Fast food giant McDonald’s fell victim to a hacking incident that resulted in their Instagram profile promoting a scam memecoin created on the Solana blockchain. The fraudulent token, named GRIMACE, skyrocketed to a market capitalization of $25 million within just two hours of its launch before experiencing a rug pull that caused its value to plummet by over 95%.
The scammers behind the scheme, operating under the alias “India_X_Kr3w,” managed to deceive investors into believing that GRIMACE was an official McDonald’s token, ultimately swindling approximately $700,000 from unsuspecting individuals. The memecoin was deployed through Pump.fun and quickly reached the bonding curve limit required to be listed on the Raydium decentralized exchange.
Despite the rug pull, data from DEX Screener revealed that GRIMACE amassed nearly $20 million in trading volume within the short span of two hours. Surprisingly, investors continued to show interest in the token, as liquidity in the Raydium pool continued to grow even after the fraudulent activity was uncovered.
It took McDonald’s nearly two hours to regain control of their compromised Instagram account, during which time all posts related to the scam memecoin were promptly removed.
The incident sheds light on the ongoing memecoin frenzy within the Solana network. According to Solscan, an average of over 17,400 tokens have been deployed on Solana daily in the past 23 days, indicating a sustained interest in meme coin creation on the platform. Pump.fun, in particular, has been a significant contributor to this trend, especially after introducing lower token creation fees and a reward system for successful token launches on Raydium.
However, despite these incentives, the memecoin market remains highly volatile and risky. A dashboard created by user evelyn233 on Dune Analytics revealed that only 1.39% of the over 1.8 million tokens created on Pump.fun have successfully completed the bonding curve, leaving the majority of investors with losses. Pump.fun has generated substantial revenue from fees, totaling around 645,580 SOL, equivalent to nearly $100 million.
Despite the challenges posed by scam activities and rug pulls, Solana continues to dominate the decentralized exchange market, outpacing Ethereum in monthly traded volume by $3 billion in July, reaching a total of $57.3 billion.
In conclusion, the incident involving McDonald’s underscores the importance of vigilance and caution when participating in the volatile world of memecoins and decentralized finance on blockchain networks like Solana. Investors should conduct thorough research and exercise due diligence to avoid falling prey to fraudulent schemes and potential financial losses.
