Earlier this week, crypto scammers took control of McDonald’s main Instagram account, to push a Grimace meme coin.
The scammers made away with $700 million through this marketing stunt. After Dogecoin, the Grimace meme coin is now in the spotlight of the crypto debate.
The scammers reportedly created a false post and even went as far as changing the account profile of McDonald
GRIMACE Memecoin Rose To $20 Million But Fell To Below $600,000
Reports disclosed that the memecoin token GRIMACE grew rapidly, hitting a market value of about $20 million. This happened in just 30 minutes after the hacker promoted the token.
Unfortunately, the memecoin dropped as soon as the hacker sold off their assets, with market worth decreasing below $600, 000.
According to a screenshot spreading online, the scammers wrote that users had been “rug pulled by India_X_Kr3w.” this message was visible to more than 5.1 million followers for a short while until McDonald’s took control again.
The Grimace coin is built on the Solana network, which is famous for having an intense and active meme ecosystem.
It has drawn in the most active cryptocurrency traders and is known for rolling out meme coin projects, according to the BlockChain App Factory, a Solana-based meme coin creator.
Guillaume Huin, McDonald’s senior marketing leader, also fell victim to the hack. Scammers took over his Instagram and X social media accounts and posted a false coin promotion. One of the fake posts reads,
A McDonald’s experiment on Solana.
The Incident Highlights The Risks Of Cryptocurrency Scams And Hacking
McDonald’s Instagram profile once said, “Thank you for the $700,000 in Solana,” likely referring to hackers who profited from a manipulated Grimace meme stock rally.
The hacked post has been deleted, and McDonald’s reportedly regained control of the account within 30 minutes.
Traces of the McDonald’s social media hack remained online hours later. Security researcher Dominic Alvieri stated on X that the recovered McDonald’s Instagram account still had a Telegram link.
Launched in March 2022, the Grimace decentralized token was first available on the Doge blockchain but has since moved to the Arbitrum One blockchain. Its reputation on the site is marked as “unknown.”
The token seems to have started from a social media exchange between Elon Musk and McDonald’s on Twitter and quickly gained attention after its launch.
However, McDonald’s, with 5.1 million Instagram followers, has not commented on the incident.
Last month, US pop singer Doja Cat’s X account was hacked to promote a Solana-based meme coin called the “$DOJA” token. In the past, Elon Musk and his popular meme coin, Dogecoin, had their issues with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
SEC regulators sued Musk, accusing him of defrauding investors and market manipulation by running what they called a Dogecoin pyramid scheme in 2021.
