- Fast food giant McDonald’s was recently hacked.
- The attackers made billions of dollars in profits.
- Solana Mimecoin Shilling has been a major trend throughout the year.
Hacks and scams have become commonplace in the cryptocurrency industry, with threat actors constantly lurking around, waiting to steal the next big loot. This year, one of the most weaponized tactics has seen a surge in popularity: rug pulls. “Pump and dump“A scheme for fake tokens that resulted in significant losses.
Now these bad actors are taking their plans one step further and expanding the boundaries with their latest and most daring exploits yet.
Hackers Take Over McDonald’s to Sell GRIMACE Tokens
Another controversial chapter has rocked the cryptocurrency industry, with a famous fast food giant recently being hijacked and turned into a playground. Late on Wednesday, August 21, 2024, McDonald’s official Instagram account was hacked and used to promote a fraudulent Memecoin named after one of its products.
The fake Solana-based token, GRIMACE, was initially posted to the page with the caption “McDonald’s Experiment on Solana”, along with a wallet address. The post quickly garnered thousands of comments from the page’s 5.1 million followers, most of which were filled with surprise, confusion, and concern.
A similar post was published on the official account of the company’s Senior Marketing Director, Guillaume Huin, which included additional promotion for a memecoin based on the company’s viral purple mascot.
As the posts poured in, GRIMACE’s market cap soared from zero to nearly $25 million, but then plummeted after the hackers dumped their stake. To add insult to injury, the hackers changed McDonald’s official profile description to mock the success of the scheme.
“Sorry mah n-gga you have just been rug pulled by India_X_Kr3w thank you for the $700,000 in Solana,” they wrote.
The post has since been removed, but the incident has raised significant questions, especially given the ongoing controversy surrounding Solana memecoins.
Solana Memecoin craze
The step-by-step process observed in the McDonald’s hack, where a fake project is promoted to a wide audience before the truth is revealed, mirrors the typical pattern seen in the Solana Mimecoin incident that rocked the industry this year.
In recent months, there has been a surge in the number of individuals and organizations using the Solana blockchain to launch temporary tokens, often supported or promoted by influential figures.
The craze began around June, with up to 30 celebrities, including Caitlyn Jenner, Andrew Tate, and Soulja Boy, supporting the token. The launch was accompanied by aggressive celebrity endorsements, which attracted significant investment from their follower base, despite the lack of real-world utility.
However, while these tokens were initially successful due to promotions, most of them have since crashed, falling more than 99% from their all-time highs.
On the other side
- Multiple community members Switched to X Report losses due to fraudulent use of GRIMACE tokens and claim compensation.
- Some people speculate that the McDonald’s hack was likely the work of an insider.
- 22 of the 30 celebrity-backed tokens currently have a market cap of less than $1 million.
Why this matters
The audacious hack of McDonald’s shows the willingness of threat actors to take advantage of unsuspecting victims, and highlights the need for investors to be cautious before engaging in such promotions.
To learn more about McDonald’s metaverse business, read this article.
McDonald’s Unveils My Happy Place Metaverse in Singapore
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