PANews reported on February 11 that according to a report by Merkle Science, an encrypted intelligence platform, more than $500 million will be lost in 2024 due to the collapse of Meme coins and fraud. Among them, the most rampant fraud methods involve social engineering, a technique that relies on disguise and manipulation to obtain other people's personal data-in this case, the targets are often celebrities or well-known technology figures.
In one case, scammers hacked into the X account of French soccer player Kylian Mbappe. Once they gained access, they posted a link to a malicious Meme coin that climbed to $460 million in market value before plummeting to zero. Another case involved music artist Wiz Khalifa, targeting his 35.7 million followers on the X platform. A fake WIZ token was hyped, reaching a market value of $3.4 million before plummeting to zero.
Merkle Science's report revealed that 75% of the attacks took place on Platform X, and 19% on YouTube. 44% of the reported social engineering scams led to the plunge of Memecoin, while phishing attacks were also considered to be the cause of 44% of all scams.
