SCAM ALERT | South Africa Parliament Youtube Channel Hacked to Promote $RAMAPHOSA Coin on Solana

Cryptocurrency scams are increasingly exploiting political figures and institutions to create a false sense of legitimacy. Pump.fun on Solana is well known for hosting memecoins, which are frequently used in rug-pull and pump-and-dump scams.

On March 15 2025, hackers breached the official social media accounts of the South African Parliament to promote a cryptocurrency token named after President Cyril Ramaphosa.

 

The hackers targeted the South African Parliament’s official X, Facebook, and YouTube accounts directing users to the ‘$RAMAPHOSA’ token launched mere hours before the breach.

“Parliament has identified a security breach affecting one of its 25 YouTube streaming services (channels), which is integrated with official social media accounts. This breach resulted in the unauthorised upload of content not aligned with the work of the Institution,” said Parliament Spokesperson Moloto Mothapo.

 

The unauthorized posts included a graphic promoting the presale of the ‘$RAMAPHOSA’ cryptocurrency token, along with hashtags related to Solana, cryptocurrency, and South Africa.

Additionally, the posts featured a shortened link embedded in the image, directing users to Pump.fun, a popular platform that enables anyone to easily create a crypto token.

Pump.fun is well known for hosting memecoins, which are frequently used in rug-pull and pump-and-dump scams.

The platform’s recent memecoin craze appears to be running out of steam, with its token survival rate plummeting below 1% for a fourth consecutive week.

When recently asked if he would consider getting a Ramaphosa Coin following the success of other Pump tokens like the $TRUMP and $MELANIA tokens, which emerged prior to Donald Trump’s inauguration as the 47th President of the United States, Ramaphosa jokingly answered:

” No, you’re not going to see a Ramaphosa Bitcoin or whatever. I’m not that ambitious to be able to want to see my face on some coin.”

A blockchain forensic analysis of the ‘$RAMAPHOSA’ token indicates that it was minted less than 24 hours before the Parliament hack, based on on-chain data from Solscan, Birdeye, and GeckoTerminal.

According to local outlet, the token’s creator is the Solana wallet 73V5WCNqQRuLj2V1ryH1zNrxgthGu7HrGPDViTn1GpxK, which is explicitly tagged as the Token Creator and linked to Pump.fun, confirming its launch via the platform’s smart contract system.

This wallet is also connected to the @GouvofRSA account, which falsely claimed to be the ‘official crypto feed of Parliament of the Republic of South Africa’ and was used to create at least two tokens: $RAMAPHOSA and ParliamentofRSA ($RSATOKEN).

Cryptocurrency scams are increasingly exploiting political figures and institutions to create a false sense of legitimacy. With the growing advocacy for cryptocurrency, especially among public figures in the United States, the prevalence of such scams has risen significantly.

Curiously, on the same Day of the South African compromise, Ghana’s President personal X account was also found promoting Solana, suspiciously singling out the token as key to driving fintech growth and enabling cryptocurrency payments & investments across the continent.

The X account later added another post promising a Solana Crypto Fund and an African Memecoin.

 

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