An X account impersonating Hong Kong’s Leader Govt, John Lee Ka-chiu, introduced a faux nationwide cryptocurrency on Solana’s token launchpad Pump.amusing. The account promoted the token to its 1000’s of fans, apparently aiming to capitalize at the fresh Political memecoin frenzy.
Hong Kong Gov’t Denies Nationwide Cryptocurrency
On Thursday, an X account below the username “JohnLeeKa_Chiu” introduced the “Nationwide Hong Kong Coin” (HKONG). Within the now-deleted publish, the Leader Govt’s impersonator mentioned that the “strategic step” marked a “new generation in virtual innovation and financial enlargement for Hong Kong.”
A couple of hours later, the account said that the token would formally release at 2:00 pm Hong Kong time, nevertheless it used to be postponed to five:00 pm. Forward of the release, the impersonator interacted with a number of X accounts, replying to US President Donald Trump and Indian Top Minister Narendra Modi.
The account additionally spoke back to Barstool Sports activities founder Dave Portnoy’s heated trade with American actor Nick Cannon, who lately introduced a Solana memecoin. Within the publish, the impersonator thanked Portnoy for allegedly serving to the Hong Kong executive “with release of Hong Kong nationwide crypto forex.”
John Lee Ka-chiu impersonator replies to Dave Portnoy. Supply: Blake Allen on X
Some crypto traders mentioned whether or not the Leader Govt have been hacked and if the announcement used to be a rip-off, because the X account displayed a grey verification mark, which signifies an account represents a central authority or multilateral group.
Nevertheless, John Lee Ka-chiu’s professional Fb web page denied the hyperlinks to the X account and defined the federal government used to be now not launching a cryptocurrency. “Individuals of the general public must now not mistakenly consider the faux knowledge claiming that the Leader Govt has introduced the release of the Nationwide Hong Kong Coin,” the publish learn.
He clarified that anyone used to be pretending to be him to defraud unsuspected traders, caution them to “watch out in in quest of proof and verifying the authenticity of the ideas to forestall them from being cheated.”
Is The Political Memecoin Celebration Over?
On X, a member of the Legislative Council of the Hong Kong Particular Administrative Area, Johnny Ng, echoed the similar caution:
To be completely transparent – the federal government has showed that is utterly faux and designed to rip-off other folks. Please watch out in the market and don’t fall for this trick!
This incident raised issues about X’s account verification and safety, because it follows a protracted checklist of hacked X accounts used to advertise crypto scams. One person identified that the impersonator most probably hacked the account of Indian officers and adjusted the username, identify, and biography to behavior the scheme.
Particularly, the account up to now posted footage of the Top Minister of India and reposted a number of posts from quite a lot of Indian officers. Additionally, it deleted all posts associated with the Nationwide Hong Kong cryptocurrency and adjusted its username to “moftransilvania,” suggesting that the hackers stay in keep watch over of the account.
Some customers additionally identified that the rip-off didn’t achieve momentum for the reason that hacker didn’t release and publish the token’s contract cope with (CA) temporarily, which allowed traders to look the quite a lot of purple flags. In consequence, the HKONG token most effective hit a marketplace capitalization of $200,000 sooner than collapsing.
Others highlighted that the release of political or Flesh presser-related memecoins has already carried out “sufficient harm” to the crypto business, noting the Central African Republic (CAR) “experiment,” and the Argentina-linked Libra token (LIBRA) crash.
As reported via , the Democratic Celebration of The United States Area of Representatives has proposed the Trendy Emoluments and Malfeasance Enforcement (MEME) Act, aiming to ban federal officers from selling quite a lot of monetary property or collaborating in conducts that might financially receive advantages them from those property.
This transfer follows the release of the TRUMP and MELANIA memecoins via the United States Presidential Circle of relatives, which has raised issues concerning the dangers of Flesh presser-issued tokens.
Solana (SOL) trades at $147.53 within the one-week chart. Supply: SOLUSDT on TradingView
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