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Over the weekend, a series of hacks compromised several X accounts of cryptocurrency influencers and celebrities promoting a number of coins, resulting in a short-term price spike.
One of the most prominent targets was GCR, whose account was compromised on May 26th. After the initial intrusion, hackers were able to post promotional content on ORDI and Luna2.0, causing token prices to temporarily rise by 6% and 274%. . Observers have noted that hackers may choose to promote microcap coins for greater profits rather than the relatively established ORDI, which already has a market capitalization of $856 million.
Bitcoin developer and Ordinals supporter Udi Wertheimer warned that the GCR incident may not be an isolated case. This appears to be part of a wider operation targeting celebrity X accounts, including mumble rapper Rich the Kid and journalist Caitlyn Jenner.
For the former, there is a new token called $RICH from Solana meme coin creation platform Pump.fun. The post has already been deleted, but no official confirmation from Rich the Kid’s management has been posted. According to data from dexscreener, the coin’s current market cap is stuck at $144,000.
For Jenner’s account, a meme coin called $JENNER was also promoted, increasing the coin’s market capitalization to $25 million, according to aggregate data from Raydium and GeckoTerminal.
According to an analysis by deepfake security service IdentifAI, the content posted on Jenner’s X account was generated by AI, suggesting the possibility of hacking. Research using audio comparisons has shown that there is a high degree of similarity between posts.
“It appears that the attackers used the same voice cloning technology to create AI-generated audio, which led to the observed high similarity between samples,” said Paul Vann, CTO of IdentifAI.
In addition to the synthetic similarity in speech, the analysis found “unnatural eyebrow movements” in the first video (removed or flagged by X), which differed from the second video. These similarities and variations support IdentifAI’s claim that the $JENNER shill video was created by AI. Below you can see a heatmap from the study shared with Crypto Briefing.
Even though Jenner’s video assured her followers that the posts were real, industry experts believe the account has been compromised. Interestingly, the cryptocurrency wallet address posted by Jenner matches the address used by adult content creator Kazumi, whose account was hacked on May 20 to promote the ‘ZUMI’ coin.
As of this writing, no data has been released regarding the identity of the threat actors, no specific entity has claimed responsibility for the hack, and it has not been established whether they are linked to a single hacker or group.
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