Fake Saudi coin exploits prince's name

Scammers impersonating Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman launched a fake cryptocurrency, capitalising on the frenzy surrounding celebrity-backed memecoins.

The "Official" Saudi Arabia memecoin (KSA) was announced via a compromised X account, "SaudiLawConf."

The Saudi Law Conference, the real owners of the X account, confirmed their account had been hacked and that any content posted did not reflect their views.

"The conference management announces that the official conference account in the X platform (@Saudilawconf) has been hacked and that any content currently published through the account does not represent our opinions or official orientations in any way," according to their LinkedIn post.

The lack of official government communication and details on the token's tokenomics or utility served as immediate red flags.

Further suspicion arose as the token's contract was deployed on-chain a week before the announcement via Pump.fun.

The token launch occurred on February 10.

The fraudulent token failed to gain traction, reaching a market capitalisation of only $7,489.

The launch of the KSA memecoin follows a similar pattern to the Argentine President Javier Milei-endorsed Libra (LIBRA) token, which lost over 94% of its value after insiders cashed out $107 million.

Anndy Lian, a blockchain expert, advises investors to conduct due diligence and scrutinise a project's team and transparency.

He cautioned against investing based solely on a catchy name or claims of being "official."

"Don’t just throw your cash at something because it’s got a catchy name or claims to be ‘official.’ Check who’s behind the project. If the team is all mysterious or you can’t dig up any real info on them, that’s a red flag waving right in your face," Lian stated.