The well-known rapper Curtis James Jackson III, also known as “50 Cent,” has alleged that his account and website were hacked, and hackers used them to promote a cryptocurrency pump-and-d token scam. This scheme involved the creation of a new crypto token, “GUNIT which leveraged Jackson’s substantial X following of around 12.9 million followers to more investors and inflate the price before causing its value to plummet to $0.000.
On June 21, Jackson informed his 32.8 million Instagram followers about purported hack on his X account and website. He revealed that a considerable sum of funds been siphoned from the project by the perpetrators. He also posted three images showing others in the crypto community discussing the GUNIT memecoin and illustrating charts indicating a sharp in price followed by an abrupt decline — indicative of a typical rug-pull pattern.
response to these events, Cointelegraph examined trading data for the GUNIT memecoin on Dex Screener, revealing that multiple wallet addresses offloaded significant amounts of after its promotion on Jackson’s X account. While Jackson claimed users had been defuded of over $300 million due to these actions, this figure appears to greatly exagger anonymous traders earned from selling GUNIT tokens; at last check, it had only amassed a total trading volume of $19.4 million.
Moreover, data obtained from Dex Scre indicates that one GUNIT holder sold $721,000 worth of tokens after its promotion on 50 Cent’s X account.
This news comes amid an ongoing trend where numerous celebrities have become linked with cryptocurrency launches in recent times.
Celebrity endorsements have contributed to an in promotions for memecoins.
Caitlyn Jenner is among these celebrities who entered into crypto memecoins and sparked confusion within this space through mixed messages regarding her own token launch alongside speculations about her X account being compromised.
On May 27th,Cointelegraph reported that Jenner’s X account had published a statement urging followers “to send me some of your favourite memecoins.” Despite later deleting this post she continued advocating for JENNER,
stating “That ad for a third-party token was taken down! As I have said from
the beginning my only focus is $Jenner.”