The player count of Telegram game Hamster Kombat has fallen another 43% in the past month meaning that it’s down a whopping 277 million players since media outlets reported on its explosive growth back in the summer.

Today, Hamster Kombat’s monthly player count stands at 23 million, down 18 million since Protos’ report last month. As recently as August, the game claimed to have 300 million players.

CoinGecko indicates that volume for the token has also dropped from a 24-hour high of $1.5 billion on November 10, to around $52 million today — a nearly-97% decrease.  

The clicker game was supposedly going to release more playable content by the end of October as part of its “season 2.” However, this is yet to happen. 

The game’s roadmap indicates that the game should have “NFT mechanics” by now but again, this isn’t the case. In fact, the only recent development from the Hamster Kombat team (which is oddly not on the roadmap) is an announcement of a DAO. 

Read more: Hamster Kombat loses 86% of its users but gains 3,720% in volume

It claims, “The DAO will allow $HMSTR token holders to make decisions, vote, and determine the future of the ecosystem.” No other details, including a release date, have been provided. 

The game is one of Telegram’s “tap-to-earn” in-app games that utilizes the Open Network blockchain. The team behind Hamster Kombat chooses to remain anonymous and there’s no public company structure, names of employees, or HQ location. 

Another Telegram game, Notcoin, today announced its new “Earn” initiative that it says will reward users for simply holding tokens. 

Got a tip? Send us an email or ProtonMail. For more informed news, follow us on X, Instagram, Bluesky, and Google News, or subscribe to our YouTube channel.

The post Hamster Kombat loses another 18 million players since November appeared first on Protos.

Hackers took over the X account of the crypto podcast UpOnly yesterday and posted a fraudulent token using the brand’s likeness.

UpOnly host Brian Krogsgard, otherwise known as Ledger, said that he noticed that the account wasn’t under his control when he got home at 2:00 am GMT. Unfortunately, the cause of the breach was a mystery to Ledger. He said that it was not a SIM swap incident.

“There is no token,” Krogsgrad assured his followers. “UpOnly twitter account hacked (not sure how yet), they removed my only session from being logged in.”

Fellow co-host Jordan Fish, aka Cobie, unlocked his private X account briefly to warn users not to click on anything coming from the UpOnly podcast account. 

It seems the hacker changed the handle from @uponlyTV to @RanByLyoni and attempted to shill a fraudulent token as if it were an official UpOnly token. 

These token posts are now deleted. All that remains is a handful of posts made by the hackers, bragging about making a six figure sum off Cobie’s likeness. A request for Cobie to reach out to the hackers and “make a deal” has also been left up.

Reads more: Questions Haliey Welch and the $HAWK team won’t answer

The new handle meant that the original @uponlyTV handle was free for the taking. As web3 security expert Plum noticed, it was quickly snagged by someone called “Rusty.” This new account is now suspended.  

The hackers have claimed to be two X users, meth and Lyoni, who deny their involvement. Plum said, “IDK yet who IS behind the hack but both of them have contacted me and said it ain’t them .” Plum also assured that they know who Rusty is and that the “name is safe.” 

UpOnly’s last livestream on YouTube was over two years ago. Since then, UpOnly hasn’t been particularly active. The pair have teased some sort of 2024 Europe tour with a live audience, but as the year comes to a close, it’s unlikely to happen.

Got a tip? Send us an email or ProtonMail. For more informed news, follow us on X, Instagram, Bluesky, and Google News, or subscribe to our YouTube channel.

The post UpOnly hacker claims they ‘made six figures’ using Cobie’s likeness appeared first on Protos.

Haliey Welch, the media executive behind the Talk Tuah podcast, launched a memecoin called $HAWK in collaboration with overHere. The token has attracted significant controversy as its early market capitalization of nearly $400 million has quickly plummeted to under $20 million. 

This has led a number of Welch’s fans to brand it a scam, and the project has faced accusations that the team has been selling the token — something overHere has publicly denied.

These accusations have often centered around the fact that Bubblemaps claimed 96% of the supply was in a single cluster.

Assuming overHere is telling the truth and the team intended to follow the “Hawkanomics” token distribution plan, it’s important to note that it seems less than half of the token supply would be allocated to the public. 

What real utility for $HAWK?

