CZ urges the crypto community to be weary of official social media accounts promoting meme coins by posting contract addresses on the main page.
- CZ warned traders to stay cautious amid the meme coin resurgence, highlighting rising hacks where official accounts are hijacked to share fake contract addresses and promote scam tokens.
- Despite acknowledging the growing meme coin trend on BNB Chain, CZ reiterated his neutral stance, encouraging builders to prioritize utility over hype.
On Oct. 20, with the rise of meme coins in the crypto market again, former Binance CEO and founder Changpeng “CZ” Zhao took to his X account to remind traders of ongoing risks. He warned them to exercise caution, specifically regarding official accounts that are suddenly sharing contract addresses for meme coins on their main page.
“With the rise of meme coins, hackers are targeting social media accounts (as they usually have lower security measures) to post CAs [contract addresses],” he said in his latest post.
“Beware that official accounts do not endorse any specific memes,” he added.
Cases of hackers promoting fake meme coins on official social media accounts have become a regular occurrence in the crypto space. Most recently, the BNB (BNB) Chain X account was hacked to promote a BNB meme coin disguised as an airdrop event.
The hacker pooled user’s funds into the “4” meme coin before executing a rug-pull and profiting $4,000 from the remaining tokens. The BNB community noticed and proceeded to mock the hacker by pumping the token’s price up by 500% before letting it drop exponentially.
“Interestingly, after the hacker dumped ALL his tokens for a $4k gain, the community took over and bought the meme coin higher, as a mock to the hacker. Funniest come back by the community!” said CZ.
A similar incident happened with the Chinese PancakeSwap X account, which got hacked on Oct 8. The hacker used the account to promote a meme coin dubbed “Sir Pancake,” which reportedly reached a trading volume of $20 million shortly after it was launched.
Other large accounts un-related to crypto have also fallen victim to hacks linked to meme coins. At the end of 2024, Canadian rapper Drake’s X account was hacked to promote a fake meme coin called ANITA which surged to $4.9 million in trading volume, as traders believed it was tied to Drake’s upcoming tour.
Later in February 2025, the luxury fashion brand Dior also got hacked to promote a fake DIOR meme coin launched on Pump.fun. Within minutes after the post was shared, the token’s value skyrocketed by 138% and its trading volume soared to more than $1 million.
CZ’s stance on meme coins
Overall, CZ has maintained a nuance stance on meme coins; as he has neither fully endorsed not condemned them. However, he has previously emphasized caution and a preference for utility in past social media posts.
As of late, the BSC ecosystem has seen a boom in meme coin trading and creation, as the blockchain’s DEX trading volume received a major boost from meme coin launchpads like Four.Meme and PancakeSwap. In fact, the BNB Chain meme coin launchpad Four.Meme succesfully managed to briefly dethrone Pump.fun (PUMP) in 24-hour revenue earlier this month.
CZ acknowledged the meme coin boom on BNB, indicating that he was surprised by the recent development, considering Solana (SOL) meme coins have often been the ones leading the charge. Now, BNB meme coins are starting to pick up speed.
“I didn’t expect this at all. And people keep asking me to predict the future… Keep building!” he said in a post celebrating what he called the “BNB meme season.”
Back in February this year, CZ had commented on the meme coin ecosystem in BNB Smart Chain. He viewed it as “immature” as the system struggled to handle the surge in meme coin activity that erupted after many traders began launching dog-themed meme coins on the platform, mostly inspired by CZ’s pet dog named Broccoli.
