American actress Sydney Sweeney’s X account was hacked and now-deleted posts appeared, containing a pump-and-dump scheme promoting a cryptocurrency token bearing her name.
SWEENEY, a Solana-based token, surpassed $10 million in trading volume within two hours of its launch on July 2, supported by several promotional posts from Sweeney’s X account.
“Well I guess it’s about time… $sweeney is now getting 100mc,” Sweeney wrote in one of his now-deleted X posts, which Cointelegraph could not independently verify.
The price of SWEENEY fell by nearly 90% in the span of just over an hour starting at 6:15 PM UTC, but has since recovered somewhat. According to DEX Screener data, the market cap is currently $1.2 million, down from its peak of $3.85 million.
The administrator of the Telegram channel linked to the tokens shared from Sweeney’s X account appears to have taken credit for the hack.
In a now-deleted post, they claimed they were behind the recent X account hack, which rapper 50 Cent and former professional wrestler Hulk Hogan used to promote similarly fake tokens. They added that they would soon target more “popular” celebrities than Sweeney, but did not provide specific details.
This is the second time that Sweeney’s X account has been hacked to promote a crypto token. In January, her account was compromised, and hackers promoted the Solana token MILK, which currently has a market cap of $1 million.
This latest hack comes after several celebrities began promoting cryptocurrency tokens.
Related: Vitalik Buterin Slams Celebrity Mimecoin
Media personality Caitlyn Jenner and rapper Iggy Azalea both launched and supported Solana-based Mimecoins, which they say were initially supported by Mimecoin collaborator Sahil Arora.
American rapper “Rich the Kid,” Nigerian singer David Adedeji Adeleke Un, and boxing legend Floyd Mayweather are some of the other celebrities who have had token launches promoted by the X account.
Azalea’s MOTHER token was the best-performing celebrity token, reaching a peak market cap of $148.9 million.
However, according to CoinGecko data, its market cap has since decreased by about $100 million.
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