BNB Chain announced it is pursuing legal action against a former employee accused of launching a memecoin known as Asteroid Shiba, or ASTEROID, by exploiting unauthorized access to a company tutorial wallet. The firm stated the individual retained the seed phrase for a wallet originally created to demonstrate token launches in an educational video, then used that access to deploy the new token after departing the organization.

According to BNB Chain, the employee is no longer with the company as a result of the incident. The blockchain network emphasized that it neither created, promoted, nor approved the ASTEROID token and holds no connection to the associated wallet activities. Officials indicated they are cooperating with relevant authorities while preparing legal measures, though they have not disclosed the specific jurisdiction or whether the case would proceed under civil or criminal statutes.

Background of the Tutorial Wallet

The wallet at the center of the matter was first used in February 2025 for a BNB Chain video tutorial illustrating how to launch a token via the Four.Meme deployment tool. The demonstration featured a test token called TST. After the tutorial briefly exposed the token’s name and drew public attention, TST experienced a surge in speculative trading that pushed its market capitalization above $50 million. Binance founder Changpeng Zhao publicly clarified at the time that neither Binance nor BNB Chain had endorsed the asset. The educational video was later removed, and the private key for the creator address was deleted. That address had held a small residual position of approximately 0.13 percent of TST’s supply.

Despite the deletion of the private key, the former employee allegedly preserved the seed phrase, enabling restoration of control over the same address. This control was then used to launch ASTEROID. The new token appears to have adopted a name and rewards model similar to an existing project also operating under the Asteroid Shiba designation. The team behind the earlier project publicly denied any affiliation and described the newly launched token as a copycat.

On-Chain Trading Activity

On-chain analytics reported that four wallets, created shortly before the ASTEROID launch and separate from the original tutorial address, purchased 796.7 million tokens. That volume represented 79.67 percent of the total supply and cost roughly $10,000. The same wallets later sold 718.8 million ASTEROID tokens for 1,103 BNB, valued at approximately $638,000 at the time of the transactions. The estimated trading profit stood near $628,000.

Independent verification of ownership linking those four wallets directly to the former employee has not been publicly confirmed. Blockchain records alone present challenges in establishing definitive personal attribution without additional supporting evidence.

Statements and Security Considerations

Changpeng Zhao reposted the BNB Chain announcement and described the former employee as basically a scammer while advising the community to remain cautious. No formal court filings have been publicly reported to date, and the identity of the individual has not been disclosed.

The episode draws attention to operational differences between deleting a private key file and fully securing the corresponding seed phrase. A retained seed phrase can restore wallet access at any time, complicating employee separation procedures in blockchain organizations that create demonstration wallets for educational content. BNB Chain has advised users to exercise caution around tokens associated with disputed wallet histories.

Questions surrounding jurisdiction, chain of custody for the wallet credentials, and the evidentiary threshold required to connect on-chain activity to a specific person remain open as the matter proceeds.