Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev's X account was compromised on Thursday and used to promote a fake memecoin on Robinhood Chain, the company confirmed. That’s the visible half of an operation that, onchain records show, was set in motion hours earlier and designed to profit from the frenzy without ever pulling liquidity.
"Heads up: Our CEO Vlad Tenev's X account was compromised and posted a fake promotion for a meme coin," Robinhood's communications team said in a post on X about 41 minutes after the promotion appeared. "We're working with X to restore access and the post has been removed."
The token, called Vladhood (VLAD), drew more than $22 million in trading volume and roughly 85,000 swaps in its main Uniswap pool in the hours after the post, according to DexScreener. It was trading at about $0.0026 with a fully diluted valuation of roughly $2.6 million as of 3:55 pm ET — down about 20% over the prior hour but still up more than 90,000% from launch. The contract counted 5,266 holders and over 137,000 transfers on Robinhood Chain's block explorer, which has labeled it a scam.
The wallet behind Vladhood, 0xD706…438D, was created for the occasion. Onchain records show it received its only funding, 0.2955 ETH, at 11:25 am ET on Thursday from a wallet labeled on block explorers as the solver for Relay, a cross-chain bridging service, a route that obscures which chain the money came from.
