The anonymous hacker behind a wave of Grand Theft Auto VI leaks appears to have turned stolen gameplay footage into a crypto payday, cashing out roughly $270,000 from his own Solana memecoin just hours before Rockstar Games‘ official GTA 6 gameplay reveal.
The hacker, operating under the name CyberLeek, spent nine days releasing unreleased GTA 6 footage watermarked with advertisements for the CYBERLEEK memecoin. The campaign helped push the token to a peak market capitalization of roughly $25 million before its creator began selling.
GTA 6 Leaks Were Used to Promote CYBERLEEK
Beginning August 18, CyberLeek released what appeared to be unreleased gameplay from one of the most anticipated video games ever made.
The clips showed elements including driving, combat, interactions with NPCs and portions of GTA 6’s world. Rockstar Games subsequently acknowledged the leaks, calling the situation “heartbreaking” for its development team.
But the leaked footage also doubled as advertising.
Videos contained CYBERLEEK branding and messages telling viewers that a higher token market cap would lead to more leaks. The leaker also allowed token holders to vote on which gameplay footage would be released next.
The strategy worked:
- CYBERLEEK peaked around $25 million in market cap
- The token reached approximately $0.0344
- Roughly 68,000 to 78,000 wallets held the token
- Leaked footage was directly used to promote buying the memecoin
CyberLeek Cashes Out Before Rockstar’s Official Reveal
Onchain data cited by CoinDesk shows the token’s contract owner claimed approximately $146,000 in wrapped SOL, along with 15.4 million CYBERLEEK tokens generated through creator fees.
Those 15.4 million tokens were then dumped in a single transaction for approximately $125,000 worth of SOL.
That puts the apparent proceeds at roughly:
$146,000 in wrapped SOL + $125,000 from CYBERLEEK sale = approximately $271,000.
Independent analysis cited by CoinDesk similarly placed the overall cash-out above $250,000. The figures haven’t been confirmed by CyberLeek or the exchanges involved.
Importantly, CoinDesk reports that the tokens sold came from trading-volume creator fees, rather than the creator’s original token allocation, which was reportedly burned earlier.
CYBERLEEK Crashes 46%
The sell-off arrived only hours before Rockstar’s scheduled official GTA 6 gameplay presentation.
CYBERLEEK subsequently plunged approximately 46% over 24 hours, trading near $0.0097 at the time of CoinDesk’s report.
Its market capitalization collapsed from:
$25 million peak → roughly $7 million.
Around 730 million CYBERLEEK tokens were still circulating, with daily trading volume estimated between $13 million and $18 million.
Take-Two Is Trying to Unmask the Hacker
CyberLeek may have cashed out, but the legal pressure is growing.
Take-Two Interactive, Rockstar’s parent company, has reportedly subpoenaed X, Microsoft and Discord as it attempts to identify the person behind the leaks.
Blockchain investigators may have another potential clue.
The funding trail associated with the operation reportedly leads back to a KYC-verified KuCoin account, while at least 91 SOL from the latest proceeds was also routed to KuCoin.
That could potentially provide investigators with identifying information if the account is connected to the leaker, though that link has not been publicly established.
GTA 6 Hype Became a Memecoin Marketing Machine
The unusual part of the story isn’t simply that someone leaked GTA 6.
It’s how the leaker appears to have financialized access to stolen information.
Instead of demanding a conventional ransom, CyberLeek attached a Solana token to one of gaming’s biggest stories and created a feedback loop:
Leak GTA 6 footage → attract attention → promote CYBERLEEK → token rises → release more footage → generate trading fees → cash out.
Rockstar’s official reveal threatened to remove one of the token’s biggest advantages: exclusive access to unreleased gameplay.
CyberLeek’s decision to cash out just hours beforehand therefore raises an obvious question about whether the leaker knew the token’s biggest catalyst was about to disappear.
The result was one of the stranger intersections between crypto and gaming yet — an anonymous hacker allegedly using unreleased footage from potentially the biggest entertainment launch of the decade to help pump a memecoin, then cashing out roughly $270,000 before the official reveal.
