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The fake MOCA token on Solana exploited Animoca's links to Mocaverse and the Moca Network.
Dec 26, 2024, 1:59 p.m. UTC
The X account of Animoca Brands co-founder Yat Siu, one of CoinDesk's Most Influential 2024, was compromised and used to promote a fictitious token, the company said in a post on the social media platform.
Animoca, a metaverse and gaming venture capital firm, posted a warning on its own account at 01:36 UTC on Thursday saying Siu's account had been compromised and the company was not introducing an official token or non-fungible token (NFT).
‼️🚨 Unfortunately @ysiu social media account has been compromised. There is no official token or NFT launch from Animoca Brands. The token launch on Solana as claimed in a post was made by the hacker. Please DO NOT engage with the account and stay vigilant.
We will provide an…
The exploit was probably perpetrated through a phishing email that purported to come from X and be related to copyright infringement, according to ZachXBT. The crypto exploit investigator posted on Tuesday about several similar attacks that took place over the past month, allowing the perpetrators to get away with about $500,000 at the time.
The false post from Siu's account promoted a token named MOCA on the Solana blockchain, according to a screenshot posted by ZachXBT.
Moca Foundation, a "community-owned foundation that aims to supercharge Mocaverse’s network effects," has its own Moca Coin (MOCA), which it describes as an "omni-chain network token." Mocaverse is an account and ID management system in which both Animoca and Siu personally have a stake,
According to a post from Mocaverse, control of Siu's account has been secured by X, which is in the process of verifying ownership. Related accounts remain untouched.
"There is no compromise on Animoca Brands, Moca Network or MOCA Foundation official handles, and there are strict security measures in place," it said.
Sheldon Reback
Sheldon Reback is CoinDesk's European news editor. Before joining the company, he spent 26 years as an editor at Bloomberg News, where he worked on beats as diverse as stock markets and the retail industry as well as covering the dot-com bubble of 2000-2002. He subsequently managed the Bloomberg Terminal's main news page before becoming the European editor for a global project to produce short, chart-based stories across the newsroom. His previous work as a journalist took him to Hong Kong, where he reported and edited for several technology magazines. Sheldon has a degree in industrial chemistry and an MBA. He owns ether and bitcoin below CoinDesk's notifiable limit.
