Hackers Hijack Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev’s X Account to Push Fake VLAD Meme Coin

The submit advised Tenev’s almost 800,000 followers that Vladhood, ticker VLAD, was the official mascot of Robinhood Chain, the corporate’s new blockchain community. It included a contract deal with and hinted that the token would land on the Robinhood app. None of that was true.

Robinhood’s communications group caught the breach quick. At round 2:05 p.m. ET, the @RobinhoodComms account posted that Tenev’s account had been compromised and that the faux promotion had been eliminated.

The corporate stated it was working with X to revive entry.

What Occurred Onchain

Merchants purchased in inside minutes, reacting to what seemed like backing from a sitting CEO. Onchain trackers pieced collectively the mechanics quick.

About 70% of the token provide sat with the earliest wallets, an indication of concentrated management from the beginning. Vladhood’s market cap reached someplace between $4 million and $10 million shortly after the submit appeared. The wallets behind the token cashed out an estimated 690 ETH, value roughly $1.3 million, earlier than the worth collapsed. Liquidity was by no means locked or burned, so a 1% charge saved flowing to whoever managed the pool.

Hundreds of retail wallets ended up holding the token after the exit. Blockchain explorers flagged the contract as excessive threat inside the hour.

A Acquainted Playbook

Account takeovers constructed round meme cash return years. The 2020 hijacking of Twitter accounts belonging to Elon Musk, Invoice Gates, and a number of other firms for a bitcoin giveaway rip-off stays the best-known case, some utilizing deep fakes. The Tenev incident adopted the identical form: borrow a trusted account, submit a contract deal with, let FOMO do the work, then exit.

What set this one aside was the branding. Vladhood tied itself to Tenev’s personal identify and to Robinhood Chain’s launch, timed to land whereas merchants have been already trying to find the community’s subsequent token.

Robinhood Chain went stay on the Ethereum layer-2 community on July 1, constructed on the Arbitrum Orbit stack for tokenized shares and different real-world property. Meme cash took over early buying and selling quantity as an alternative. Tenev acknowledged the shift himself in a July 8 submit, writing that whereas the chain was constructed for real-world property, “it really works nice for memes too.”

Crypto Merchants Warn About VLAD Meme Coin

Crypto merchants on X moved quick to warn others as soon as the hack turned clear, posting messages telling folks to not purchase the VLAD meme coin and sharing the onchain breakdowns that traced the wallets’ exit.

The episode provides to a rising checklist of incidents tied to Robinhood Chain’s launch, together with an earlier and separate declare involving Tenev’s pockets that outdoors researchers discovered no proof to assist.

For an organization constructing a blockchain meant to hold real-world monetary property, the hack is a reminder that the largest level of failure isn’t all the time the chain itself. Typically it’s a single login.