On Thursday, hackers took over Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev's X account and launched a token called Vladhood ($VLAD), instantly drawing 175,000 views and $22 million in trading volume within 20 minutes.
This wasn’t a spur-of-the-moment attack. The token contract was set up 46 minutes before the hacked post through the Pons launchpad, listing Tenev’s own X profile as the token’s official site.
Pons locks a token’s liquidity forever, making traditional rug pulls impossible. But the catch is that it allows creators to claim trading fees indefinitely. The hackers have already collected about $59,000 in fees during the first hours, with total earnings estimated between $1.2 and $1.3 million so far.
Instead of a typical scam where criminals vanish after a quick profit, this setup acts like a toll booth. Every trade generates revenue for the scammers, creating a continuous income stream protected by the platform’s anti-rug mechanism.
This incident marks the second time in eleven days that Robinhood Chain has been hit by a token scam involving executive impersonation, raising questions about liability when safety features become tools for ongoing fraud.
Classic crypto scams have a clear end: launch, scam, exit. Vladhood breaks this pattern by locking liquidity, ensuring the scam never stops and profits keep flowing to the hackers.
Such a model flips a decade of scam economics on its head, transforming the rug pull from a one-time robbery into a permanent yield farm. The system is public and traceable, but the hackers have every incentive to keep harvesting fees indefinitely.
This development challenges the crypto industry to rethink how launchpad protections can be exploited and who should be responsible when safeguards turn into scams themselves.
