Fake Followers on Crypto Twitter: Has the Problem Become Real?
Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter promised to make changes to tackle the issue of fake followers, yet recent figures from dappGambl show that up to 10 percent of crypto influencers, companies, and other entities are phony. To increase income, Twitter Blue was launched in April 2023; a US$8 monthly membership that would make bots and false accounts unprofitable.
However, dappGambl’s analysis revealed that up to 10% of followers from the most followed crypto accounts are fake. Shiba Inu (SHIB US$0.000008) had the highest percentage of fake followers at 10.26%, or 80,000 accounts, followed by Avalanche (AVAX US$13.23) at 8.14%, and Polygon (MATIC US$0.7047) with 7.58%, or 73,000 fake accounts. According to dappGambl, the popularity and value of tokens is linked to their connection with the platform.
“Dai (DAI) is the most loved (popular) coin on Twitter while XRP (XRP) is the most hated (unpopular).”
The cryptocurrency community is of the opinion that Dai (DAI US$1.00) is the “future of money,” while XRP (XRP US$0.49) is often associated with scams. When it comes to crypto influencers, Samson Mow, with 26,000 false accounts, was the worst offender, accounting for 10% of his Twitter followers. Jack Dorsey, co-founder of Twitter, had 560,000 (8.62%) fake followers, while El Salvador’s president Nayib Bukele had 6,5%. Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of Ethereum, and MicroStrategy’s co-founder, Michael Saylor, also had significant numbers of false followers – 5.58% and 4.76% respectively.
In total, over 6.7 million fake accounts are being tracked, while the problem is addressed. To spot a phony account, check the creation date, profile photo, account bio, tweets, followers, and who the account is following. Elon Musk recently suspended “Explain This Bob” – a well-known Twitter bot developed by Indian citizen Prabhu Biswal – for being a fake.