Besides the distribution, there are many other potential criticisms that can be levelled at this project, including potential problems with its marketing.

overHere has publicly advertised that along with Welch, it will be “creating real utility for memecoins” with this project.

However, the website for $HAWK, as well as the entirety of the available documentation, doesn’t describe anything resembling utility.

Indeed, the closest the website comes to describing this so-called “utility” is claiming that “hundreds of thousands of non-crypto users will be onboarded by $HAWK.” 

However, the project seems incredibly unlikely to ever achieve that goal. Furthermore, onboarding people is not prima facie “utility,” as utility requires the token to be able to be used.

Furthermore, despite claiming that the project will onboard “hundreds of thousands of non-crypto users” the Token Terms and Conditions additionally claim that, “TOKENS ARE ONLY INTENDED FOR THOSE PERSONS WHO ARE KNOWLEDGEABLE AND EXPERIENCED IN CRYPTOCURRENCIES, BLOCKCHAIN, AND RELATED TECHNOLOGIES.”

It is unclear how this token could be intended to onboard “non-crypto users” while also only being intended for people who are “knowledgeable and experienced in cryptocurrencies.”

Protos has reached out to overHere and Penthouse Life (Welch’s management) several times since Friday morning to get clarification on what “real utility” this offers. We have not received a response. 

What Cayman Islands foundation?

Following the token’s controversial launch, Welch and overHere took to an X Spaces to explain what happened.

Throughout this Spaces, the team repeatedly referenced a Cayman Islands foundation that was behind the token.

Oddly, the terms and conditions for $HAWK reference “Tuah the Moon Inc.” which appears to be a British Virgin Islands business, not a foundation. It’s not clear what role the frequently mentioned foundation is fulfilling, or even what its identity is. 

Read more: US congressman Mike Collins goes from altcoins to memecoins

Strangely, the X Spaces is no longer publicly available.

Protos has reached out to overHere and Penthouse Life for clarification on why the Spaces was deleted and the nature of this Cayman Islands foundation and British Virgin Islands business. However, once again, at time of publication, we had received no response. 

So what?

Some users online have been quick to defend Welch, claiming she wasn’t knowledgeable enough about cryptocurrency to be held responsible for these problems. Strangely, this defense would mean she’s not the intended audience for her own token, based on her own token’s terms. 

Others have tried to take advantage of these stumbles to launch their own competing memecoins. Many of these centered around jokes involving Welch’s famous meme, or suggesting she was likely to face jail, prison, or at least a judge. 

Some have also been quick to suggest that “investors” in a token themed around a blowjob-based meme don’t deserve recourse in the spirit of caveat emptor.

Both overHere and Welch have been quiet since the Spaces concluded, not even willing to answer emails — at least when they come from us.

Got a tip? Send us an email or ProtonMail. For more informed news, follow us on X, Instagram, Bluesky, and Google News, or subscribe to our YouTube channel.

The post Questions Haliey Welch and the $HAWK team won’t answer appeared first on Protos.

An issue with WhatsApp’s disappearing media feature has finally been fixed, months after it was first discovered by crypto wallet startup Zengo’s technical team.

The View Once feature was introduced by WhatsApp to protect its users’ privacy by allowing them to send pictures and videos that would automatically be wiped once viewed.

However, in August, Zengo’s team discovered that the feature could be “trivially bypassed” when using the platform’s web app. The team says it disclosed the issue to WhatsApp but when it became clear that the issue had already been “exploited in the wild,” it made its findings public “to protect the privacy of WhatsApp’s users.”

WhatsApp responded with a quick patch but this reportedly still allowed the supposedly deleted images to be viewed. Now, the messaging platform says, it’s rolled out a more comprehensive software update.

Zengo detailed its discovery of the problem in a lengthy blog post in September.

“As we continue to develop the world’s pioneering MPC crypto wallet, the Zengo X Research Team is looking into its closest-living relative, the Instant Messaging (IM) apps domain,” wrote Zengo Co-Founder Tal Be’ery. “As a result of such research, we were able to identify and report important privacy issues in the past.”

He added, “When we looked into the implementation details we were very surprised to find that although ‘View Once’ is meant to be limited to platforms in which the app can control its displayed content and prevent other processes from abusing it, it is not enforced by WhatsApp’s API server.

“As a result, a client on any platform can download the message and make the ‘View Once’ promise void.

Be’ery then described how his team built its own unofficial WhatsApp client based on an open-source implementation of WhatsApp’s web client and informed Meta.

