Fortnite Player Gambles Away $3.5M From Memecoin Rug-Pulls

A former professional gamer has been outed for orchestrating $3.5 million worth of memecoin scams before losing it all to gambling.

On Nov. 27, ZachXBT, an on-chain investigator, accused Serpent, a former professional Fortnite player, of masterminding memecoin scams that defrauded victims of approximately $3.5 million.

Serpent allegedly used hacked social media accounts of corporations and public figures on X and Instagram to promote memecoins that the gamer would later rug-pull — meaning Serpent would withdraw liquidity from the decentralized exchanges the tokens were trading on.

ZachXBT linked Serpent to compromised social media accounts belonging to McDonald’s, Usher, and Andy Ayrey, which were used to promote tokens with branding associated with the account owners.

“Over the past few months I have been tracking a series of related compromises for McDonald’s, Usher, Kabosu Owner, Andy Ayrey, Wiz Khalifa, SPX 6900, etc on X & IG,” ZachXBT wrote on X. “which has resulted in an estimated $3.5M+ stolen via launching Pump Fun meme coins.”

Tracing the GRIMACE memecoin rug-pull

On Aug. 21, McDonald’s Instagram account was hacked, with the culprit using the account to promote the memecoin GRIMACE.

Blockchain analytics platform Bubblemaps reported that the hacker used PumpFun to launch the token while maintaining control over 75% of GRIMACE’s supply. These tokens were distributed across roughly 100 wallets.

GRIMACE’s value briefly surged following the promotional posts posted from the hijacked Instagram account. According to DexScreener data, its market capitalization surged from a few thousand dollars to $25 million within a single day.

ZachXBT estimated the scheme pulled in $690,000 for Serpent.

On Sept. 3, the ill-gotten gains gleaned from the McDonald’s hack were used to deploy and manipulate another memecoin, SCHRADER, which was promoted from the compromised X account of actor, Dean Norris.

Laundering proceeds through gambling

On Sept. 6, proceeds from the McDonald’s hack were transferred to a crypto casino. ZachXBT identified that withdrawals were executed quickly after deposits, suggesting attempted money laundering.

On Sept. 12, 110 SOL was withdrawn to an address associated with a memecoin promoted from the compromised social accounts of Usher, a popular musician.

“By performing a timing analysis, you can see the funds were received on Solana to the same casino deposit address,” ZachXBT explained.

Further analysis linked the same deposit address to other account takeovers, including McDonald’s and Enoshima Aquarium.

ZachXBT found that crypto assets were moved across multiple gambling platforms, including Roobet, Stake, BC Game, and Shuffle. ZachXBT said Serpent frequently screen-shared his gambling sessions with friends on Discord, inadvertently revealing deposit and withdrawal details.

“I obtained recordings of him gambling where he inadvertently leaked multiple deposit and withdrawal addresses,” ZachXBT said.

One such instance occurred on Nov. 1, with Serpent sharing a $100,000 deposit and a $200,000 withdrawal to a wallet address on Discord that ZachXBT later tied to various compromised accounts. The wallet was tied to the funds stolen from the McDonald’s, Andy Ayrey, and Usher account takeovers.

Pattern of deception

Serpent’s reputation was also marred by allegations of fraud throughout his career as a gamer.

Serpent was expelled from the esports organization Overtime in 2020 for cheating. The gamer later went on to rebrand himself as a blockchain security expert and launch the tokens DAPE and ERROR, both of which ended with rug-pull accusations.

ZachXBT traced funds from ERROR’s deployer wallet to FCKIT, another memecoin that culminated in a $1.3 million rug-pull.

Serpent began deleting posts from his new X account after ZachXBT published his findings on Nov. 26.