Crypto VC Polychain Capital confirms its founder’s X account is hacked

Crypto venture capital firm Polychain Capital has confirmed the X account of its founder and CEO, Olaf Carlson-Wee, has been compromised, with the hacker posting phishing links disguised a website to claim an airdrop. 

In a Jan. 4 statement, Polychain urged X users to avoid interacting with Carlson-Wee’s handle until further notice.

Important Notice: Olaf’s personal twitter ( @zxocw ) has been compromised. Please do not engage with this handle until further notice.

— Polychain (@polychain) January 4, 2024

Carlson-Wee’s hacker began promoting a fake “$PCHAIN” token airdrop in an X post at 8:20 pm UTC on Jan. 4, encouraging his followers to click a link to participate. 

“In celebration of the New Years, We have decided to start the $PCHAIN phase 1 distribution early! What are you waiting for? Get your share before it's too late!”

“Register below to participate,” the message added, with a link to a URL purporting to be related to Polychain. 

Phishing scammers often post malicious links to trick users into signing a malicious transaction that drains crypto wallets.

The hacker has continued to follow up with additional posts. Approximately 41,000 X users have seen the original post at the time of writing.

Related: ‘Inferno Drainer’ scam as a service has stolen $5.9M since March: Report

Cryptocurrency phishing scams exploited 324,000 victims for nearly $300 million in 2023, according to a recent report by security platform Scam Sniffer.

The X account of Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin was compromised in September, with his hacker managing to extract $691,000 from victims who clicked a malicious link falsely promoting a free NFT.

Venture capital firm Blockchain Capital  and decentralized finance protocol Compound Finance  also suffered similar exploits in August and December, respectively. Both incidents involved luring users with the promise of token claims.

Polychain Capital, based in San Francisco, was founded in 2016 and held $2.6 billion in assets under management  as of July 2023. It is an investment firm that deals in "actively managed portfolios" of various blockchain assets. 

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