The person/people behind the latest GTA 6 leaks may have already earned around $50,000 from the meme coin being promoted alongside the stolen footage, according to some Internet sleuthing.

That estimate comes from GTA Forums user Vice Cit, who claims to have studied digital forensics and has now published two reports examining the wallets connected to CyberLeek’s website, uploads and cryptocurrency. Go read both reports if you want a moe detailed breakdown of everything, including the lively discussion surrounding it all.

This is still research conducted by an unknown forum user, so none of it should be treated as definitive proof of any of the claims made in the report. In other words, people, lots of salt. Not just a pinch. A shovelful.

However, much of the underlying transaction history is publicly visible and the basic money trail appears to check out, at least to my limited skillset.

CyberLeek is potentially a serious problem for Rockstar. The group’s (or individual’s) latest video appeared to show someone controlling the game and shooting the word “LEEK” into a wall. That would suggest CyberLeek either has access to a playable GTA 6 build or is working with someone within Rockstar who does.

In its manifesto, CyberLeek presents itself as a group fighting for consumer rights. Its demands include an end to digital pre-orders and paid single-player DLC that’s already in the game, better preservation of online games and support for physical media. All things a lot of gamers feel pasionate about.

Alongside those demands, however, CyberLeek has also been heavily promoting its own CYBERLEEK meme coin which is based on Solana. The group claims money raised through the coin will fund its operation and an unspecified mystery future project designed to further its goals. And the group has threatened other publishers and developers with the same fate should they not apologise and attempt to fix the issues.

According to Vice Cit’s research, the wallets used to fund the CyberLeek website, permanent copies of its uploads and the creation of the meme coin can all be connected to the same small cluster of wallets.

That does not prove they are all controlled by one person. CyberLeek could be an individual, a group or someone working with an insider. What it does show is that the website, uploads and cryptocurrency appear to have been prepared as parts of the same operation before the GTA 6 footage became public. That’s not shocking in particuilar, but still interesting.

Vice Cit also traced part of the original funding back through several wallets to a known KuCoin exchange wallet. Because KuCoin accepts formal requests for customer information from law enforcement and requires a form of ID to sign up, this could potentially provide investigators with a useful lead.

However, there’s a big caveat: it’s nowhere near as simple as finding a name on a KuCoin account and immediately arresting the GTA 6 leaker. The account could belong to another member of the group, an outside source of funding, a money mule, or even someone whose account was compromised and stolen. KuCoin has also previously pleaded guilty over serious failures in its identity-checking and anti-money-laundering systems, confusing things even more.

The more immediately interesting part is how the meme coin generates money. When CYBERLEEK was launched, its creator put 730 million coins and approximately 330 SOL—worth around $29,000 at the time—into the pool people use to buy and sell it.

That money has since been permanently locked, meaning the creator cannot simply withdraw it and run. However, they can continue collecting a small fee whenever anybody trades the coin, which is how generates income.

The CYBERLEEK trading pool has already processed around $19 million in trades. Based on Raydium’s published fee structure, that could have generated approximately $40,000 in fees for whoever controls the locked funds.

The pool also appears to have a separate creator fee enabled, potentially adding another $9,500 and bringing the total close to $50,000.

That does not necessarily mean CyberLeek has withdrawn $50,000 in clean profit. The value of cryptocurrency can change rapidly, fees may be held in different currencies and the original $29,000 investment remains permanently locked. Still, the available figures make Vice Cit’s overall estimate reasonably plausible.

Another wallet connected to the coin’s creation continues to hold 270 million CYBERLEEK tokens, carrying a theoretical value of several hundred thousand dollars. That is mostly paper money, though. Attempting to sell all of them would crash the price and return only a fraction of that amount. Chances are, these tokens would have to be sold slowly over time to avoid that crash.

This gives CyberLeek an obvious financial incentive to keep people interested. Every new GTA 6 clip brings more attention, more trading and potentially more fees. The group’s decision to slowly release footage and allow visitors to vote on what comes next could therefore be about maximising income rather than fighting for gamers.

On top of that, the CyberLeek website has introduced Bronze, Silver, Gold and Diamond membership tiers based on how many CYBERLEEK tokens somebody keeps in their wallet, openly encouraging users to “buy more to climb”. The promised rewards include early announcements and voting rights to private channels, boosted token giveaways and alleged USDC payouts. It effectively turns the leak campaign into a token-gated members’ club—giving followers another reason to buy and hold the coin while every new GTA 6 clip keeps attention, trading and potentially its price alive.

There’s a lot of speculation here. CyberLeek may genuinely believe in its manifesto, or at least parts of it. But when your supposed consumer-rights campaign comes with its own highly speculative meme coin and a potentially lucrative fee system, people are entitled to question whether this is a noble crusade or an unusually elaborate way to make a pile of money. Or both.

And the ultimate irony is, it’s probably not even regular gamers helping fund this. Chances are, it’s speculative traders looking to make a quick buck that are buying into the coin so they can sell it right before the value crashes.

I also think that while Rockstar is undoubtedly furious about this leak, it will barely even be a scratch in the sales of GTA 6 when it launches, and has probably acted more like a massive free marketing boost for the game.