BNB Chain targets ex-employee over $638k memecoin scheme
BNB Chain is pursuing legal action against a former employee who allegedly exploited a retained seed phrase from a company tutorial to execute a $638,000 memecoin scheme.
BNB Chain said it is pursuing legal action against a former employee who allegedly used unauthorized access to a corporate tutorial wallet to launch and dump a memecoin. The blockchain firm confirmed the individual is no longer with the company and said it is cooperating with relevant authorities.
According to onchain analytics firm Lookonchain, the former employee deployed a token called ASTEROID and used four newly created wallets to buy nearly 80% of its supply for roughly $10,000. Those wallets subsequently sold the majority of the tokens for 1,103 BNB, worth about $638,000, netting an estimated $628,000 profit.
The compromised wallet was originally created for a February 2025 video tutorial demonstrating how to launch a token. That tutorial inadvertently triggered a speculative frenzy in the featured test token, TST, pushing its market capitalization above $50 million after Binance founder Changpeng "CZ" Zhao posted about it. At the time, BNB Chain issued statements clarifying that neither it nor Binance had endorsed the token.
BNB Chain subsequently deleted the tutorial video and the private key for the creator address, which held 0.13% of TST's supply. However, the employee allegedly retained the underlying seed phrase, allowing them to bypass the deleted key and regain control of the wallet.
The incident exposes critical vulnerabilities in internal key management practices at major blockchain infrastructure providers. It also highlights the continued prevalence of supply manipulation in the opaque memecoin market. The ASTEROID launch reportedly imitated an existing project, Asteroid Shiba, utilizing the same rewards model on the Flap platform to deceive potential buyers.
Zhao addressed the situation directly on social media, calling the former employee "basically a scammer" and urging users to "Stay SAFU." BNB Chain did not specify the jurisdiction or the exact legal claims it is pursuing, and Lookonchain's assertion linking the purchasing wallets directly to the former employee could not be independently verified.
