Popular mixed martial arts organization the UFC had its Instagram hacked on Wednesday, as a fraudulent post promoted an unauthorized Solana meme coin that rapidly soared to an $11 million market cap.

That’s before the attackers sold their 40% supply, of course, profiting $1.4 million in the process—that’s more than Khamzat Chimaev earned at UFC 308. This pump-and-dump has left many UFC fans with substantial losses as the token’s price crashed by 97%.

“UFC fans have been waiting, and the moment is here. Get ready to own the legacy. Precision. Strength. ALL in one coin. #UFC #UnleashTheFight,” the now-deleted Instagram post read, followed by the Solana token contract address.

This post caused UFC Coin (UFC) to spike 44,367% in just 41 minutes to a market cap of $11.31 million. Numerous users in the token’s Telegram chat told Decrypt that they believed the Instagram post was legit, particularly since Donald Trump just launched his own (real) coin.

“I [bought] because [the] Trump one was the same story in the beginning,” Telegram user Nenad told Decrypt. “Everyone thought it was fake, but it wasn’t.” They added, “I quickly realized it was fake since the comments were off, but I stayed anyway to see what will happen unfortunately.”

A UFC official confirmed to MMA Junkie that the post was not legitimate, and that the brand’s Instagram account had been hacked.

According to on-chain data visualization company Bubblemaps, 40% of the total token supply was controlled by a group of 19 connected wallets—presumably the attackers. In total, this cluster profited nearly $1.4 million from just over $40,000 worth of buys.

One trader invested $74,200 across five transactions at the peak, plus two more transactions after the 97% drawn down, according to DEX Screener. These funds are now collectively worth just $5,745. Similarly, another trader bought $67,800 of the token, which is now worth just $5,266; another saw their $51,700 investment plunge to just $3,000, as of this writing.

In an attempt to salvage some of their losses, a community takeover team has assembled to try and boost the token’s price. Some investors are attempting to contact MMA reporters to get Dana White to talk about the token ahead of the UFC Fight Night: Adesanya vs Imavov event this coming weekend.

UFC is just the latest in a long line of large companies that have been hacked just to promote a crypto scam. Last year, the official McDonald’s Instagram account was hacked, along with the X account of a company executive, with the attackers ultimately running away with $700,000 via a scam Grimace token.  

However, the industry has also seen an influx of tokens linked to legitimate companies and/or their founders. Earlier this month, the founder of video app Vine launched Vine Coin (VINE), which peaked at a market cap of $475 million. Users are now speculating that it may be used in a future relaunch of the app.

Edited by Andrew Hayward

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