Crypto scammers hijack Skip Bayless’ X to promote SKIP and back Trump

American TV star and sports commentator Skip Bayless has become the latest victim of crypto scammers who compromised his X account to promote a Solana-based token called SKIP.

Shortly after gaining control of the former ESPN commentator’s account, the attacker posted politically motivated messages supporting Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump while promoting the SKIP token, posting slogans such as “Let’s make crypto great again” and “Crypto will thrive with Trump.”

According to data from DEX Screener, the hacker began dumping the tokens immediately after a post appeared on Bayless’ account that included a cartoon image of him standing next to the Solana logo and the token’s contract address.

Hacker’s post on Bayless’s X account | Source: X

However, schema Limited returns were achieved, with the attacker only managing to capture $8,200. The token managed to reach a market cap of over $69,000 and managed to get listed on Raydium, but has since fallen to just over $4,100 at the time of writing, dropping over 94%.

Some of the hacker’s recent posts also targeted Vice President Kamala Harris and basketball star LeBron James with derogatory language. At the time of writing, these posts are still visible to Bayless’ more than 3.2 million followers.

The TV personality joins a long list of celebrities who have created X accounts to promote similar shows this year. On November 4, rapper Wiz Khalifa’s account promoted the WIZ token, pushing its price over 2,000% before crashing just minutes after launch.

In June, Rapper 50 Cent was hacked, after which attackers pumped the GUNIT token, allowing them to make over $300 million in just 30 minutes. In the same month, hackers attacked Metallica and took over their accounts; He promoted the standalone METAL token while making false claims about the partnership with MoonPay.