The crypto ecosystem has witnessed an astonishing surge in memecoins and their popularity over the past year. However, this craze has inadvertently opened the floodgates to a slew of scams and rug pulls preying on unsuspecting investors. The latest victim of this troubling trend is the Solana-based GRIMACE coin, which recently fell prey to a devastating rug pull.
The sequence of events began when hackers infiltrated McDonald’s official Instagram account and used the platform to promote the GRIMACE token. These cybercriminals spread false information, falsely claiming that McDonald’s had issued the GRIMACE memecoin on the Solana blockchain. This deception had the intended effect; investors quickly flocked to the GRIMACE token, catapulting its market capitalization from a modest $500,000 to a staggering $25 million in mere 30 minutes.
At its zenith, the token’s price experienced an explosive surge of nearly 400%, climbing from an initial value of just $0.0005110 to an impressive $0.02500. Unfortunately, the exuberance was fleeting. Shortly after this meteoric rise, the anonymous developers behind GRIMACE executed a textbook rug pull, abruptly abandoning the project and making off with over $700,000 in investor funds. Adding insult to injury, the hackers brazenly altered the McDonald’s Instagram bio to read, “Thank you for the $700,000 in Solana.”
On a different note, the Solana price has shown relative stability since the start of the week, trading within a newly established range between $138 and $142. This follows a recovery from a plunge at the beginning of the month that saw prices dip to $109, the lowest level since March of this year.
Over the past 24 hours, SOL has remained relatively unchanged compared to Tuesday’s price, showing a minor 0.9% drop despite Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) surging nearly 3% and 2% respectively. This stagnation indicates minimal demand for the fifth-largest cryptocurrency over the past week, further exemplified by a 14% decrease in trading volume to $2.2 million over the last two days, according to CoinGecko data.
The consolidation of Solana’s price is a point of concern for bullish investors, as the token has yet to surpass key technical indicators. Currently trading at $142, SOL has not broken through its 50-day and 200-day exponential moving averages (EMAs), which are positioned at $143 and $151 respectively. Overcoming these levels is essential for sustained price recovery and serves as critical support floors in case of potential market corrections. It is also noteworthy that following the broader cryptocurrency market crash on August 5, SOL found significant support at the $129 level, marking it as a crucial near-term defense for Solana’s price action.
The price range observed between $138 and $142 since Monday underscores the cautious stance of investors as they navigate these turbulent market conditions.
