BNB Chain points to past vulnerability in CoinMarketCap account hack

The $BNB Chain’s official team has revealed it is looking into a suspected compromise of its CoinMarketCap profile after attackers posted an AI-generated picture on the profile.

$BNB Chain’s Chief Growth Officer, Nina Rong, announced the compromise on X late on January 23, claiming the team had received reports about their CoinMarketCap account being hacked.

At the time, she said they were still trying to confirm the details with the security and internal audit team. She warned users to be cautious when making any investment decision on any content posted on social media.

How was the $BNB Chain account compromised?

Some hours after her first post, Rong shared another update that revealed the results of the investigation. According to her, the findings led them to believe the attack originated from a previous vulnerability linked to the CoinMarketCap community platform.

“We have taken immediate action to keep the account secure and added safeguards to prevent a recurrence,” Rong wrote on X.

Meanwhile, in the official post mortem, the community was commended for its vigilance which helped them flag the compromise quickly. “Security and user protection remain top priorities, and we’ll continue to monitor the situation closely,” the post mortem read.

The previous CoinMarketCap vulnerability it spoke of was one that surfaced last year June when the security team identified a vulnerability related to a doodle image displayed on its homepage.

$BNB Chain’s account was hacked in 2025

Unlike the AI-generated image shared on the $BNB Chain’s account on the platform, which seemed harmless, the doodle image the attackers posted on June 20, 2025, contained a link that triggered malicious code via an API call. This resulted in an unexpected popup for some users who visited the homepage.

Once discovered, the CoinMarketCap team jumped into action to get rid of the problematic content. They identified the root cause and put comprehensive measures in place to isolate and mitigate the issue.

“We can confirm all systems are now fully operational, and CoinMarketCap is safe and secure for all users,” the team wrote in the post mortem at the time.

Account compromise has led to memecoins

The AI-generated picture that was posted on $BNB Chain’s CoinMarketCap account was one that depicted crypto’s golden boy, Changpeng Zhao posing with a pup named WAFFLE that had on a Binance hat.

People on X seem to believe the same people behind the image may have bundled or promoted a memecoin called $WAFFLE on the $BNB Chain. The picture made it look like an official endorsement from the $BNB Chain’s team or, at the very least, a fun tie-in.

The opportunists did not wait too long before they pulled the rug on the token around a $40k market cap. However, after the rug, the $BNB trenches took over, running a CTO in an attempt to revive the token.

The playbook is not a new one. In the past, a similar incident occurred, where hackers promoted a memecoin called $4, which pumped as high as 500% before rugging the token for around $4k in profits. Victims were later compensated, and rather than letting the token die, the $BNB community rallied together in a bid to “mock the hacker.”

They collectively bought the token and pumped it higher than it had previously been, flipping off the scammer and turning it into a viral narrative. Even CZ got involved at the time, highlighting what happened in a post on X where he revealed the hacker “dumped ALL his tokens for a $4k gain,” while “the community took over and bought the meme coin higher, as a mock to the hacker. Funniest come back by the community!” he wrote.

Following the CTO and that vague endorsement from CZ, the token ran on steroids, reaching peaks of around $200M market cap at some point and helping many traders make bank in the process.

The token became yet another symbol of community resilience on the $BNB Chain and spawned related hype around $BNB’s Four.meme as a token launchpad.