Hackers Hijack Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev's X Account to Push Fake VLAD Meme Coin
On July 23, 2026, hackers infiltrated the X account of Robinhood co-founder and CEO Vlad Tenev and used it to promote a fraudulent meme coin named Vladhood (ticker VLAD). The post, seen by Tenev’s nearly 800,000 followers, falsely claimed that Vladhood was the official mascot of Robinhood Chain, the company’s new Ethereum layer-2 blockchain, and hinted that the token would be listed on the Robinhood app.
Robinhood’s communications team quickly detected the breach. At around 2:05 p.m. ET, the @RobinhoodComms account announced that Tenev’s account had been compromised and that the fake promotion had been removed. The company stated it was working with X to restore access.
On-chain analysis revealed that approximately 70% of the Vladhood token supply was concentrated in the earliest wallets, indicating premeditated control. The meme coin’s market cap briefly reached between $4 million and $10 million after the post appeared. The wallets behind the scam then cashed out an estimated 690 ETH (about $1.3 million) before the price collapsed. Liquidity was never locked or burned, and a 1% fee continued flowing to the pool controller. Thousands of retail wallets were left holding the token after the exit, and blockchain explorers flagged the contract as high risk within an hour.
This incident follows a familiar playbook of account takeovers used to promote scam tokens, reminiscent of the 2020 Twitter hack that targeted Elon Musk, Bill Gates, and others. What set this case apart was the direct connection to Tenev and the timing of Robinhood Chain’s launch on July 1. Although the chain was designed for tokenized real-world assets, meme coin trading has dominated early volume, a shift Tenev acknowledged on July 8, stating that while the chain was built for RWAs, “it works great for memes too.”
Crypto traders on X quickly warned others not to buy the VLAD token and shared on-chain evidence of the scam. This episode adds to a growing list of security issues tied to Robinhood Chain’s debut, including an earlier unsubstantiated claim involving Tenev’s wallet. For a company building a blockchain meant to host real financial assets, the hack underscores that the weakest link is often not the technology but a single compromised login.