Metallica had their official X/Twitter account hacked yesterday by crypto scammers who promoted a Solana-based crypto token under the ticker “METAL.” The first post after the hack looked official enough, and perhaps tricked the band’s fans. “Get ready for the takeover. Tap into $METAL, a dynamic new token on the Solana blockchain poised to revolutionize how you experience events and shop online. In collaboration with @Ticketmaster.” The scammers eventually went on to post about fintech firm MoonPay, which immediately caused the company’s president, Keith Grossman, to quickly deny any involvement on X/Twitter, posting: “MoonPay does NOT support METAL.”
The hacked posts have since been deleted, and Metallica’s account has been restored. The band hasn’t released a statement on the hack, but it did repost Grossman’s MoonPay tweet. The scam did initially push the METAL token to a peak of $3.37 million only 20 minutes after launching, but it soon plummeted to only $90k. (Consequence of Sound)