Key Takeaways
- A hacker gained control of an X account belonging to Algorand Foundation CEO Staci Warden.
- The compromised account shared misinformation and offensive posts containing racial slurs.
- The Algorand Foundation warned X users not to click on any links shared by Warden’s account.
A hacker who gained control of an X account belonging to Algorand Foundation CEO Staci Warden has run amock with her social media profile, using offensive language and spreading fake news.
The incident could be a case of opportunistic trolling, but personal attacks against Warden suggest she may have been specifically targeted because of her job role.
Algorand X Hacker Insults CEO Staci Warden
At the time of writing, Warden’s usual X biography was replaced by one that implied work as a “semi professional pole dance.” It also referenced scamming the Algorand Foundation and “[draining] 6 figures from my customers.”
In a string of posts littered with racial slurs, the hacker urged people to sell ALGO and buy ETH.
https://twitter.com/StaciW_DC/status/1750754865490321742
Warden’s account also falsely announced that TUSD would be launched on Algorand alongside the made-up stablecoin “Very Real USD”. Referring to Tron founder Justin Sun as “his excellency,” the hacker mockingly asserted that “soon, Algorand will be pegged to VERY REAL USD and a new era of digital commerce will commence.”
“I’m sure his projects will NOT be the catalyst for the next major financial collapse in crypto,” they added.
Foundation Warns Against Interacting With Compromised Account
In a post announcing that Warden’s account had been compromised, the Algorand Foundation warned X users not to click on any links or respond to messages originating from the hacker.
The Foundation stated that “we are in the process of recovering it,” but did not respond to CCN’s requests for additional information.
https://twitter.com/StaciW_DC/status/1750770384583131305
In a brazen response to the foundation’s post, the the person who has taken control of Warden’s account commented, “im not hacked, im based”
Crypto CEO’s Keep Getting Hacked
Although it is unlikely to provide her with much solace, Warden isn’t the first high-profile crypto CEO to lose control of their social media.
Last year, Hackers who gained access to Vitalik Buterin’s X account walked away with more than $690,000 after they used it to promote a phishing link, The Ethereum founder later confirmed that he was the victim of a SIM swap attack that allowed hackers to bypass his account security and reset his X password.
https://twitter.com/polychain/status/1743019573295894937
More recently, hackers who compromised an X account belonging to Polychain Capital CEO Olaf Carlson-Wee posted similar phishing links, attempting to lure victims with the promise of NFT airdrops. But instead of free NFTs, links attributed to Buterin and Carlson-Wee directed users to malicious smart contracts known as wallet drainers.
James Morales is CCN’s blockchain and crypto policy reporter. He has been working in the news media since 2020, writing about topics such as payments, banking and financial technology. These days, he likes to explore the latest blockchain innovations and the evolving landscape of global crypto regulation.
With an educational background in social anthropology and media studies, James uses his platform as a journalist to explore how new technologies work, why they matter and how they might shape our future.
