Fast food giant McDonald’s fell victim to a hacking incident that resulted in their Instagram profile promoting a scam memecoin on the Solana blockchain. The memecoin, named GRIMACE, saw its market capitalization skyrocket to $25 million within two hours of its launch before plummeting by more than 95% due to a rug pull.
The scammers behind the attack, going by the name “India_X_Kr3w,” managed to deceive investors into believing that GRIMACE was an official token from McDonald’s, ultimately swindling approximately $700,000. The memecoin was deployed through Pump.fun and quickly reached the bonding curve limit to be listed on Raydium.
Despite the rug pull, DEX Screener data revealed that GRIMACE generated nearly $20 million in trading volume within just two hours. Surprisingly, investors continued to trade the token, with liquidity in the Raydium pool increasing even after the scam was exposed.
It took McDonald’s nearly two hours to regain control of their Instagram account, during which all posts related to GRIMACE were promptly removed.
The incident sheds light on the ongoing memecoin frenzy within the Solana network. Data from Solscan shows that an average of over 17,400 tokens have been deployed on Solana daily for the past 23 days, indicating a high level of speculative token creation activity.
Pump.fun, a platform central to this memecoin creation craze, recently reduced its token creation fees while offering a 0.5 SOL reward for successful token launches on Raydium. However, only a minuscule 1.39% of the over 1.8 million tokens created on Pump.fun have successfully completed the bonding curve, leaving the majority of memecoins worthless and causing losses for investors.
Despite the risks involved, Solana has emerged as a dominant force in decentralized exchange trading, surpassing Ethereum in monthly traded volume by $3 billion in July. This surge in trading activity has contributed to Solana’s growing reputation in the cryptocurrency space.
In conclusion, the McDonald’s Instagram hack serves as a cautionary tale about the risks associated with meme coin investments and the importance of due diligence when navigating the volatile cryptocurrency market.