Real Madrid and France National Team soccer star Kylian Mbappé appeared to have his Twitter account hacked late Wednesday as the account went on a rampage with a string of offensive comments about fellow athletes and rival clubs—all while promoting a meme coin that rapidly pumped and then dumped.
The MBAPPE token on Solana quickly hit a market cap of $464 million before falling 99%—all in the span of a minute. That was enough to, very briefly, give it a higher market cap than Mog Coin, Raydium, and ApeCoin, for example. Now it has a market cap of just $57,000.
This Twitter account belonging to the second most-expensive soccer player of all time shared the contract address with Mbappé’s 14.4 million Twitter followers.
A now-deleted tweet from the pump-and-dump crypto scam. Screenshot: Decrypt
But this success was short-lived. In fact, the token only sat around this price for about five seconds.
In the 47 seconds that followed, the token fell 99% to a market cap of $4.58 million. One lucky trader was able to time the top perfectly, turning $29 into a whopping $125,790 in just three minutes.
One lucky trader timed the top and made $125,790. Image: DEX Screener.
Not everyone was so fortunate, however.
Another trader bought $1 million worth of MBAPPE a second before the token skyrocketed 4,000%, but they didn’t sell. Their $1 million investment is now worth just $14,600 according to DEX Screener.
It appears Mbappé had his Twitter account hacked, as this token scam tweet came amid a broader spree of posts pointing abuse at former teammate Lionel Messi, claiming he was going to move to English club Manchester United for free, and shouting out Twitter users.
All of Kylian Mbappe’s hacked tweets incase you missed it…
A thread 🧵 pic.twitter.com/4XEpWpnXQA
— george (@StokeyyG2) August 29, 2024
Decrypt reached out to Mbappé’s representatives for comment but did not immediately receive a response.
In one post, the soccer player’s account posted a message saying: “Ok, I’ll admit it’s Sahil.” This message appears to reference Sahil Arora, the infamous crypto promoter who drove a large part of the celebrity meme coin market after launching a Solana token with media personality and Olympic gold medalist Caitlyn Jenner.
Arora confirmed to Decrypt that he was behind the Mbappe meme coin, but declined to expand further when asked if he hacked the account himself or if he made a deal with the person who had taken control.
“I cannot give more details on it. It’s sensitive,” Arora told Decrypt via Telegram. “Just know there’s a lot more coming.”
The Mbappé scandal comes following a rash of hacked social media accounts for brands and celebrities alike—including McDonald’s, Metallica, Hulk Hogan, and Doja Cat—used to promote pump-and-dump crypto token scams.
Edited by Andrew Hayward and Stacy Elliott
