A hacker seized Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev's X account on Thursday and used it to promote a fake memecoin called Vladhood on Robinhood Chain. Onchain records show the token launched 46 minutes before the hacked post went live, and its creator harvested trading fees without ever pulling liquidity.
Robinhood confirmed that Tenev's X account was compromised and used to push a fake token. According to Robinhood's communications team: "Our CEO Vlad Tenev's X account was compromised", in a post published about 41 minutes after the promotion appeared. The account pushed Vladhood (VLAD), a fake meme coin on the company's own blockchain.
The token drew more than $22 million in trading volume and roughly 85,000 swaps in its main Uniswap pool in the hours that followed.
A token built to skim fees
The wallet behind Vladhood was created for the occasion, funded with 0.2955 ETH at 11:25 am ET through a cross-chain route that obscured where the money came from. It launched the token at 12:38 pm ET through Pons, a Pump.fun-style launchpad, and listed Tenev's X profile as the token's official website. The fraudulent post appeared 46 minutes later, pointing to a single coordinated operation rather than opportunists riding a hack.
Rather than pull liquidity, the creator skimmed fees. Pons locks a token's liquidity but lets creators claim the trading fees it generates, and the wallet collected about 31.6 ETH, worth roughly $59,000, plus about 72 million VLAD over about two hours. Because the liquidity stays locked, the token remains tradable despite a scam label on Robinhood Chain's block explorer.
The fake announcement
Written to read like a company statement, the post claimed the token would be listed in the Robinhood app and included its contract address. It drew more than 175,000 views in under 20 minutes before users flagged it. About 30 copycat VLAD pools appeared within hours, and at least three were drained to zero.
Third scam in three weeks
The breach is at least the third social media scam tied to memecoins on Robinhood Chain, the Arbitrum-based Layer 2 the company launched July 1 to host tokenized stocks. Bitcoin.com reported that the wallets cashed out an estimated 690 ETH, worth roughly $1.3 million, before the price collapsed. The scams have done little to slow the network, which overtook Base in daily active users three weeks after launch.
Sources: The Defiant, Bitcoin.com News
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