On-chain investigation firm Bubblemaps flagged Pepe the Frog creator Matt Furie's account for promoting a newly launched meme coin that its bundled wallet structure suggests was set up for an insider-favorable token distribution. Furie's team has characterized the incident as the account being "hacked," a claim Bubblemaps says has now recurred multiple times a year.
Bubblemaps' analysis pointed to a bundling pattern: a cluster of wallets funded from a common source acquiring a large share of the new token's supply near launch, a structure commonly used to coordinate an early exit once retail buyers pile in behind the promotion.
Not the First Time
According to Bubblemaps, this is not an isolated event. On April 14, the same account promoted another bundled token before a similar pattern was flagged and circulated online, meaning Tuesday's incident is at minimum the second documented case this year alone. The recurrence undercuts the account's own explanation, since a legitimate one-off compromise is a materially different story than a repeated pattern tied to the same channel.
A Recognizable Playbook in Meme Coin Scams
The pattern Bubblemaps describes is a familiar one in crypto: attach a token launch to a recognizable cultural figure or brand — in this case the creator of the single most recognizable meme-coin mascot in the industry — to generate rapid attention and buying pressure, while insiders who received bundled allocations sell into that demand. Furie has previously said publicly that he has no connection to PEPE-branded tokens built on his artwork, a distinction that has done little to stop bad actors from continuing to exploit the association.
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The Broader Risk for Traders
For traders, the case is a reminder that a recognizable name attached to a token launch — even one as directly tied to meme-coin culture as Furie's — is not itself a signal of legitimacy, and that on-chain bundling analysis remains one of the more reliable ways to spot a coordinated exit before it happens. Bubblemaps and similar on-chain analytics firms have increasingly become a first line of defense against this specific style of scam as meme-coin launches continue to proliferate across chains.
