On April 3, the cross-chain protocol Wormhole conducted an airdrop of its W token, which was subsequently listed by many CEX. However, the airdrop attracted significant attention from scammers, adversely affecting the token’s price.
According to on-chain investigator ZachXBT, the official announcement from developers was flooded with “tons” of phishing attempts from fraudulent accounts, many marked with “gold checkmarks.”
Claim your Whttps://t.co/GxyfY14hJd pic.twitter.com/ucUq2ahcUt
— Wormhole (@wormhole) April 3, 2024
The official X account of Wormhole co-founder Robinson Burkey was also compromised. Hackers likely breached his account and began posting malicious links. Following the incident, Burkey’s page was made private.
Developers of the security browser extension Pocket Universe noted that their application is blocking “hundreds” of scam comments under the original Wormhole airdrop claim post.
We’re blocking hundreds of scam comments under the @wormhole airdrop claim
elon pls pic.twitter.com/hjOCFXInIY
— Pocket Universe ? (@PocketUniverseZ) April 3, 2024
Additionally, the airdrop inspired some users to create meme tokens. The capitalization of the parody coin Warmhole surged from $100,000 to $1.2 million within a day, with its prices soaring by 1383%.
One user joked that if Wormhole airdrop recipients had exchanged their new W tokens for this meme coin, they would have become billionaires.
If you sold your $5k wormhole airdrop for Warmhole this morning you’d be a billionaire right now
— David G ? (@d_gilz) April 3, 2024
Researcher Pland stated that the Wormhole team forgot to exclude certain addresses eligible for the airdrop, which were linked to a $319 million protocol hack in February 2022.
Wormhole forgot to exclude the exploiter from the airdrop pic.twitter.com/xkkpDz9RAl
— Pland (@Pland__) April 3, 2024
According to DEGEN NEWS, four hacker addresses could have claimed a total of 31,642 W, worth approximately $50,000. At the time of writing, these accounts have been removed from the claim eligibility list.
NEW: 4 WALLETS CONNECTED TO THE @wormhole EXPLOIT ARE ELIGIBLE FOR ~$52.7K WORTH OF $W CLAIM — PER @ZheSolworks AIRDROP CHECKER
H/T: @Pland__ pic.twitter.com/P7SFfzJPxS
— DEGEN NEWS ?️ (@DegenerateNews) April 4, 2024
The W token initially rose to a peak of $1.5 following the airdrop and exchange listings but later fell to $1.18, a 20% drop.
According to CoinGecko, the asset’s market capitalization exceeded $2.1 billion with a trading volume of $1.4 billion.
Back in November 2023, the cross-chain protocol closed a $225 million funding round, valuing the startup at $2.5 billion.
Earlier, trading firm Jump Trading spun off Wormhole into a standalone business.