Robinhood CEO's Account Hacked for Memecoin Scam Netting $1.2M

Robinhood's CEO Vlad Tenev had his X account hacked on Thursday. The attacker used it to launch a fake memecoin called VLAD, claiming it was the 'official mascot' of Robinhood Chain, the company's Ethereum layer-2 network that went live on July 1. The post claimed VLAD would be listed on the Robinhood app, but neither claim was true.

Within 20 minutes the post had over 175,000 views and people were buying. Uniswap volume on the token hit $22 million within a few hours. The attacker used Pons, a launchpad that locks liquidity but still lets whoever deployed the token pull trading fees. Instead of a classic rug pull, they repeatedly called the fee-withdrawal function and let it bleed ETH while the token kept trading underneath.

By the time Robinhood's comms account posted a warning and the tweet came down, the money was already gone. The contract has since been slapped with a scam tag by Robinhood Chain's explorer. Tenev got his account back and said he was 'awaiting details' from X. Robinhood hasn't issued any coin of its own.