It looks like Metallica were hacked by cryptocurrency scammers yesterday (26 June), with strange posts appearing on their X (formerly known as Twitter) account from an account signing off as ‘METAL’.
The scammer was smart by trying to make their first post look official.
Coin Telegraph reports: “Get ready for the takeover,” the first post read. “Tap into $METAL, a dynamic new token on the Solana blockchain poised to revolutionize how you experience events and shop online. In collaboration with @Ticketmaster.”
Posts from the hacker also claimed that the financial technology company MoonPay endorsed the METAL token.
MoonPay President Keith Grossman responded to the claim in a post, writing, “MoonPay does NOT support METAL.”
Later, MoonPay took to X to reference a hit Metallica single and wrote, “If someone is offering you a METAL token, they are not the master of puppets — they’re the master of scams!”
While the posts have been deleted and Metallica have access to their account again—even cheekily re-posting a tweet from Limewire responding to a since-deleted post, which read, “Hey Lars, is this you? ?”—the scam led to stock for the METAL token reaching a peak of $3.37 million approximately 20 minutes after hacking the band.
The stock then plummeted to $90,000 just a few hours later.
You can view screenshots of Metallica’s hacked X account below.
Earlier this year, Metallica frontman and rhythm guitarist James Hetfield said that he still has “nightmares” spurned on by self-doubt.
He recalled in a recent episode of the Metallica Report podcast, “I start to feel insecure that, whoa, we’re old, we can’t do this and blah blah blah – all that bullshit that everyone tells themselves before they go into something that they care about and is important.
“So, having the nightmares of, you know, I’m the only one who cares about what we’re doing here. You know, where is everybody?”
Metallica are currently touring in support of their latest album, last year’s 72 Seasons. The tour continues with the band’s two-night sets per city—each show has a unique set—until 29 September in Mexico City.
