Vancouver NHL Canucks X Account Hacked, Deepfake Musk Video Promises ‘Crypto Giveaway’

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Sujha Sundararajan

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Sujha Sundararajan

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Last updated: 

May 5, 2025

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The Vancouver Canucks, Canada’s professional NHL ice hockey team, announced the launch of a new meme coin on X, only to later confirm that its social media account has been compromised.

“Please disregard any recent posts until further notice,” a statement from the NHL club read. “We are working with the platform and the NHL to resolve the issue as quickly as possible.”

A promotional post surfaced from the official X account of Canucks, advertising a pre-sale for the cryptocurrency token $Canucks on the Solana blockchain.

Per a screenshot shared by a user, the now-deleted post read that Canucks is the “first NHL team to ever do this.”

“Capped at 1000 SOL, tokens will be distributed within 24 hours. 100% goes into Liquidity Pool,” the promotional post read.

NHL Account Had Deepfake Elon Musk Video Promising Crypto Giveaway

The post appeared on Monday afternoon, touting the new meme coin, along with a deepfake video. Besides, the video featured X owner Elon Musk promising a $20 million “crypto giveaway.”

It directed users to a fake Musk website, which appeared to be based in Russia, a local news reported.

The posts were live for a few hours before it was fully removed by the NHL team. The timing of the breach is of particular importance, as it appeared just hours before Canucks’ scheduled NHL Draft Lottery.

The hackers apparently posted the video under an X post from US President Trump. It brought in some replies from hockey-focused accounts that the hackers replied to.

Hackers Even Replied to User Questions

Following the crypto promotion, hackers replied to one user who questioned whether Canucks’ X account has been hacked. The bad actors claim that they were not hacked, before Canucks’ official public relations account flagged the warning message to users.

A similar scam struck former Canucks goaltender Eddie Lack, where hackers gained control over his account, rebranded, and pushed a crypto scam.