Meme coins continue to attract speculators, but their explosive popularity has also fueled a wave of scams.
A recent case involving an alleged fraud in India has left investors reeling after the creator of GANG token reportedly drained millions in mere minutes.
An anonymous crypto analyst, Fawi, exposed the suspected scheme, linking it to a pseudonymous investor, MrPunkDotEth. The token was promoted as a cultural movement, but skepticism arose when its creator retained an overwhelming majority of the supply. Initially claiming to control 90%, further investigation suggested he held nearly 95%.
As trading kicked off, he rapidly offloaded holdings, securing $1.3 million in the first two minutes alone. Using multiple wallets, he allegedly extracted a total of $10 million before converting the funds through Binance.
While estimates on the final haul vary, experts believe the scam netted at least $4 million, leaving investors with worthless tokens. GANG’s price plummeted 99.5%, triggering widespread outrage as the community demanded legal action and called on exchanges to freeze the stolen funds.
Meanwhile, a separate controversy saw the abrupt collapse of the CHARLES meme coin. Its creator had sent $100 million worth of tokens to Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson, hoping for an endorsement. Instead, Hoskinson burned the entire supply, instantly erasing any speculative value tied to his name.
An extensive international cybercrime network has been brought down after law enforcement seized 145 domains linked to BidenCash, a notorious online marketplace that thrived on trading stolen credit card data and compromised digital identities.
Hackers in the crypto world are changing course, moving away from exploiting smart contracts and turning their focus toward tricking users directly.
Coinbase is now facing mounting scrutiny after it allegedly sat on a serious data breach for over four months, exposing the personal information of nearly 70,000 users before taking action.
A major security lapse has rocked Taiwan-based crypto exchange BitoPro, which quietly suffered an $11.5 million hack earlier in May but failed to alert users for weeks.