FAKE PUMPS IN CRYPTO ●
What is a fake pump?
A pump‑and‑dump involves insiders or scammers buying a low‑liquidity token, shouting hype (often via social media, Telegram, Discord), driving the price up artificially, then selling at the peak—leaving most others holding worthless coins.
Several recent memecoin-related hacks and scams are perfect examples:
The Solana launchpad Pump.fun X (Twitter) account was hijacked to promote a fake “$PUMP” token. It raised over $5ₘ before disappearing
WIRED’s journalist X account was also hacked, pushing a fabricated memecoin. Hackers made ~$8–10 k in under 20 minutes.
📉 Why now?
Low-liquidity cryptos and memecoins are incredibly susceptible to these manipulations.
Social media platforms amplify hype instantly—bots and promos spike volumes unnaturally .
Ongoing regulatory cracks haven’t kept pace; many pump orchestrators stay anonymous—and can evade enforcement .
