed, but later resurfaced. At the same time, she was defending the JENNER token itself.
On May 27, Cointelegraph reported that Jenner’s X account posted a statement urging followers to “send us your favorite memecoins.”
Related: Memecoin is the ‘cornerstone’ of cryptocurrency — Novogratz from Galaxy
She doubled down on promoting JENNER while she later deleted the post.
“Ads for third-party tokens have been taken down! As I said from the beginning, the only focus I had was $Jenner and the ads I posted were confusing too many people and it wasn’t worth it. As I have said time and time again, I am completely focused on my token, $Jenner,” she posted on X.
magazine: Indy 500 driver Conor Daly on Polkadot: ‘How angry are you that my dad has a DOT?’