Cardano Foundation X Account Compromised

The X account of the Cardano Foundation was compromised on Sunday by an unknown party, which led to the false announcement of a Cardano-branded token on Solana and a subsequent false disclosure of an SEC lawsuit against the company.

Fake Token Announcement

The compromised X account was first used to post a thread purportedly announcing a token called $ADASOL, a Solana-based token claimed to be "Cardano, reimagined for Solana’s speed and innovation."

Unlike typical scam attempts, the thread was sophisticated, consisting of thirteen posts explaining the token’s purpose and linking to genuine resources, including the Cardano Foundation's website and a podcast episode discussing the token.

The fake token accumulated over $500,000 worth of trading volume according to DexScreener, before traders realized it was a scam.

SEC Lawsuit Announcement

The initial post was removed within an hour, but shortly after, another false notice appeared. This misleading post warned the Cardano community of an alleged SEC lawsuit served to the Foundation on Sunday. It claimed, "In light of this unexpected legal action, we have made the difficult decision to immediately cease all support towards the $ADA token to ensure compliance with regulatory requirements."

This post, with disabled replies, garnered over 256,000 views on X, while many users quoted the tweet to indicate that the account had been compromised.

When one Cardano supporter questioned the notice's authenticity, a team lead at the Cardano Foundation replied, "Confirmed, we’re on it." The Cardano Community X account later clarified, "The Cardano Foundation X account @Cardano_CF has been compromised. Please ignore any posts from the account at this time while we address this."

Foundation's Response

In a statement, the Cardano Foundation informed that its team is "actively working to restore security" and assured that confirmation of restored access would be posted on its LinkedIn page. They emphasized that the breach of the X account does not mean other platforms or systems are compromised.

Updated at 11:54 AM EST with details of the Cardano Foundation's statement.