Famend rapper Curtis James Jackson III, higher often known as “50 Cent,” has claimed that his X (previously Twitter) account and web site had been hacked, resulting in hackers selling a cryptocurrency pump-and-dump token that swindled $300 million from victims.
Additionally known as a “Rug pull,” fraudulent builders created a brand new crypto token “GUNIT,” used Jackson’s giant X following — roughly 12.9 million followers — to draw extra buyers and pump up the value, earlier than draining its worth and the token’s worth crashing to $0.00016.
On June 21, Jackson made a post to his 32.8 million followers on Instagram claiming that his X account and web site had been hacked, in addition to acknowledging a major quantity of sufferer’s funds had been drained from the venture.
“Twitter labored shortly to lock my account again down. Whoever did this made $300,000,000 in half-hour,” Jackson stated, earlier than declaring that he has “no affiliation with this crypto.”
He posted three photographs exhibiting posts from others within the crypto group discussing the memecoin $GUNIT, with charts exhibiting a pointy worth spike adopted by a pointy decline — a typical rugpull sample.
The information comes after a string of celebrities have been related to cryptocurrency launches in latest instances.
Rise in celebrities selling memecoins
Caitlyn Jenner, one of the vital latest celebrities to enter the crypto memecoin market, brought on confusion throughout the business over combined messages following the launch of her personal token.
Speculations about her X account being hacked had been initially dismissed however resurfaced later. Whereas on the similar time, she was defending the JENNER token itself.
On Could 27, Cointelegraph reported that Jenner’s X account had posted an announcement urging followers to “ship me a few of your favorite memecoins.”
Associated: Memecoins are a ‘cornerstone’ of crypto — Galaxy’s Novogratz
Whereas she later took the publish down, she doubled down on selling JENNER.
“That advert for a 3rd occasion token was taken down! As I’ve stated from the start the one focus I’ve is $Jenner and the advert I posted confused too many individuals, and was not price it. Like I had stated time and time once more I’m totally targeted on my token $Jenner,” she posted on X.
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