By Nermeen Nabil Khear 
Shaw, founder of ai16z (now rebranded as Eliza), had his official X account hacked on Sunday which led to a scam crypto launch ending with the pump and dump. Attackers promoted a fraudulent Solana-based token, ELIZA, through the hacked account.
The scam token ELIZA surged to $0.01162 before collapsing 15% to $0.01008 as investors caught on. ai16z’s (now Eliza) official account denied any connection to ELIZA. It urged the users to avoid Shaw’s compromised account. However, Shaw regained control of his X account, calling the hack a well-designed and targeted attack.
Eliza founder’s X hack triggers panic sell-off
Shaw, in an X post stated that he doesn’t know what happened with the hack. Eliza‘s founder mentioned he had 2-factor authentication, a password manager, a strong password, and more. He apologized to all those who lost money and called the crypto space very “tiring”.
An X user, Jonah, asked for more context on the matter. To this Shaw replied, that he woke up and found out that everyone had messaged him saying that his account had been hacked. He added that his wife logged into his account and deleted posts and connected accounts while he was still asleep, so he didn’t see those posts and all.
I woke up and everyone DMed me saying my account was hacked, my wife logged in and deleted posts and connected accounts while I was asleep so I didn’t see it
— Shaw (wartime arc) (@shawmakesmagic) February 16, 2025
Shaw’s X hack triggered panic selling among traders, which led the ai16z token to drop straight from $0.42 to lower lows of the $0.35 zone. ai16z is trading at an average price of $0.393, at the press time. Its 24-hour trading volume is up by 31% at $86.2 million. Meanwhile, the token is now down 64% this month and sits 85% below its all-time high of $2.509.
Shaw hack stirs scam controversy
Some skeptics suspect Shaw’s involvement in the hack-and-dump controversy. The skeptics are referencing a recent claim by Kanye West, who alleged he was offered $2 million to fake a hack and launch a scam token. However, no evidence supports this theory.
Ye (formerly Kanye West) even posted screenshots of messages where an unknown individual offered him $750K to run the scheme and assured him that the remaining $1.25 million would be delivered in the next 16 hours of the event. Ye just needed to deny any involvement with the token eight hours after the post was made and claim a social media hack.
Going by West’s popularity, the token launch would have yielded millions for the scammers, on the other side, genuine investors would have lost money. Ye has even denied having any sort of interest in launching crypto linked to his name. In a deleted post he wrote, “IM NOT DOING A COIN I MAKE PRODUCTS I ONLY DO THINGS I AM PASSIONATE AND KNOWLEDGEABLE ABOUT IM TOO RICH TO DO ANYTHING ELSE.”
This hack follows a wave of high-profile X account hacks used for scam token promotions. The recent victims are Jupiter DEX (MEOW scam token), Football star Kylian Mbappé, McDonald’s, EigenLayerX and more.
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This articles is written by : Nermeen Nabil Khear Abdelmalak
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