After nine months of silence, the X account of Matt Furie, the artist behind Pepe, sprang back to life in early August. Over the following week, it posted content and contract addresses tied to three meme coins: HOODRAT, DORK, and BOYZ. Most of those posts were later removed.
Account says it was hacked
On August 9, the account posted a statement claiming it had been hacked and did not endorse any altcoins. It also said that a warning had already been placed on its official website. That message appeared aimed at distancing the artist from the recent wave of token promotions.
On-chain analyst sees red flags
Blockchain analyst @StandartXBT said that after the HOODRAT post went live, the token's market cap initially climbed fast before falling. For DORK, the deployer carried out a bundled buy, pulled liquidity, and sold, pocketing significant ETH gains from the initial funds.
However, @StandartXBT used web archives to check Furie's official site and found no such warning text there. The analyst also found no trace of it on X. That led to the conclusion that the hack claim's credibility is questionable.