After the launch of Monad and its MON token on November 24, users noticed fake token transfers appearing on blockchain explorers.
Monad’s CTO and co-founder, James Hunsaker, explained that the transfers looked normal on explorers but did not involve any real movement of funds. The affected wallets had not signed or approved the transactions.
Hunsaker said on X on November 25 after a user brought the problem to his attention, “There are fake ERC-20 transfers pretending to be from my wallet”.
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Hunsaker noted that ERC-20 is a technical format that defines how tokens operate. Because it is an open standard, anyone can build a contract that follows its rules while adding entries that appear to involve other wallets.
He stressed that this is not a fault in Monad’s blockchain. Instead, it occurs within deceptive contracts designed to trick people. The fake transactions followed a pattern often seen on networks based on the Ethereum
Attackers deploy contracts that produce signals resembling regular token transfers. Explorers then display those signals as if they were genuine activity.
Hunsaker shared one example showing how these contracts also generated false swap actions and fake signatures to imitate trading around MON. The goal is to create the illusion of active use and trading during the network’s early days, when new users are opening wallets and moving tokens for the first time.
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