Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky has quipped {that a} latest hack of his X account left extra cryptocurrency followers.
“To the one who hacked my account earlier this week: thanks for all the brand new crypto followers,” Chesky wrote on X. “To my new crypto followers: I will be a really disappointing observe.”
The lighthearted comment got here after Chesky’s account was used to publish a prolonged eyebrow-raising thread praising real-world asset (RWA) tokenization.
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AI-generated tokenization thread
As reported by U.At the moment, the now-deleted posts claimed that Chesky had been quietly following the tokenization sector. He argued that blockchain-based representations of conventional belongings might change into a serious monetary innovation.
The thread was extremely uncommon as a result of Chesky hardly ever feedback on crypto. In Might 2022, as reported by U.At the moment, he floated the thought of Airbnb accepting cryptocurrencies, however that was about it.
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On Thursday, Fortune reported that Airbnb handled the incident as a “high-profile compromise.” The hospitality big then requested X’s safety group to safe the account.
Some customers stay unconvinced
Regardless of Airbnb’s dealing with of the incident, some social media customers questioned whether or not the account had really been hacked.
Developer Jarrod Watts summed up the skepticism by asking: “Why would a hacker put up a thread about RWAs LMAO.”
Investor Graeme Moore equally mocked the alleged assault, writing: “The plan? Hack the Airbnb CEO’s account and tweet broadly about tokenized belongings.”
Others have argued that the AI-written thread might have been an inside mistake. One person joked that the corporate had launched a public relations marketing campaign to recuperate from an embarrassing AI-generated put up.
Over the previous a number of years, hackers have routinely used high-profile X accounts to advertise fraudulent meme cash, faux token launches and cryptocurrency giveaways. The 2020 compromise of dozens of outstanding accounts was used to promote a BTC giveaway rip-off that collected greater than $100,000 earlier than being shut down.
Extra just lately, quite a few movie star accounts have been hijacked to advertise faux Solana-based meme cash or bogus token presales.