Nasdaq’s official X account was seemingly hacked to promote a fake memecoin

Nasdaq’s account retweeted a fake affiliate’s post for STONKS, a copycat token that briefly hit an $80 million market cap before crashing.

By Timmy Shen • Edited by Vishal Chawla
Regulation•January 22, 2025, 11:02PM EST
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Nasdaq’s official X account was seemingly hacked to promote a fake memecoin

Quick Take

  • The hacker appeared to link a fake X account as a Nasdaq affiliate and used the official Nasdaq account to share its post promoting a newly created memecoin.
  • Within a few hours, the memecoin’s market capitalization skyrocketed to $80 million, only to crash soon after.
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The Nasdaq’s official X account was compromised when hackers used it to promote a fraudulent memecoin.

The hacker linked a fake X account as a Nasdaq affiliate and used the official Nasdaq account to retweet its post promoting a memecoin named STONKS created on the same day. The post has been removed, and the fake X account has been suspended.

The memecoin appeared to be a copycat of an existing memecoin of the same name on Solana, which owns the intellectual property of the meme.

The market capitalization of the fake STONKS memecoin surged to $80 million, only to crash soon after — according to DEXscreener.

This event fits into a pattern of high-profile X accounts being hacked to promote scam tokens, with previous incidents involving celebrities and institutions.

Nasdaq did not immediately respond to The Block’s request for comment.