Animoca Brands co-founder and CEO Yat Siu’s X account was reportedly hacked to promote a fake token called ANIMOCA.

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

Fake ANIMOCA token rises 500% in just 5 minutes

According to an initial investigation by Kenta, the hacker successfully hacked Yat Siu’s official X account and posted about Animoca Brands launching a primary token under his name. It appears that the hacker previously created this token on the pump.fun platform.

The price of the fake ANIMOCA token increased by 500% in just five minutes. However, the price fell again after the hacker deleted the post.

Additionally, Yat Siu used a secondary account to announce and confirm the incident. He stated that the attacker bypassed two-factor authentication (2FA) and that he reported the issue to X’s support team. Yat Siu also mentioned that he would share findings and highlight X’s security vulnerabilities in light of this incident.

“Unfortunately, Yat Siu’s social media account has been compromised. There is no official token or NFT launch from Animoca Brands. The token launch on Solana claimed in a post was carried out by the hacker. Please DO NOT engage with the account and remain vigilant,” Animoca Brands stated.

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 Anthropic’s X account. They also hacked Drake’s X account to promote a fake meme coin called Anita.

According to Cyvers’ annual report, access control vulnerabilities remain the leading cause of losses in the cryptocurrency space. Cyvers data shows that these vulnerabilities caused over $1.9 billion in damages in 2024.