Why trust Greenbot
A social media breach of Jupiter Exchange’s official X account on February 6 resulted in millions of dollars in losses as scammers promoted fake cryptocurrencies to the platform’s half-million followers.
Hackers gained control of the Solana-based decentralized exchange (DEX) aggregator’s X account during the early hours. They immediately used the compromised account to promote a fraudulent token called $MEOW. The token name references Jupiter’s pseudonymous co-founder.
“Traders lost millions instantly on this Jupiter account hack. Literally in a matter of minutes,” said Beanie, founder of crypto venture capital firm GM Capital. “It’s amazing how we trust these protocols with billions of dollars in liquidity, but they’re not competent enough to protect their social media.”
The fake token’s market value surged past $20 million before the scammers drained the liquidity pool, leaving investors unable to sell their holdings. Not satisfied with one scheme, the hackers went on to promote another fraudulent token called DCOIN.
Jupiter’s native token, JUP, experienced immediate fallout, dropping 12% from $0.85 to $0.75. Trading volumes spiked dramatically, with activity in the JUP/BTC and JUP/ETH pairs increasing by 300%.
The breach occurred while key team members were traveling. Jupiter co-founder Meow revealed that team member Mei, who was flying home from a blockchain developer gathering due to a family emergency, became unreachable when the account was accessed through an Android device using in-flight WiFi.
After regaining control of their account, Jupiter assured users that no customer funds or treasury holdings were compromised. “All programs and funds are held in secure multisigs. No other comms channels were affected,” the exchange stated through their recovered X account.
This incident adds to a troubling pattern of social media compromises in the crypto sector. Last month, Breaking Bad actor Dean Norris’s X account was similarly hacked to promote a scam token that reached $8.4 million in market value before collapsing.
The crypto industry lost $1.49 billion to hacks and fraud in 2024, according to blockchain security platform Immunefi. While this represents a 17% decrease from 2023, social media account security remains a significant vulnerability for major platforms.
