The official X account of Metallica, one of the most iconic metal bands, was seemingly hacked to promote a Solana token with the ticker METAL. The posts about the token have since been deleted.
The post, made on June 16, claimed the token, launched via Solana token deployer pump.fun, was created in partnership with Ticketmaster. However, Ticketmaster had made no such announcement.
Following the incident, Metallica’s X account reposted a warning from MoonPay President Keith A. Grossman, advising caution and clarifying that “MoonPay does NOT support $METAL on Solana.” This suggests the band did not launch the token. MoonPay also issued a safety alert, humorously warning, “If someone is offering you a $METAL token, they are not the master of puppets — they’re the master of scams,” referencing Metallica’s famous album Master of Puppets.
After the posts were made, the price of the METAL token spiked but quickly plummeted by about 90%, leaving it with a market capitalization of approximately $43,000, according to Dexscreener.
The exact details of how or why the posts were made remain unclear. Ticketmaster did not immediately respond to requests for comment, and Metallica could not be reached for comment at the time of publication.