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Monad Co-Founder’s Urgent Warning: Scammers Infiltrate Official Telegram With Fake Airdrop Ads

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Monad co-founder Keone Hon has issued a public warning after scammers infiltrated the mission’s official Telegram channel with faux ads mimicking the community’s upcoming airdrop declare portal.

The incident occurred only a few hours earlier than the extremely anticipated launch of the MON token, elevating contemporary considerations over phishing campaigns concentrating on crypto customers forward of token distributions.

In a put up on X, Hon cautioned customers to not click on on any ads showing inside

Monad’s official Telegram announcement channel, noting that malicious actors had bought Telegram adverts that appeared contained in the mission’s verified area.

“Crazy that Telegram will push content material instantly right into a channel that in any other case solely incorporates content material from one celebration,” he wrote.

Monad Tightens Security Ahead of MON Airdrop, Warns of Fake Claim Portals

Hon confirmed that the staff is working to have the faux adverts eliminated and pressured that the one respectable hyperlink for the airdrop declare is declare(.)monad(.)xyz.

The Monad airdrop declare portal is scheduled to open at 1:00 pm UTC on Tuesday and can stay accessible for 3 weeks, in accordance with the staff.

Hon urged customers to train warning and keep away from appearing with urgency, emphasizing that there isn’t any must rush. “Do not act with urgency, and all the time triple-verify earlier than doing something,” he mentioned.

Monad Growth Lead Kevin McCordic reiterated the warning, reminding customers to rely solely on official bulletins and confirming {that a} detailed weblog put up might be printed to elucidate the airdrop course of.

He famous that, not like earlier token distributions that required consumer verification, Monad’s airdrop will contain a particular time window throughout which customers can full duties to assert their tokens.

Despite the fraudulent adverts, anticipation for the MON token stays high. The yet-to-launch token is already buying and selling on Hyperliquid’s perpetual futures market at round $0.07, implying a completely diluted valuation (FDV) of about $7 billion, based mostly on a complete provide of 100 billion tokens.

Source: Hyperliquid

Monad, based in 2022 by former Jump Crypto government Keone Hon, has drawn appreciable consideration for its purpose of making a high-performance, EVM-compatible layer-1 blockchain.

The community claims it may well course of as much as 10,000 transactions per second (TPS) with near-instant finality by parallel execution and an optimized consensus layer.

The mission says it has overcome the so-called blockchain trilemma, balancing scalability, safety, and decentralization.

Monad has attracted appreciable investor curiosity, raising $225 million in 2024 by a funding spherical led by crypto enterprise agency Paradigm. Its testnet, launched in February, has already constructed an energetic ecosystem spanning DeFi purposes, NFTs, gaming, meme tokens, and prediction markets.

Users have been experimenting with testnet MON tokens, although the staff has not confirmed whether or not testnet exercise will affect token allocations.

Crypto Projects Face Growing Scam Threats as Telegram Fraud Soars in 2025

Telegram’s advert coverage explicitly prohibits misleading and phishing content material, however the platform’s system allowed scammers to buy adverts instantly focused at Monad’s channel.

The incident exhibits the rising dangers dealing with crypto initiatives throughout main token occasions, as scammers try to take advantage of heightened neighborhood engagement and investor pleasure.

Crypto scams on Telegram have surged sharply in 2025, with blockchain safety companies warning that social platforms have gotten the first channel for stylish fraud.

In September, THORChain co-founder JP lost $1.35 million in a Telegram-linked phishing attack believed to contain North Korean hackers. The incident mixed a hijacked Telegram account, a deepfake Zoom name, and what JP suspects was a zero-day exploit.

JP revealed that attackers could have accessed his encrypted iCloud Keychain, the place outdated MetaMask keys had been saved. He urged customers to keep away from cloud backups and undertake multi-signature wallets to cut back dangers.

The case provides to a rising record of Telegram-related thefts. Data from Crystal Intelligence shows that buyers lost $2.2 billion to scams and wallet breaches within the first half of 2025 alone.

Scam Sniffer reported that malware scams on Telegram have spiked 2,000% since November 2024, typically unfold by faux bots and phishing teams posing as buying and selling or airdrop communities.

Authorities are taking discover. The North American Securities Administrators Association not too long ago labeled crypto and social media fraud as the top investor threats of 2025, citing the rise of AI-generated content material and deepfakes that make scams more durable to detect.

Security researchers warn that Telegram stays a central hub for “scam-as-a-service” operations, a rising ecosystem fueling billions in crypto crime annually.

The put up Monad Co-Founder’s Urgent Warning: Scammers Infiltrate Official Telegram With Fake Airdrop Ads appeared first on Cryptonews.

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