Overview
- Robinhood confirmed the compromise and said the unauthorized post from Vlad Tenev’s X account was removed while the company worked with X to restore access after the July 23 incident.
- The hacked post promoted a token called Vladhood (VLAD) as the ‘official Robinhood Chain mascot’ and included a contract address that drove immediate buying and pushed VLAD’s market cap toward roughly $10 million.
- On-chain monitors and analytics firms report attackers extracted about 650 ETH, roughly $1.2 million to $1.3 million, and the token’s contract recorded about 1,868 transactions after deployment through PonsLaunchFactory.
- Investigators identified pre-funded wallet clusters and a rapid sell-off pattern consistent with a coordinated pump-and-dump, and the Robinhood Chain explorer flagged the VLAD contract as a potential scam while trading continued.
- The episode highlights how heavy memecoin activity and weak social controls can be weaponized on new chains and leaves Robinhood facing scrutiny over platform security, user protections, and the chain’s readiness for institutional use.