Investor’s $1M MBAPPE Bet Crashes in an Hour After Kylian Mbappé X Account Hack
An investor has suffered a staggering loss exceeding $1
million within just an hour after investing in a dubious meme coin, $MBAPPE,
which was fraudulently promoted via a hacked social media account belonging to
French soccer star Kylian Mbappé.
According to analytics firm Lookonchain, the investor
created a new wallet and poured 7,156 $SOL, equivalent to $1.03 million, into
the $MBAPPE token in a single transaction. However, the value of this
investment has since plummeted to a mere $9,200.
$MBAPPE Token’s Brief Surge Quickly Turns into a Crash
On Thursday, hackers gained control of French footballer
Kylian Mbappé’s X (formerly Twitter) account and used it to promote the $MBAPPE
cryptocurrency. This token was created on the Solana-based memecoin deployer
Pump.fun, a platform known for its simplicity and affordability in creating and
launching meme coins.
Observers noted that the $MBAPPE token experienced a rapid
spike in value, only to crash shortly thereafter. The promotional posts on
Mbappé’s account, which were active during the surge, have since been removed.
Speculation has arisen as to whether the posts were the result of a hack or if
Mbappé himself was involved in promoting the token.
Chinese journalist Colin Wu reported that another user
invested 2 SOL, approximately $286, into the token, selling it at its peak to
secure a profit of about 1,398 SOL, or around $200,000.
Scammers Exploit Footballer’s Image in Crypto Scams
This incident is not the first time scammers have exploited
Kylian Mbappé’s image. In 2019 and 2020, fraudsters used his likeness in online
advertisements to promote cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, deceiving investors
with promises of substantial returns.
In response, Mbappé took legal action against the
unauthorized use of his identity. Additionally, the French Financial Markets
Authority reported over 1,100 scam complaints in 2018, resulting in losses
totaling 55.5 million euros for victims.
Source: cryptonews
