Rapper 50 Cent informed his 32.8 million Instagram followers that hackers used his X account to carry out a multimillion-dollar memecoin rug pull.

Renowned rapper Curtis James Jackson III, better known as “50 Cent,” recently claimed that his X (formerly Twitter) account and website were hacked, resulting in the promotion of a cryptocurrency pump-and-dump scam involving a new token called "GUNIT." The fraudulent developers used Jackson’s substantial X following of approximately 12.9 million to lure investors and artificially inflate the token's price before crashing it. The token's value plummeted to $0.00016.

Jackson informed his 32.8 million Instagram followers on June 21 about the hacking incident, stating that a significant amount of funds were drained from the project. He praised Twitter for quickly securing his account and estimated that the hackers made $300 million in just 30 minutes, although this figure seems exaggerated.

Screenshots shared by Jackson show a typical rug-pull pattern with a sharp price spike followed by a steep decline. Cointelegraph's review of the GUNIT memecoin trading data on Dex Screener revealed that several wallet addresses sold substantial amounts of the token, with four accounts selling more than $100,000 worth following its promotion on Jackson's account. The total trading volume for GUNIT was $19.4 million at the time of reporting.

This incident is part of a broader trend of celebrities becoming involved in cryptocurrency promotions, often leading to confusion and potential scams. Caitlyn Jenner is another celebrity who recently entered the memecoin market, launching her own token and causing mixed reactions within the industry. Initially, there were speculations about her X account being hacked, but Jenner later defended the JENNER token despite confusion arising from a third-party token promotion.

The rise of celebrities in the cryptocurrency space has raised concerns about the potential for scams and the need for better security and transparency measures to protect investors.