Near Protocol's Twitter account was likely hacked.
The supposed hackers posted strange messages, including Morse code and a message that read "Darkness is coming."
This is similar to other hacks in 2023 and 2024, but Near hasn't confirmed or denied anything.
Despite the hack, Near's price is doing well at $7.6 and shows promise for a rally.
A break above $7.85 could lead to a 165% price increase for Near.
Recall that there was a rash of Twitter (X) account hacks through the latter half of 2023, and even in the first few months of 2024.
Several accounts like Spiderman star, Tom Holland, Coingecko, BitBoy, Donald Trump, and even the US Securities and Exchange Commission got hacked in the last 9 months and used to either promote phishing links or spread misinformation.
Very recently, the latest to suffer from one of these hacks is the Near Foundation, the company behind The Near Protocol.
Someone appears to have taken control of the Near Foundation's Twitter account, changed its profile picture, its description and posted messages that can only be described as—strange.
More details below:
It all started on May 8, around 6 pm UTC.
A series of strange tweets started to come from Near Protocol's official account, leaving the crypto community puzzled.
These posts ranged from mildly “creepy” messages like “reclaim your sovereignty,” to others that were either in Morse code, in strange fonts, or plain incomprehensible.
Strange tweets from Near
One of these tweets featured a video with an encoded message in Morse code.
This video was about 27 seconds long and only seemed to contain a series of beeps and silence.
However, upon closer inspection, the message turned out to be Morse code for the words “Darkness is coming.”
This message is only one out of several others with messages about “darkness and sovereignty”
The Near Protocol’s Twitter account also underwent a makeover over the last few days, with cryptic lettering and a bio that was hard to read, but spelled the words “dark”.
The Near Protocol’s handle
Things have gone back to normal so far, but the strangeness of the entire situation so far has led to widespread fears of a possible account hack, even though the Near protocol has made no attempts to confirm or deny anything.
The most recent developments with Near Protocol are similar to the Coingecko hack, in which the crypto data aggregator’s account was used to promote a phishing link.
However, in many ways, the current issues with Near Protocol are vastly different.
According to CoinMarketCap, $NEAR trades at around $7.6 and is doing well on all timeframes.
$NEAR’s price action
According to the charts, the future outlook of the cryptocurrency also looks promising on all timeframes, with an incoming break above an important price level in the works.
Near is set to rally
As shown by the chart above, NEAR is attempting to break above the range between $7.5 and $7.85, which could be the start of an incoming rally.
If we do see NEAR break above this price level, a rally from the $7.6 level to around $20 wouldn't be far-fetched, considering the cryptocurrency's steep decline from the latter price level in April 2022.
A break above $7.85 would be the first time the cryptocurrency has traded above this price level in two long years and could set the stage for a 165% rally to the upside.
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