More than $ 500 million was lost to Memecoin Rug Pulls and Scams in 2024, according to a report from Crypto Intelligence Platform Merkle Science.

The most productive scams involved social engineering, which is a technique that depends on imitation and manipulation to access someone’s personal data – often in this case celebrities or well -known tech figures.

One of these cases so scammers compromise on French footballer Kylian Mbappes X account. When they gained access, a link was sent to a dishonest Memecoin that rose to a market capital of $ 460 million before he was drawn.

There was also a case involving music artist Wiz Khalifa, who targeted his 35.7 million followers on X. A false Wiz -Token was promoted, which rose to a $ 3.4 million market capital before dropping to zero.

“These scams are not only opportunistic – they are highly coordinated operations that utilize confidence in scale,” Robert Whitaker, director of law enforcement affairs at Merkle Science to Coindesk.

“Hackers no longer just violate wallets or exchanges the primary battlefield.

Merkle Science’s report reveals that 75% of all attacks took place on X and 19% on YouTube. 44% of the reported scams with social technology resulted in rugs, while phishing attacks were also attributed to 44% of all fraud.