Scammers Exploit Telegram Ads To Mimic Monad Claim Portal

Malicious actors targeted Monad’s official Telegram channel with advertisements that mimic the project’s forthcoming claim portal. 

In a post on X, Monad co-founder Keone Hon warned users not to click ads on their official channel. He said attackers have bought Telegram ads that appeared inside the project’s official announcement channel, a space otherwise reserved exclusively for Monad’s own updates. 

“Crazy that Telegram will push content directly into a channel that otherwise only contains content from one party,” Hon said. 

The attack came ahead of a much-anticipated Monad airdrop, which is scheduled to open at 1:00 pm UTC on Tuesday. With scammers attempting to exploit the surge in user attention ahead of the airdrop claim portal opening, Hon reminded users that they don’t need to move quickly. 

“Do not act with urgency, and always triple-verify before doing anything,” Hon wrote, warning the community about the phishing attempts. He assured users that they don’t need to rush as the portal will be open for three weeks. 

Monad sees $7 billion FDV on Hyperliquid ahead of its airdrop

Ahead of its official token generation event, the yet-to-launch MON token is already trading on Hyperliquid’s perpetual futures market at around $0.07, implying a fully diluted valuation (FDV) of roughly $7 billion based on its total supply of 100 billion tokens. 

The early pricing highlights investor anticipation surrounding its mainnet debut and its potential to compete with other high-performance blockchain networks. 

Monad is a layer-1 blockchain designed to be Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) compatible while improving scalability and throughput. The network claims to process up to 10,000 transactions per second (TPS) with near-instant finality, through parallel execution and an optimized consensus layer. 

Monad claims to have overcome the blockchain trilemma, the idea that a network can typically only achieve two out of three key attributes: scalability, security and decentralization. 

Related: BNB Chain’s official X account hacked, CZ warns of phishing links

Fake ads violate Telegram policies

While the fake ads managed to get into Telegram’s infrastructure, they clearly violate several of the platform’s Ad Policies and Guidelines.

This includes Telegram’s rules for deceptive advertising, manipulation of content, spam software and hacking and promoting harmful financial products or services. 

Telegram explicitly disallows phishing links on its ads. “Ads must not promote phishing, including services that trick a user into providing personal or other information,” Telegram wrote. 

While the platform has all the right policies in place, the Monad case highlights a need for stronger ad vetting mechanisms to prevent phishing attacks.