A recent investigation has revealed a connection between the creators of a newly launched memecoin and a hack on a cryptocurrency influencer’s account. The analysis, conducted by a pseudonymous investigator named ZachXBT, found that the Sol team, responsible for the Solana-based memecoin CAT, compromised the account of crypto influencer Gigantic-Cassocked-Rebirth (GCR) on May 26. Their intention was to manipulate the price of specific coins.
The team allegedly manipulated the launch of their own coin on May 24 in order to gain control of more than 63% of the CAT supply. They then proceeded to sell over $5 million worth of the CAT memecoin and distributed the profits among multiple wallets. Part of these funds were later deposited into Hyperliquid for trading.
Moments before the hack took place, the attackers opened long positions of $2.3 million on ORDI and $1 million on Ether.fi (ETHFI). A long position is essentially a bet that the price of an asset will increase in the future. Once GCR’s hacked account was under their control, the attacker made a post about ORDI, causing a temporary spike in the token’s price and earning approximately $34,000. They then made a second post targeting the ETHFI token, but this time the market did not react as anticipated. After losing $3,500, the hacker closed the position.
ZachXBT expressed his thoughts on the outcome of the attack, stating that the scammers displayed a lack of intelligence in their execution. It remains uncertain whether this group has been involved in similar attacks on other crypto influencers in recent days.
According to ZachXBT’s analysis, the breach on the influencer’s account was a result of a SIM swapping attack. This type of scheme involves a scammer deceiving a mobile carrier into transferring a victim’s phone number to a new SIM card controlled by the scammer.
Memecoins have become a popular target for malicious actors looking to carry out attacks. Common tactics include promoting a memecoin to artificially inflate prices and then selling tokens at their peak or draining funds from the liquidity pool unexpectedly.