McDonald’s Instagram Hacked to Promote Solana-Based Scam Meme Coin ‘Grimace’

McDonald’s Instagram page was reportedly hacked on August 21, leading to a significant scam involving a Solana-based meme coin.

The perpetrators exploited the fast-food chain’s social media account to promote a fraudulent token named “Grimace,” referencing one of McDonald’s fictional characters featured in its advertisements.

Bubblemaps’ findings reveal that the hacker acquired 75% of the Grimace token’s total supply using the Solana meme coin deployer pump.fun. The attacker leveraged multiple addresses to purchase the token simultaneously and then distributed the accumulated supply across approximately 100 different wallets.

The hackers reportedly siphoned over $700,000 in Solana during the scheme. Screenshots from X revealed that the McDonald’s Instagram page was altered to endorse the token as a “McDonald’s experiment on Solana” and included a message thanking followers for their contributions, hinting at the scam’s execution.

In a statement to the New York Post, McDonald’s said that it was aware of an “isolated incident” affecting its social media accounts.

“We have resolved the issue on those accounts and apologize to our fans for any offensive language posted during that time.”

This event serves as a reminder for investors to be cautious with newly launched meme coins, as many of these highly volatile assets are susceptible to scams. For the Solana ecosystem, pump.fun has emerged as a prominent site for meme coin creation.

Introduced on January 14, 2024, pump.fun saw its popularity surge in March, coinciding with the peak of the meme coin season.

K33’s report reveals that the platform is approaching $100 million in total revenue. Since the start of the year, users on pump.fun have launched 1,829,747 meme coins, a number that many argue reflects the lack of seriousness in the Solana DeFi space.