Solana
Metallica’s X account hacked to promote Solana token, blamed by Sahil Arora
Heavy metal band Metallica has become the latest victim of a cryptocurrency scam, and the community is pointing the finger at infamous scammer Sahil Arora.
On June 26, the rock band’s X account began releasing a Solana token with the METAL ticker.
Within 30 minutes, the attacker created several posts claiming that the token was launched in partnership with ticketing marketplace Ticketmaster. The scammers then made false claims to drive up the price of the Solana token.
METAL has also been featured as a payment method for official Metallica products and events. One article even claimed that users could receive a 25% discount on Ticketmaster purchases using the token.
However, no official announcement was made by Ticketmaster at the time.
Fintech company MoonPay was also advertised by scammers as part of their scheme. Subsequently, Keith Grossman, president of MoonPay, confirmed that MoonPay does not support the Solana memecoin.
The scammers also claimed that the METAL token would offer staking rewards and airdrops to holders.
Scammers promoting fake airdrops | Source:
METAL’s overall market capitalization briefly managed to reach the $3.37 million mark within minutes of its launch. Since then, it has fallen to a mere $34,000with its price down more than 95% from its all-time high.
At the time of publication, the Metallica team appears to have regained control of the account. All messages published by the attacker have been deleted.
The crypto community was quick to point the finger at infamous scammer Sahil Arora, who was found responsible for a series of similar incidents in recent weeks.
Just a day before, pop star Jason Derulo blamed Arora after its JASON token saw its price collapse moments after its launch.
While Derulo has faced backlash from the crypto community with his involvement in the case being questioned, Arora has been at the center of controversies on several occasions.
Arora acted as a go-between for several celebrities, apparently exploiting their lack of Web3 knowledge.
Previously, American rapper “Rich the Kid” also had blamed Arora for hacking his X account to promote the RICH token.
Social media platform X even suspended his “@Habibi_Comm” account following his involvement in the multiple pump and dump schemes. However, that hasn’t slowed down Arora, who is currently posting from another X account: “sahildotfun.”
He also runs a telegram channel where he posts about his upcoming celebrity meme coin launches. The group currently has over 13,000 subscribers.
At the time of publication, his telegram channel made no mention of Metallica, but Jason Derulo and other celebrities were mentioned.
Most recently, Arora posted about American model Amber Rose, saying she could “pull a Jason”.
However, the famous model has posted a video claiming she didn’t throw a token. Interestingly, this video came just after she claims that if she threw a token, it would be on her own page.