X Hacked Chairman of Animoca Brands, Promoting Fake Token

The X account of Animoca Brands co-founder and executive chairman Yat Siu was allegedly hacked to promote a fake brand called ANIMOCA.

X Animoca Brands' official account confirmed the incident and urged investors to stop interacting with Yat Siu's account.

Fake ANIMOCA Token spikes 500% in just 5 minutes

According to an initial investigation by Kenta, the hacker successfully hacked Yat Siu's official X account and sent word about Animoca Brands launching a premium brand under the name. The hacker apparently created this token earlier on the pump.fun platform.

The price of the fake ANIMOCA token increased by 500% within just five minutes. However, the price dropped back after the hacker deleted the post.

In addition, Yat Siu used a secondary account to announce and confirm the event. He said the attacker bypassed two-factor authentication (2FA) security and reported the issue to X's support team. Yat Siu also said he would share ideas and highlight security vulnerabilities X as a result of this event.

“Unfortunately, Yat Siu's social media account has been compromised. There is no official token or NFT launch from Animoca Brands. The token was launched on Solana as stated in a post made by the hacker. Please do not accept the bill and wait,” said Animoca Brands.

Animoca Brands is one of the most active Web3 investors, with a portfolio of over 540 investments, including Yuga Labs, Axie Infinity, Polygon, ConsenSys, Magic Eden, OpenSea, Dapper Labs, Yield Guild Games, and more.

Additionally, in December, scammers stole $100,000 using a fake CLAUDE token after hacking X Anthropic's account. They also hijacked Drake's X account to promote a fake meme base called Anita.

According to Cyvers' annual report, access control vulnerabilities remain a major cause of losses in the cryptocurrency space. Cyvers data shows that these vulnerabilities accounted for more than $1.9 billion in damages in 2024.