Traders have reportedly lost millions of dollars after the X account of soccer star Kylian Mbappé was hacked on Aug. 29.
Multiple reports indicate that the hacker used Mbappé’s account to promote a fraudulent cryptocurrency token, promising to “double” any tokens sent to a specific address. The post caused the market cap of the so-called Kylian Mbappé (MBAPPE) token to surge to $460 million before it plummeted to less than $100,000.
One trader lost over $1 million on the fraudulent scheme. The unknown trader spent over $1 million worth of Solana tokens to buy the fake MBAPPE token, according to a Lookonchain X post on Aug. 29.
The onchain intelligence firm wrote:
“Someone created a new wallet and spent 7,156 $SOL($1.03M) to buy a #MEMEcoin named $MBAPPE in a single transaction, which is now only worth $9.2K. This person lost more than $1M in just 1 hour!”
Mbappe trader, $1 million buy order. Source: Lookonchain
million buy order. Source: Lookonchain
The massive loss marks the latest devastating event related to scam celebrity-related cryptocurrencies. Earlier in August, a President Trump-themed memecoin, TrumpCoin (DJT) saw a 95% decline, amid a wider crypto market downturn
Crypto.com warns against scam token
The trader bought $1 million worth of the scam coins shortly after Mbappé’s X account was hacked and posted an endorsement of the fake cryptocurrency.
The hacker’s scam token endorsement has since been deleted from X.
Some of the world’s most notable crypto firms have warned against the scam token, including the world’s 13th largest centralized cryptocurrency exchange (CEX), Crypto.com.
The exchange warned traders not to fall for the fake Mbappe token, in an Aug. 29 X post.
Not all Mbappe traders took a loss
Despite being a scam token, some of the savvier Mbapppe coin traders made a large profit.
An unknown trader made nearly $124,000 in profit on the scam coin, noted pseudonymous trader Yet, in an Aug. 29 X post:
“A guy that bought on @KMbappe scam token $MBAPPE turned $28 into literally $124k. He caught it at $80k market cap.”
The savvy trader cashed out $126,000 worth of Solana tokens shortly before the Mbappe token’s price collapsed, according to Coinstats data.
