BNB Chain Takes Legal Action Over Unauthorized ASTEROID Meme Token

BNB Chain announced that a former employee used a seed phrase from a wallet created for an internal tutorial to launch an unauthorized meme token called ASTEROID. The employee retained access to the seed phrase after leaving the company, generated a new private key, and issued the token, which briefly reached a market value of $10 million. On‑chain analysis shows four wallets bought about 796 million ASTEROID tokens (79.7% of supply) for roughly $10 000 and later sold most of them for 1,103 BNB, earning an estimated $638 000. BNB Chain clarified it had no role in creating, authorising, or promoting the token and is pursuing legal proceedings against the ex‑employee while cooperating with authorities. Binance founder Changpeng Zhao (CZ) reiterated the warning on X, calling the former staffer “basically a fraud” and urging users to stay safe.