A person who had been carrying out more than a week of Grand Theft Auto VI gameplay leaks seems to have withdrawn about $250,000 from a memecoin that they had created and promoted using the stolen footage. The wallet disposed of all of its shares in the early hours of August 27, the same day that Rockstar presented the game’s first official gameplay to the public on Netflix.
How the coin was tied to the leaks
The person who had leaked the information, going by the name Cyberleek on the internet, issued a Solana token named $CYBERLEEK and put their name as a watermark on all the clips that were leaked. The token served as free promotion in itself. People rushed to buy it, believing that the account would continue to release more footage, and the on-chain data indicates that the token’s market value reached a peak between $23 million and $25 million on August 23.
The money received wasn’t just the result of buying low and selling high; the contract was arranged in such a way that a small fee was passed on to its creator with every transaction. Analysis of the wallet’s activity indicates that Cyberleek earned about $30,000 in fees on just the first day before receiving several thousand dollars a day thereafter as trading went on.
The cash-out
The on-chain data indicates that the wallet which created the token has been collecting the creator fees it has earned, amounting to about $146,000 in wrapped SOL together with approximately 15.4 million tokens, before selling the entire amount of tokens for around $125,000 in SOL in one transaction; the total amount obtained from the four transactions is nearly $250,000, although some trackers estimate it at around $270,000.
The token then carried out the action that is typical of such tokens when the person in control of them sells all of their holdings. Within a day the value of $CYBERLEEK tumbled, dropping from a level of nearly $0.034 down towards the $0.005 to $0.01 range, and its market value fell to somewhere between $3 million and $7 million.
Timed to the reveal
The drop in sales took place hours before Rockstar’s Extended Look at Grand Theft Auto VI was launched on Netflix on August 27. It was always going to be at that point that the excitement about the game reached its peak and that casual buyers were most likely to be searching for something with “GTA 6” in the title. It is this aspect of selling off the game before the peak of the attention, rather than after it, that has attracted the most criticism from those keeping an eye on sales.
The “anti-corporate” framing
Cyberleek presented the leaks as a form of opposition to a major publisher rather than as a scheme designed to generate money, and this message was maintained throughout the campaign. The cash-out contradicts this position. Whether or not the stated reason was genuine, the footage had been used to boost a token which was then sold at the highest price by the same account, leaving later purchasers with a loss. Various outlets that have been monitoring the wallet have described it as one of the more predictable rug pulls they have encountered, exactly since the incentives were obvious from the beginning.
What Rockstar and Take-Two can do now
Take-Two, as the parent company of Rockstar, has a well-established track record of taking strong action against leakers. Following the breach of GTA 6 in 2022, a person was arrested and subsequently convicted in the United Kingdom. Since blockchain transactions are public and permanent, this applies in both directions: while they allow the leaker to transfer money quickly, they also create an unalterable record. Take-Two could then obtain court orders requiring Discord, Microsoft, X and the crypto exchanges to provide account and identity information linked to the wallet as well as to the accounts that shared the clips. The trail usually becomes identifiable by the time the crypto is converted into a real bank account.
Does GTA 6 even have crypto
It should be stated clearly that Grand Theft Auto VI includes no cryptocurrency, since people involved in the project have said that it does not. The token had nothing to do with the game apart from the watermark; it merely took on the name and the sensation created by the leak.
Bottom line
What had started out as a week and a half of leaks which many people saw as a bonus for the community now seems to have been a promotional campaign for a coin, concluding with a quarter of a million dollars being withdrawn on reveal day and everyone else left with a chart that only shows downwards movements. The leaks might be over but the investigation is very likely still going on.