Read more: Bybit CEO claims Chinese users can bypass restrictions with VPN

Zengo says fix is better but still not perfect

In another blog post from Monday, Be’ery explained how even though the fix is “a great improvement with respect to the original starting point,” it’s not perfect.

“This fix indeed solves the core issue: Recipient’s devices that should not display a View Once message do not get it,” he writes.

“As a result, a trivial exploitation with a modified WhatsApp Web client cannot work.”

However, he adds, “The fix still allows other sender’s devices that should not display a View Once message to get it. This may pose an unnecessary risk as it increases the attack surface for no reason, since these messages are not displayed on such devices.

“For example, a View Once message might be forensically extracted from these devices by attackers.”

Got a tip? Send us an email or ProtonMail. For more informed news, follow us on X, Instagram, Bluesky, and Google News, or subscribe to our YouTube channel.

The post WhatsApp privacy bug still not fixed says crypto startup that found it appeared first on Protos.

Members of the Taliban have been “making good money” trading memecoins, specifically Shib and Dogecoin, according to a recently-released documentary film.

On Sunday, X user and documentary filmmaker “Arab” posted a snippet of a two-part film in which he spends seven days with the Taliban. In the 37-second clip, Arab sits in a room of (presumably) Taliban members and asks one particularly elderly man “do you like memecoins?”

At this point, another man interjects, telling Arab that “they don’t know about that.” However, he goes on to explain that he is familiar with crypto and opens up with more details about his trading strategies and preferred coins.

“I’ve done Shib and these things,” he says, adding, “I made some good money in Shib and with Doge.”

However, he then clarifies that he “lost it back.”

“Talibros trading memecoins,” laughs an excited Arab before the man chimes in again with “buying high, selling low. That was my thing.”

Read more: US congressman Mike Collins goes from altcoins to memecoins

Arab then jokes to the camera, “If you rug-pulled, just know, you took it from this man here. And me”

Other clips from the film feature the same man claiming that women “cannot rule because they have less brain,” revealing the “truth behind 9/11,” explaining why the Taliban banned music, and attempting to recruit Arab (he seems open to the idea).

In the comments under the clip, Arab posted, “Someone run up $SHARIA coin,” before quickly following up with, “GUYS IM TROLLING DONT BUY $SHARIA COIN. I DO NOT CONDONE THIS.”

Got a tip? Send us an email or ProtonMail. For more informed news, follow us on X, Instagram, Bluesky, and Google News, or subscribe to our YouTube channel.

The post Talibans trade memecoins to become ‘Talibros’ appeared first on Protos.

On Thursday afternoon, Donald Trump Jr. asked for America’s help in identifying the suspected shooter of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. After posting just two photos of the suspect, at-home sleuths sprung to action.

Don Jr.’s screenshot quickly led to false accusations that, based on mere resemblance and a fabricated tweet, crypto influencer Gainzy could have been the shooter. 

Failing to cite the New York Police Department’s Crime Stoppers program or WANTED notice, Don Jr. simply encouraged random allegations against a variety of innocent individuals. Free to use AI, Photoshop, and all manner of doctored media created earned engagement on social media and civilians joined the finger-pointing spree.

The algorithm duly rewarded them for their efforts.

Gainzy looks kind of like the guy… that was enough?

Commenters posted dozens of low-effort accusations that fell flat on their face. Soon, however, one savvy X user, 0xRacist, went a step further, fabricating a clever s***post that has earned nearly 6 million impressions.

0xRacist fingered Gainzy — a popular crypto trader who was in Tel Aviv at the time of Thompson’s assassination — as the shooter. The made-at-home allegation featured a side-by-side photo of Crime Stoppers camera footage and a social media image of Gainzy who bears a slight, imperfect resemblance to the suspect.

Read more: Crypto security firms more concerned with social media clout than the details

Many were fooled. Inversebrah memorialized the event. Intelligent members of the crypto community laughed at how easy it is to farm engagement from X using false information.

Some crypto celebrities like Laura Shin and Udi Wertheimer considered the allegation so obviously false that they played along for fun, given that Gainzy was on the other side of the world during the incident.

Got a tip? Send us an email or ProtonMail. For more informed news, follow us on X, Instagram, Bluesky, and Google News, or subscribe to our YouTube channel.

