In a surprising building, it was once published that the Nationwide Basketball Affiliation (NBA)’s legitimate Instagram account have been compromised. This came about after the account posted a promotion for a Solana [SOL]-based memecoin referred to as $NBA Coin, urging fans to sign up for the neighborhood and purchase the token.
The submit integrated a cryptocurrency contract cope with, which customers may just use to spot and business the token. Alternatively, the promotional language and the truth that feedback have been later disabled raised suspicions that the account have been hacked.
Including to the skepticism, the submit was once therefore deleted, and the account returned to sharing common basketball content material. However even though the incident seemed suspicious, the NBA had no longer publicly showed the suspected breach in any of its fresh posts.
The NBA account deception
The token was once reportedly created on Pump.a laugh and had a marketplace capitalization of roughly $3,500 at the 14th of October, suggesting restricted buying and selling job at the moment.
Alternatively, because the promotion got here from a globally known emblem, it did draw in consideration and may have additionally inspired unsuspecting enthusiasts to buy the token, believing it had the league’s endorsement. So, if the promotion was once unauthorized, consumers may just face losses given the decline within the token’s worth.
Neatly, this isn’t the primary time the NBA was once hacked. Again in March 2025, hackers compromised the NBA’s legitimate X account and different regional accounts to advertise the $NBA coin, falsely presenting it as an legitimate virtual asset.
That point too, the submit was once deleted inside mins, and the league showed the accounts have been hacked.
2026 nonetheless echoes the 2025 memecoin rip-off epidemic
Although the placement appears find it irresistible’s below keep watch over, memecoin scams nonetheless proceed to be a serious problem in 2026. Regardless of higher consciousness of cryptocurrency fraud, scammers proceed to take advantage of social media hype, superstar endorsements, compromised accounts, and traders’ FOMO (worry of lacking out).
One hanging instance emerged not too long ago in September 2026, when blockchain analytics company Bitquery linked 56 memecoin launches to a unmarried operation on Robinhood Chain, estimating that the crowd netted $15.5 million.
Of the 55 tokens that traded in opposition to ETH, 53 misplaced no less than 90% in their worth from their peaks. Investigators discovered that wallets funded via the similar operation purchased tokens early and bought them to later consumers.
This additional coincided with Elon Musk reportedly being drawn into selling the SLINK memecoin after hackers compromised the X account of Shivon Zilis, a Neuralink government and the mum of 4 of his youngsters.
Ultimate Abstract
- The $NBA Coin had a marketplace capitalization of roughly $3,500 at the 14th of October.
- The account was once additionally compromised in March 2025, in conjunction with different regional accounts, to advertise the $NBA Coin.