Memecoin’s market has become a breeding ground for attackers looking to take advantage of unsuspecting investors.
Memecoins shifted from an odd and hidden niche to a giant gambling engine that earned people millionaires overnight, all thanks to hype and excitement.
Some of the ravenous degens in space have been captivated by the most recent happening, PEPE. As FOMO swept the market, this particular coin with a frog theme kept rising to astounding heights. However, the latter is a con artist’s best friend.
Crypto Memecoin Craze
There are numerous tales on Twitter about how early PEPE investors become billionaires overnight. While PEPE was successful in revitalizing meme coins, it also led to the creation of a large number of fraudulent tokens over the previous week.
At least 10 memecoin frauds were created, including PEPEDOGE, PEPEC, WOW, MEME, FOUR, NEWPEPE, BENZ, BMW, POP, and BOBO, according to blockchain security company PeckShield. The fraudulent token developers are accused of removing the liquidity and duping naïve investors.
Investors in PEPE are a target of scammers. Last week, the cybersecurity company CertiK published a warning about a fake PEPE site that claimed to offer rewards and mentioned that it had been linked to a phishing contract.
The official community Telegram group for the memecoin has also been compromised by fake accounts, who have been posting unrelated hyperlinks in an attempt to attract people to fake websites. The token’s creators have constantly asked the community to exercise caution and warned against connecting their wallets to suspicious pages that purported to offer airdrops, staking, claims, mints, raffles, giveaways, etc.
PEPE Controversies
The memecoin attracted some controversy despite being praised by Elon Musk, the head of Twitter, who recently published a meme with PEPE the Frog on his Twitter account. One example is the US cryptocurrency corporation Coinbase, which described the PEPE meme as a “hate symbol” appropriated by alt-right groups in an email communication to its subscribers.
Following this, there was an outburst of criticism on Twitter, and for a brief period, the hashtag #deletecoinbase began to trend. Paul Grewal, chief legal officer at Coinbase, has already revised the message and apologized for the wrongdoing.