- The scammers soon took over American R&B star Usher’s X account.
- Meme Coin $USHER Launches and Launches Rugpool in Less than 30 Minutes
- Usher did not explain how to regain access to the account.
Legendary American R&B singer Usher Raymond IV, better known as Usher, has become the celebrity hack victim of the meme coin epidemic.
Hacker Gains Account Access to 2 ETH
Cybercriminals took the opportunity to illegally exploit Usher’s trusted fan base and began: $Usher A meme coin for Solana’s PoS.
It took less than 15 minutes for the fake celebrity meme coins to appear, and many traders on X were left questioning who the culprit was.
On-chain detective ZachXBT has confirmed that Usher’s account has been hacked. The hacker, known as Cin, reportedly provided access to Usher’s official X handle in exchange for two Ethereum (ETH), which is worth approximately $4,696 at the time of writing. The blockchain detective provided a series of screenshots showing the perpetrator bragging about scamming someone out of ETH, followed by a link to a Telegram channel with derogatory and racist images.
Celebrity Coin Rug Pull Is Intensifying
While Crypto Twitter is abuzz with complaints and condolences to traders who imitated this fake meme coin, the incident marks the 38th celebrity token launch in the past three months. With the exception of Iggy Azalea’s $MOTHER token, the rest have all plummeted by over 99%, leaving many questionable investors.
Popular Web3 analyst Slog found that Usher’s meme coin rug pool was much faster than its predecessors, taking just 29 minutes to gain support and withdraw liquidity from the hacked X account. The record was previously held by 6ix9ine, who fancied himself a rapper and jumped on the NFT train in 2022, but had no idea how the non-fungible token market worked.
“People are learning little by little.” Slorg concluded that the $USHER token had a trading volume of nearly $2 million within minutes of the perpetrator backing the fraudulent cryptocurrency on X, but has since disappeared with just $18,000 in trading volume over the past six hours.
On the other side
- Some cryptocurrency enthusiasts speculate that corrupt Indian businessman Sahil Arora is behind this meme coin controversy.
- Usher’s account has since been returned to its original owners, but the R&B singer has made no comment on the outcome.
Why this matters
Celebrity meme coins are a worrying trend across social media, as these projects lack accountability and are often supported by cybercriminals impersonating celebrities.
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