Pokémon’s Social Media Hacked to Promote Memecoin

Kotaku and IGN reported that the English Pokémon X (formerly Twitter) account (briefly) promoted a memecoin on Thursday. The now deleted post claimed the memecoin was in celebration of Pokémon‘s 30th anniversary. Kotaku reached out to The Pokémon Company for comment, but the news outlet initially did not receive a response.

The Pokémon Company then released a statement addressing the deleted post promoting the memecoin — although this statement has itself been removed. The statement said the Pokémon account was “compromised earlier for ~30 minutes. We’re aware that our X account was accessed without authorization and used to publish posts promoting a cryptocurrency. Those posts were not created or approved by Pokémon and have been removed. We have secured the account and are investigating the incident. We’re sorry for the confusion and appreciate your patience.”

Fans naturally joked about the incident, suggesting Team Rocket must have been behind the hack.

As of press time, The Pokémon Company has not issued further statements regarding the incident.

Team Rocket Takes Over Shibuya

Coincidentally, the hack occurred in the middle of the Team Rocket Base event at the ZeroBase Shibuya event venue. In the August 25-31 event, the Pokémon villains took over the building with its iconic “R” logo across several “rooms” in the building. The event also features Team Rocket members “standing” outside the event space.

The Team Rocket Base event is not connected to the memecoin incident.

Sources: Kotaku, IGN, Pokémon‘s English X/Twitter account, Pokémon Times’s X/Twitter account