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.

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.


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About Author

Timmy Shen is an Asia editor for The Block. Previously, he wrote about crypto and Web3 for Forkast.News from Taiwan after spending more than three years in Beijing covering finance, entertainment business and current affairs at Caixin Global and Chinese tech at TechNode. His China-related reporting has also appeared in The Guardian. When he's not chasing headlines, you'll find him savoring hot pot and shabu shabu in a Taipei local haunt. Timmy holds an MS degree from Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. Send tips to [email protected] or get in touch on X/Telegram @timmyhmshen.

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