A senior executive at cryptocurrency wallet provider Token Pocket has alleged that Robinhood co-founder Vlad Tenev’s wallet seed phrase was inadvertently exposed during a livestream, allowing a hacker to seize control of the associated Ethereum address.
According to a post on X (formerly Twitter) by Michael, Chief Business Officer at Token Pocket, the attacker used the compromised address—and several linked addresses—to purchase a newly launched token dubbed $1. The coordinated activity triggered a wave of speculative buying from thousands of retail investors who followed the trades, causing the token’s market capitalization to surge from approximately $500,000 to $14 million within a short period.
Michael noted that the token recorded roughly $20 million in trading volume over a span of about two hours before its price collapsed. Following the suspicious activity, blockchain security protocols led to the freezing of the involved addresses on the original chain.
Undeterred, the hacker reportedly migrated operations to BNB Chain, where they deployed a new version of the $1 token using the same compromised addresses. After executing a series of buy-and-sell transactions to create artificial liquidity and price momentum, the attacker ultimately offloaded their holdings to cash out profits.
The incident underscores the critical importance of safeguarding private keys and seed phrases—even for high-profile figures in the crypto industry—and highlights ongoing vulnerabilities in decentralized finance ecosystems to social engineering and real-time exploitation.