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McDonald’s official Instagram account was breached by crypto scammers on Wednesday (21 August) to display advertising for their new meme coin – Grimace.
For those who don’t spend much time dining in the glow of the golden arches, Grimace is the name of one of the fast-food giant’s mascots, introduced in 1971 as part of the company’s fantasy world McDonaldland, joining the Hamburglar and Ronald McDonald.
He is a giant purple blob that McDonald’s said is supposed to be “the embodiment of a milkshake or a taste bud”.
On Wednesday, crypto scammers gained access to McDonald’s official Instagram account to advertise their Grimace meme coin, a coin based on the Solana blockchain platform, which is known for launching meme coin projects and having “an active and intense meme ecosystem”, according to the Blockchain App Factory that creates Solana.
The scammers took over the page, posted an ad for the coin, and changed the account’s profile to market the coin, making it appear to be actually affiliated with McDonald’s.
Additionally, the scammers also breached the X (formerly Twitter) account of McDonald’s senior marketing director Guillaume Huin.
The result was a market capitalisation that was boosted up to $20 million before dropping below $1 million.
At one point prior to the post being taken down, the scammers commented “thank you for the $700,000 in Solana”, suggesting the hackers cashed in on US$700,000 (roughly A$1.04 million).
Within half an hour, the post was deleted, and McDonald’s regained control of the account.
The technique the scammers used is called a “rug pull” in the crypto world. It is a scam where the owners of the coin take the funds from the coin’s liquidity pool and vanish, making the coins worthless. As in the case of Grimace, these coins are often faked and then promoted heavily on social media to encourage quick investment.
Once the scam has been completed, the scammers delete any evidence of their existence, meaning social media accounts and posts, so that they are very difficult to track down.
McDonald’s acknowledged the incident, saying it was “aware of an isolated incident that impacted our social media accounts earlier today”.
“We have resolved the issue on those accounts and apologise to our fans for any offensive language posted during that time,” it said.
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