Robinhood CEO’s X account hacked in apparent memecoin scam

Robinhood CEO’s X account hacked in apparent memecoin scam

A hacker reportedly took over Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev’s X account to promote a fake “VLAD” memecoin, posting what appeared to be a malicious token contract address.

One or more hackers took over Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev’s X account on Thursday after a post appeared promoting a fake memecoin called “VLAD” and included what appeared to be a malicious token contract address.

The post attracted more than 175,000 views in less than 20 minutes before users identified it as a scam and warned others not to interact with the token.

Source: Vlad Tenev

The compromise was reported by onchain data provider Onchain Lens. Robinhood Chain’s blockchain explorer has since labeled the token’s contract address as a scam.

Robinhood later confirmed the hack through its Robinhood Comms X handle. “We’re working with X to restore access and the post has been removed,” it said.

Onchain monitor MLM later reported that the hackers exploited approximately 650 Ether (ETH), worth between $1.2 million and $1.3 million, a finding that was also shared by Wu Blockchain.

An X user and online sleuth who goes by Jeff claimed to have identified a wallet address that appears to be linked to the hacker group. According to the user, the wallet spent $126.81 to purchase 47.2 million VLAD tokens. Based on current prices, they estimated the position was sitting on an unrealized profit of roughly $159,000.

Hacks and scams continue to plague the crypto industry, with attackers increasingly shifting toward phishing campaigns, according to Nominis. That trend comes even as the total value stolen through crypto scams has declined in recent months.