ZachXBT Connects Social Media Hackers to $3.5 Million Celebrity Meme Coin Scam

Prominent blockchain sleuth ZachXBT has discovered a series of hacks targeting popular accounts on X and Instagram, which fueled a wave of pump-and-dump schemes linked to meme coins launched on Pump.fun.

Celebrities such as musicians Usher and Wiz Khalifa, actor Dean Norris, as well as a Japanese public aquarium were victims of these attacks.

Hacks targeting celebrities, big brands

In a detailed thread on X, ZachXBT revealed that social media account takeovers (ATOs) began in August 2024. Each incident followed a similar pattern: first, accounts were breached; fake tokens were then promoted; and finally, proceeds from token sales were moved to anonymous wallets.

Most of the attacks that ZachXBT documented were connected, with funds obtained from one operation being used to deploy and launch another fake meme coin that was distributed to a compromised social account.

Global fast food giant McDonald’s was one of the first victims, with its Instagram account hacked and used to promote the GRIMACE token. This particular operation netted the bad actors about $690,000, which was quickly consolidated into two wallets.

Soon after, criminals compromised Dean Norris’ X account and used it to promote SCHRADER. The meme coin was a nod to popular culture as it was named after a character the actor played on the hit TV show “Breaking Bad.”

Connected operations

Eight-time Grammy Award winner Usher’s account was used to distribute the USHER coin, with 110 SOLs used to pull it from the same address that received the funds obtained from the McDonald’s attack.

The money obtained from the USHER scam, around 4868 SOL, was then deposited into a wallet that was later connected to subsequent attacks on the Enoshima Aquarium and the truth terminal creator’s social accounts , Andy Ayrey.

The attack on Ayrey’s account was particularly brazen. The exploiters promoted six different meme coins over several days, including RNA, TRUTH, INFINITY, and WOAH. They reportedly won more than $2.1 million with these chips and deposited $750,000 of that amount into a casino address.

The last recorded incident was on November 3, when Wiz Khalifa’s X account was compromised and used to promote two meme coins, WIZ and WIZZLE. ZachXBT directly linked Wiz Khalifa’s ATO to the Ayrey incident and another scam that took over the Instagram account of the owner of Kabosu, the famous Shiba Inu that inspired the Dogecoin brand and used to promote KAI’s fake testimonial.

In total, unsuspecting investors lost at least $3.5 million, and social media platforms are scrambling to contain the damage. ZachXBT has promised to reveal the identities of those behind the compromises later today.

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