Another high-profile attack on a celebrity account has exposed a systemic security problem in the crypto community. This time, the victim of scammers was Kylie Jenner: her X social media profile, followed by 39.5 million people, was used to promote a memecoin with the ticker kylie.
The scheme was classic for such incidents. First, a post about trading appeared on the account, then followers were redirected to a profile supposedly linked to the Pump.fun platform, where the token contract address was posted. Both posts managed to rack up tens of thousands of views (about 50,000 and 33,000 respectively) before being removed.
Pump, dump, and a wave of copycats
The market reaction was immediate. The market cap of the kylie token on PumpSwap rapidly soared to $1.19 million, but by the time of my analysis it had already crashed by about 68% — to $378,500. Daily trading volume reached an impressive $6.1 million, while liquidity stood at around $58,900. The token is distributed among roughly 3,700 holders, indicating the asset's highly speculative nature.
After the posts were deleted, the wave of enthusiasm spilled over to copycats: several analogues with the same name and image appeared on the Solana network. One of them even managed to grow to a $1.04 million market cap, but most remained stuck between $29,800 and $370,300. None of these "clones" survived longer than a few hours — a classic sign of an organized pump.
A systemic threat to the industry
This is not an isolated incident but a worrying trend. In July, hackers already breached the accounts of SpaceX and Starlink to promote the SCATMAN token, earning about $125,000. An attack on the account of Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev brought scammers roughly $1.2 million on the Vladhood token. Similar incidents occurred with the account of Senator Cynthia Lummis and the account of actor Dean Norris.
Scammers operate using the same well-rehearsed scheme, and until platforms introduce multi-factor authentication for public figures, this loophole will remain highly attractive to malicious actors. My advice to traders: any tokens promoted through hacked accounts are almost a guaranteed dump. Don't give in to FOMO, even if the post looks convincing. In this game, only the pump organizers win.