In 2024, investors lost over $500 million due to memecoin rug pulls and scams, as revealed by a report from a crypto intelligence platform. Predominantly, these scams involved social engineering techniques, where hackers impersonated celebrities to gain access to their social media accounts. The report highlighted that 75% of these attacks occurred on X (formerly Twitter), with 19% on YouTube. A notable case involved French footballer Kylian Mbappe, whose compromised account led to the promotion of a fake memecoin that quickly rose to a $460 million market cap before being rug pulled. Similarly, music artist Wiz Khalifa was targeted, with a fraudulent WIZ token reaching a $3.4 million market cap before collapsing. Robert Whitaker from Merkle Science emphasized that these scams are highly organized, exploiting public trust in well-known figures and taking place in real-time, showcasing a significant shift from traditional hacking approaches to social manipulation tactics. Overall, the report indicated that 44% of the reported social engineering scams resulted in rug pulls, alongside a similar percentage for phishing attacks.

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