The post Gainzy can’t shake UnitedHealthcare hitman accusations appeared first on Protos.

Coinbase is facing criticism on social media after it was discovered that the US-based exchange is restricting the accounts of users who access the platform via a VPN.

Yesterday, EthHub co-founder Eric Conner complained that Coinbase locked his account after he tried to send $25,000 in USDC. When Conner said it was apparent that his use of a VPN was behind the restriction, many users began to complain about the same VPN-related issues with Coinbase. 

Today, Coinbase product designer Scott Shapiro said, “PSA: Don’t use a VPN to access Coinbase.” 

He added, “Attackers always use VPNs, so our risk models take that as a negative sign even if you’re legitimately using your own account.”

Users on X, however, didn’t react well to the exchange’s VPN stance. One user said, “It’s our privacy right to use VPNs. If you’re telling us to not use VPN to access Coinbase, the choice is to just not use Coinbase.” 

Read more: Coinbase to leave Turkey after ending USDC yields in EU

Another posted, “This just shows your incompetence. Users should not have to disable their VPN to use your exchange. Period.” Kraken’s chief security officer said, “You are making some of your users choose between financial freedom and physical safety.” 

Debanking dominated conversation on X this week with some comparing it to Coinbase’s VPN stance. The company’s CEO Brian Armstrong offered his take on the subject last Sunday, claiming that “anti-money laundering regulations have been a policy failure,” that costs roughly $213 billion each year and harms consumers. 

Conner posted, “Wasn’t @brian_armstrong just talking about debanking???” after his account was frozen. 

Read more: CHART: How bitcoin and crypto are taxed across the G7

However, not everybody took issue with Coinbase’s approach to the account freeze. Blockworks co-founder Jason Yanowitz suggested that the company is just trying to protect users from hackers, while former Coinbase employee @LukeYoungblood agreed, stressing that Coinbase isn’t debanking him. 

In response to Yanowitz, Conner called the approach “a lazy implementation,” saying, “There are plenty of better ways to handle this than just nuking my account.”

After regaining access to his account, Conner noted, “I’m lucky with my reach. Others, not so much…”

Got a tip? Send us an email or ProtonMail. For more informed news, follow us on X, Instagram, Bluesky, and Google News, or subscribe to our YouTube channel.

The post Coinbase receives backlash over ‘lazy’ VPN restriction appeared first on Protos.

A new Delaware-based crypto project that parodies long-bankrupt energy company Enron is apparently “recruiting” for a nuclear systems engineer as it gears up to launch its first token.

Houston-registered Enron Corporation famously went bankrupt in December 2001 after a number of its executives were found to be using fraudulent accounting practices to inflate the firm’s revenues.

However, the ‘Enron’ that is apparently preparing to make waves in the world of crypto is a very different entity.

For starters, at the time of its bankruptcy in 2001, Jeffrey Keith Skilling and Kenneth Lay were the company’s CEOs. Recent trademark documents, however, reveal that the new Enron Corporation is not only now registered in Delaware but the venture, which describes itself as a “parody” in its official terms of use, is helmed by a new CEO called Charles Gaydos.

In what is presumably also part of the bit, a post on the project’s hiring page says it’s searching for a “Nuclear Systems Engineer.” This is despite it now being in the business of selling Enron merchandise — $118 for an Enron hoodie, or $28 for a water bottle — and crypto services — specifically NFTs and an exchange.

An “Enron Web4” trademark is also in the works.

The account’s posts are already being marked with community notes, presumably from people who missed the parody part. For example, one calls the venture “a crypto scam masquerading as bankrupted Enron Corporation.”

Users have also noticed that members of its supposed team were actually stock image models.

X user @Pledditor speculated that it could be “Elon Musk’s scam,” as his brother Kimbal followed the new Enron account when it had very few followers.

Got a tip? Send us an email or ProtonMail. For more informed news, follow us on X, Instagram, Bluesky, and Google News, or subscribe to our YouTube channel.

The post No, Enron isn’t coming back with a new crypto token appeared first on Protos.

In recent months, a total of $3.5 million worth of SOL has been raised by Pump Fun-based memecoins after being promoted via hacked X and Instagram accounts.

Scammers targeted accounts belonging to businesses and celebrities such as McDonald’s, Usher, and Wiz Khalifa. They used their wide reach to tease a token’s ticker or contract address, or simply link to a token’s Pump Fun page.

