More than $ 500 million was lost in the Memecoin carpet prints and scams in 2024, according to a Crypto Intelligence Platform report Merkle Science.
The most prolific scams concerned social engineering, which is a technique that is based on identity and manipulation to access someone’s personal data – often in this case celebrities or well -known technological personalities.
One of these cases saw crooks compromised the counter of the French footballer Kylian Mbappe. Once they have had access, a link was displayed on a harmful same, which reached a market capitalization of $ 460 million before being fired.
There was also a case involving the musical artist Wiz Khalifa who targeted his 35.7 million followers on X. A false WIZ token was promoted, going to a market capitalization of 3.4 million dollars before hunting zero.
“These scams are not only opportunistic – these are highly coordinated operations that exploit large -scale confidence,” said Robert Whitaker, Director of Affairs of Merkle Science in Coindesk.
“The pirates are no longer content to vioder portfolios or exchanges; they divert the credibility of celebrities and leaders of the industry to manipulate the markets in real time. Our research shows that the dumbfounded carpet like X being the main battlefield.
Merkle Science’s report reveals that 75% of all attacks took place on X and 19% on YouTube. 44% of reported social engineering scams led to carpet prints, while phishing attacks were also allocated to 44% of all scams.