Robinhood CEO's X gets Vlad-handed to memecoin scammers 😬

The X account of Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev was briefly compromised on Thursday and used to promote a fraudulent memecoin branded as the "official mascot of Robinhood Chain," the company's communications account confirmed. Robinhood said the account was secured and the post removed, adding that it was working with X to restore access and that the token was not authorized. The original post, which appeared under Tenev's verified profile, pitched a token called Vladhood trading under the ticker VLAD and falsely claimed it would be listed on the Robinhood app. The token was created minutes before the post went up, according to onchain data.

The fake promotion drew more than 175,000 views in less than 20 minutes before users identified it as a scam and warned others not to interact with the contract address. Onchain data provider Onchain Lens reported the compromise, and Robinhood Chain's blockchain explorer has since labeled the token's contract address as a scam. The Vladhood memecoin surged to a market capitalization of roughly $10 million before collapsing, with onchain data showing insiders cashed out more than $1 million in profits.

Robinhood has aggressively expanded into digital assets, offering tokenized stocks, crypto staking, perpetual futures, and Robinhood Chain, an Ethereum layer-2 network whose public mainnet launched on July 1. The company has never issued a memecoin. Early activity on Robinhood Chain has been dominated by speculative memecoins, and the network has already drawn scams and rug pulls, including a reported $56,000 loss for one holder of the chain's flagship memecoin CashCat through a compromised smart contract.

The incident mirrors a broader pattern in which high-profile X accounts are hijacked to shill fraudulent tokens, a trend that intensified during the 2024 memecoin frenzy when accounts belonging to Sydney Sweeney, Doja Cat and 50 Cent were used to promote fake coins. Industry data provider Nominis said attackers are increasingly pivoting toward phishing campaigns even as the total value stolen through crypto scams has declined in recent months.