American actress Sydney Sweeney’s X account was hacked to promote a crypto token named after her in an apparent pump-and-dump scheme.
The Solana-based token, SWEENEY, generated over $10 million in trading volume within two hours of its launch on July 2, fueled by several promotional posts from Sweeney’s X account.
One of the now-deleted posts, shared online and not independently verified by Cointelegraph, read: “Well I think it’s time… $sweeney is now live 100mc incoming.”
The price of SWEENEY plummeted by almost 90% within just over an hour starting at 6:15 pm UTC, although it has since partially recovered. According to DEX Screener data, its market cap now stands at $1.2 million, down from its peak of $3.85 million.
The administrator of a Telegram channel associated with the token, which was promoted on Sweeney’s X account, appeared to take responsibility for the hack.
In deleted posts, the hackers claimed responsibility for recent X account breaches involving rapper 50 Cent and ex-pro wrestler Hulk Hogan, where similar fake tokens were promoted. They also hinted at targeting a celebrity even more “popular” than Sweeney in the near future, though specifics were not provided.
This marks the second instance of Sweeney’s X account being hacked to promote a crypto token. Previously in January, her account was compromised to promote the Solana token MILK, which currently holds a market cap of $1 million.
The incident follows a trend where several lesser-known celebrities have engaged in promoting crypto tokens.
Media personality Caitlyn Jenner and rapper Iggy Azalea both launched and endorsed Solana-based memecoins, initially collaborating with memecoin creator Sahil Arora.
Other celebrities, including American rapper “Rich the Kid,” Nigerian singer David Adedeji Adeleke Oon, and boxing legend Floyd Mayweather, also saw their token launches promoted from their X accounts.
Azalea’s MOTHER token emerged as the top-performing celebrity token, achieving a peak market cap of $148.9 million. However, its market cap has since dropped by nearly $100 million, according to CoinGecko data.
