NBA's Instagram account hijacked to push a fake 'NBA Coin'

Oct 14, 2026

A scam post

The NBA's official Instagram account pushed a fake NBA Coin crypto token to followers around 9:25 p.m. ET on Wednesday.

Quickly deleted

The post collected more than 3,500 likes and about 500 comments before it came down.

A classic pump-and-dump

Crypto trackers said the token was worth only about $19,000 when it was posted and collapsed within minutes.

No NBA Coin exists

The NBA has no cryptocurrency. Real partnerships are announced through league press releases.

It happened before

On March 4, 2025, the NBA's main X account was hijacked with the same fake coin pitch.

Photo credit

Instagram app icon on a smartphone screen. Photo by Yuri Samoilov, CC-BY-2.0, resized.

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