This past Wednesday, social media users witnessed a shocking event when the official Instagram account of McDonald’s, the globally renowned fast-food giant, was hacked to promote a memecoin scam called “GRIMACE.”
The hackers took control of McDonald’s social media account and used it to promote the “GRIMACE” cryptocurrency based on the Solana platform. Notably, these perpetrators even bragged that they had made $700,000 from the scam.
According to a screenshot circulating online, the hackers left a message: “You’ve just been rug pulled by India_X_Kr3w.” This message was visible to over 5.1 million followers for a brief period until McDonald’s regained control of the account.
“Rug pull” is a term in the cryptocurrency world referring to illegal schemes where scammers create a false sense of legitimacy by promoting fake tokens, only to suddenly drain investors’ funds.
“Thanks for the $700,000 in Solana,” the hackers wrote in the description.
According to data from Pump.fun, the GRIMACE memecoin surged, reaching a market capitalization of around $20 million within just 30 minutes of the hackers’ promotion. However, the coin’s value quickly collapsed after the scammers dumped their holdings, causing the market cap to drop below $600,000.
In a statement to the New York Post, McDonald’s team acknowledged that they were aware of this “isolated incident.” “We have resolved the issue on the affected accounts and apologize to our fans for any offensive language posted during that time.”
Related: Trader Turns $1,000 into $750,000 with Memecoin on TRON
Not only was the official McDonald’s account hacked, but Guillaume Huin, the company’s senior marketing director, also had his X (Twitter) and Instagram accounts compromised. The hackers used his accounts to post promotions for the fake coin, including a message about “a McDonald’s experiment on Solana.”
