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ANIMOCA BRANDS FOUNDER YAT SIU'S X ACCOUNT EXPLOITED TO PROMOTE FAKE TOKEN


THE FAKE MOCA TOKEN ON SOLANA EXPLOITED ANIMOCA'S LINKS TO MOCAVERSE AND THE
MOCA NETWORK.

By Sheldon Reback|Edited by Nelson Wang
Updated Dec 26, 2024, 2:52 p.m. UTCPublished Dec 26, 2024, 1:59 p.m. UTC
(Pixabay, modified by CoinDesk)

WHAT TO KNOW:

 * The X account of Animoca Brands co-founder Yat Siu was compromised and used
   to promote a fictitious token.
 * The fake MOCA token on Solana plays off the Moca Coin (MOCA) related to
   Animoca-linked Mocaverse.
 * The scam may be related a more than a dozen similar exploits that have
   occurred over the past month, according to ZachXBT.



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).

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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.

Whoever is behind the fake MOCA token is active on memecoin-creation platform
Pump.fun and has also created a number of NFT collections over the past two
weeks, on-chain data show. The wallet holds about $67,000 worth of the USDC
stablecoin, although it is unclear whether this is the direct proceeds of any
phishing scams.

Oliver Knight contributed reporting to this story.

UPDATE (Dec. 26, 14:52 UTC): Adds wallet data from Solscan in last paragraph.


ExploitsYat Siu

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.

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