The little joke lasted just a few minutes, a matter of seconds, but it paid off big time. On Wednesday night, Real Madrid footballer Kylian Mbappé’s X account was hackedand began to publish a series of controversial messages, totally out of tune with the correct French forward: defense of Palestine, anti-Semitic comments, a flirtation with a possible move to Manchester United and a bard for Tottenham and City.
Until Lionel Messi flirted with herwith a photo of the Argentine number 10 crying and a message in English: “Cristiano Ronaldo is the best footballer of all time, this dwarf is NOT the greatest,” he shot.
Beyond memes and links that circulated in WhatsApp groups, the most important message of all was the first: a false promotion of a new cryptocurrency with the name of Mbappewhich generated a mini run in which a crypto wallet managed profits of almost 100 thousand dollars in a matter of seconds.
The other side was a user who – according to specialized sites – he would have lost almost 1 million dollars in the maneuver.
The move started at 22:08, Argentina timewith the post promoting the cryptocurrency that carried the tag $MBAPPEalong with a photo of the 9 with the France shirt. According to the registry of the GeckoTerminal site, specialized in tracking cryptocurrencies, at 22:08:03 the currency began to skyrocket in value.
In a hurry, hundreds of investors rushed to buy small fractions of this crypto in the hope of being one of the first to have possession of this new business.
So, The crypto went from being worth 0.00025808 to a ceiling of 0.467985 in just one second. Yes, by 22:08:04 multiplied its value by 180 thousand percent.
But, at the same time, the dramatic decline began. In just forty seconds it became worth 0.0045. During the minutes in which the hack continued, the price fluctuated dramatically again several times, at the same time that the token code was shared again on X’s account.
In between, there were some users who managed to do business. According to the Wu Blockchain site, a person managed to buy 2 Solanas (another crypto, but more stable) in Mbappé’s fake memecoin and sold it moments later for 1398 Solanas. In dollars, he went from investing $286 to earning almost $200,000.
Another user was not so lucky. According to the report from the In one hour, that amount was worth just 9 thousand dollars.
Lookonchain was also able to find an operation where a user He bought for 29 dollars and sold for 125 thousand. According to the virtual wallet record, he is a user who usually bets on emerging currencies to see if any make an unusual jump like yesterday.
The move was a clear example of what is known as Pump & Dumpa fraudulent maneuver that consists of artificially inflating the price of a security (be it a cryptocurrency, a stock, a bond), trying to convince as many people to enter at the same time. Then, when a certain price is reached, the promoters quickly sell all the positions to capitalize profits at the expense of all those who were deceived.
In the middle, some users manage to make their difference by buying at the right time and selling before the total collapse. Hours later, the Crypto.com site echoed the situation and issued a warning to its users about the move that used the fame of the French soccer player.
While at the crypto level a small group managed to make a difference, the fake CM who took over the Frenchman’s account had fun bothering other users. In addition to Messi, others were attacked. He said that Tottenham seemed like shit to him…, but he uploaded a photo with the Spurs shirt. He called for the freedom of Palestine, made anti-Semitic comments, stating that “Jews own football” and “go to f… Israel.” He then said that he would go for free to play for Manchester City and that in reality “Manchester is red”, in reference to United.
Minutes later, when the Madrid star’s team regained power, the false posts were deleted, including the last one they published, where there was a meme of a little boy dancing. With the fortune they took in just minutes, that may have been the only true one: that of a celebration.