Animoca Brands Co-Founder Yat Siu's X Account Hacked to Promote Fake ANIMOCA Token

The X account of Animoca Brands' co-founder and executive chairman, Yat Siu, has reportedly been hacked to promote a fake token named ANIMOCA.

An X account belonging to Yat Siu, the co-founder and executive chairman of Animoca Brands, was reportedly hacked on Monday, January 23, to promote a fake token.

The incident was confirmed by Animoca Brands’ official X account, which urged investors to stop interacting with Yat Siu’s account.

Fake ANIMOCA Token Surges 500% in 5 Minutes

According to an initial investigation by Kenta, the hacker managed to compromise Yat Siu’s official X account and posted about Animoca Brands launching a primary token. It appears the hacker created this token earlier on the pump.fun platform.

The price of the fake ANIMOCA token surged by 500% within just five minutes. However, the price dropped back after the hacker deleted the post.

Moreover, Yat Siu used a secondary account to announce and confirm the incident. He stated that the attacker bypassed two-factor authentication (2FA) and that he had reported the issue to X’s support team. Yat Siu also mentioned he would share insights and highlight X’s security vulnerabilities in light of this incident.

“Unfortunately Yat Siu’s 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,” Animoca Brands stated.

Animoca Brands is one of the most active Web3 investors, with a portfolio of over 540 investments, including Yuga Labs, Axie Infinity, Polygon, ConsenSys, Magic Eden, OpenSea, Dapper Labs, Yield Guild Games, and more.

In related news, scammers stole $100,000 using a fake CLAUDE token after hacking Anthropic’s X account in December. They also hacked Drake’s X account to promote a fake meme coin named Anita.

According to Cyvers’ annual report, access control vulnerabilities remain the primary cause of losses in the cryptocurrency space. Cyvers’ data shows these vulnerabilities accounted for over $1.9 billion in damages in 2024.