NBA’s Instagram account hijacked to push fake ‘NBA Coin’ crypto scam

The NBA’s official Instagram account pushed a cryptocurrency scam to its followers on Wednesday night, the second time in 19 months that one of the league’s main social channels has been used to sell a fake “NBA Coin.”

The post appeared around 9:25 p.m. ET, while the league’s preseason slate was still being played. It showed the NBA logoman on a white background with a caption that read “NBA Coin ($NBA) — Where basketball passion meets blockchain innovation!” followed by “BUY NOW!”, a token contract address and the hashtags #NBACoin, #Solana and #Crypto. Screenshots shared by fans showed it had collected more than 3,500 likes and about 500 comments before it came down.

Front Office Sports flagged the post shortly after 10 p.m. ET, noting that the league appeared to have been hacked and that the post had since been deleted. Crypto-tracking accounts said the token’s market value was only around $19,000 when the post went up and that it collapsed within minutes, the usual pattern of a pump-and-dump in which whoever controls the supply sells into the buyers a hijacked account sends their way.

No NBA Coin exists

The NBA has no cryptocurrency, and nothing about the post matched how the league announces business deals. Real partnerships go out through league press releases and the NBA Communications account, not as a lone logo image with a “buy now” caption. As of early Thursday, the league had not publicly commented on how the account was accessed.

Fans who bought the token have little recourse. Meme coins of this kind are created in minutes on Solana launch platforms, and the money moves as soon as the creator sells. Anyone who interacted with the post should treat the contract address as hostile and never connect a wallet to links tied to it.

The same scam hit the league’s X account in 2025

This is a near-copy of what happened on March 4, 2025. That afternoon, the NBA’s main X account told its roughly 48 million followers that it was launching “$NBA Coin” on the Solana network, complete with a fake press release about fan engagement and Web3. The NBA Spain and NBA UK accounts posted the same message, and NASCAR’s official account was hit with a “$NASCAR” version the same day.

Those posts were deleted within minutes, and NBA PR confirmed to Front Office Sports at the time that the accounts had been hacked. The Instagram account was not affected in that incident. This time it was the target.

Why it matters

League accounts are among the biggest in sports, which is exactly why scammers want them. One post on a verified NBA account reaches more people in a few minutes than most crypto promoters reach in a year, and the blue check gives it a credibility a random account never has. Two hijackings using the same “$NBA Coin” script also raise questions about how access to the league’s social tools is protected, especially with the regular season tipping off next week and traffic on those channels about to peak.

For fans, the rule is simple: the NBA will not ask you to buy a token, and any post that does is not the league talking. More league-wide stories are in our Around the league section.