Mere hours before Rockstar Games revealed GTA 6 footage on its own terms, the hacker – or hacking group – behind the open-world game’s massive leaks has pulled about $270,000 (or almost £200,000) out of their crypto scheme.
One thing has been clear from the 15 or so videos that CyberLeek has spilled onto the internet these past few weeks: the leaker really wanted you to invest in their meme coin that was plastered on top of and promoted in every single leaked clip that came from them. By going to the website CyberLeek pointed to, fans could use the meme coin to vote on which parts of GTA 6 would be leaked next – a scheme that revealed everything from general gameplay to more spoilery moments.
As reported on by IGN and spotted by crypto analyst Vice Cit, CyberLeek now seems to have transferred around £200,000 out of their meme coin and into several wallets through four different transactions earlier today on the 27th August.
“This isn’t the 2022 leak, this has been planned out and executed very intentionally to maximise the money they’ll make from this,” Vice Cit wrote. “As of now the token has lost about 75 percent of its market cap since yesterday when the first leak dropped. It currently sits at $3.85m market cap down from a peak of $23.39m but I expect that to continue to dwindle as news spreads that CyberLeek has cashed out.”
It’s entirely possible that CyberLeek expected demand for more leaks to dry up after Rockstar gave fans a proper look at the game itself in tonight’s Netflix Extended Look, and thus, decided to cash out while its value was at a high to earn as much money as they could.
Vice Cit reports the transactions have gone to three separate wallets, and suspects at least two people were involved in the crypto scheme.
“The original setup of this whole project (the CYBERLEEK token, the website, and the file uploads) was around $29,000 at the time of my first investigation,” Vice Cit added. “Which means the person or group behind this leak profited around $241,000 if this is where this all ends. Not an amount to completely dismiss but is it really risk-your-freedom money?
“I personally believe the leaker expected to make much more from this project and the watermark messaging in the most recent clips feels kind of panicky. As the coin continued to drop over the last 24 hours and the public started to lose interest I believe the leaker made the choice to cash out.”