Blockchain investigator ZachXBT has traced the initial funding of each of the 16 tokens on the Solana-based launchpad, connecting each incident to funds raised from the preceding scams.

Read more: ‘Thanks for the 20 bandos!’ Teen behind QUANT rug pull misses out on $4M profit

The incidents were linked either by direct funding between associated addresses, or the fact that proceeds were transferred into shared crypto casino deposit addresses.

The affected social media accounts were wide-ranging and also include Breaking Bad actor Dean Norris, Enoshima Aquarium in Japan, Andy Ayrey (creator of AI crypto bot ‘Truth Terminal’), and the owner of Kabosu, the Shiba Inu behind the original ‘Doge’ meme and its associated crypto.

The results of the scams were also varied, with the most lucrative target being Andy Ayrey at a total of $2.2 million across six tokens launched. The McDonald’s GRIMACE token netted over $690,000, and proceeds from the USHER token totaled 4,868 SOL worth approximately $650,000 at the time, according to data from CoinMarketCap.

Once an account is hacked, it can be difficult to regain full control; in the Andy Ayrey case, the X account was compromised for a number of days. Blockchain security expert Pablo Sabbatellla detailed the frustrations involved in trying to recover accounts and dealing with X’s “terrible security UX.”

Teasing a “Part 2” of the investigation, ZachXBT has also promised to “expose multiple threat actors linked to the 9+ compromises,” on top of the “on-chain connections.”

Past investigations have led to the arrest of scammers in both France and the US.

Read more: How to stay safe on-chain: Three crypto users lose $876K within hours

All fun and games?

Pump Fun has recently devolved into a hive of extreme attention-grabbing behavior, with token creators resorting to increasingly shocking lengths to stand out amongst the approximately 50,000 tokens being launched daily.

The race to the bottom, which reportedly included creators threatening murder, suicide, and other extreme acts, culminated in the platform removing its live-streaming feature on Monday.

Read more: Pump Fun livestreams spark backlash from disgusted traders

In a ‘moderation message’ posted directly to the Pump Fun website, the team informed users that the feature would be paused “for an indefinite time period until the moderation infrastructure is ready to deal with the heightened levels of activity.”

Since its launch in January, Pump Fun has made over a quarter of a billion dollars in fees across almost four million tokens created on the platform, according to a dashboard on Dune Analytics.

Got a tip? Send us an email or ProtonMail. For more informed news, follow us on X, Instagram, Bluesky, and Google News, or subscribe to our YouTube channel.

The post Hacked X and Insta accounts used for Pump Fun rug pulls appeared first on Protos.

Litecoin, once described as the crypto silver to bitcoin’s gold, is now apparently self-identifying as a meme coin. The bold new approach has already seen it debut a new low-effort mascot, adopt a sassy tone on social media, and throw X-rated shade at its altcoin rivals.

The stunt appears to have been timed to coincide with bitcoin’s latest bull run that has inevitably carried various meme coins to new highs also.

Since November 13, Litecoin’s X account — which has traditionally focused on posting general promotional material and articles about its progress — has adopted a far more irreverent tone. So far, it’s called its followers “crypto beaches,” made a Uranus joke, and referred to fresh buyers purchasing Litecoin as “taking the L.”

Earlier today, the account also implied that Solana is an “extreme pussy.”

Read more: Marc Andreessen gave an AI agent $50,000 of bitcoin — it endorsed GOAT

As part of the meme coin rebrand, Litecoin has also adopted a hastily drawn stick man as its mascot. 

Since Litecoin’s rebrand, the price of LTC has increased from $72 on November 13 to $83 at press time. It will also be hoping that the publicity surrounding its change of direction goes some way to improving its image given that many were beginning to question the currency’s relevance.

Read more: Hamster Kombat loses 86% of its users but gains 3,720% in volume

Indeed, even Litecoin’s own X account joked about its less-than-stellar price action, posting, “BREAKING: $LTC RECLAIMS $84 FOR THE 10,000,000TH TIME IN THE PAST 3 YEARS.” 

Got a tip? Send us an email or ProtonMail. For more informed news, follow us on X, Instagram, Bluesky, and Google News, or subscribe to our YouTube channel.

The post Litecoin calls Solana a pussy after sassy meme coin rebrand appeared first on Protos.