The crypto influencer has yet to publicly respond to accusations that he used bots to manipulate social media metrics and influence, shortly after winning the “Best Content Creator” award at a crypto event.
The investigator, known as “ZachXBT,” accused an influencer on X called “Professor Crypto” of using “thousands of bots” to “trickle down people into thinking he had influence.”
He also suggested the move could violate a U.S. Federal Trade Commission rule that “prohibits the sale or purchase of fake measures of social media influence, such as followers or views generated by bots or hacked accounts.”
The Crypto professor has yet to publicly respond to the accusations, but he did delete several posts showing him accepting the “Best Content Creator” award at the DeGen Summit in Singapore on September 17.
DeGen Summit is a side event of TOKEN2049, which awards KOLs (Key Opinion Leaders), people whose opinions have influence on large groups or industries. These are mostly experts, but also influential people.
Over 1.34 million people have subscribed to Professor Crypto’s YouTube channel, where he shares his opinions and reviews on cryptocurrency exchanges, wallets, popular meme coins, and non-fungible token (NFT) projects.
His first YouTube video was uploaded in August 2018, showing that he has been creating cryptocurrency content for at least 6 years.
Meanwhile, Professor Crypto’s X account, which appears to have been created in February 2018, has 132,000 followers but has only posted 102 times, with the earliest post being on August 14.
Web3 investigator Fix noted that only two of those posts were written by Professor Crypto himself.
relevant: AI Researchers Want to Solve Bot Problem by Requiring ID for Internet Use
Meanwhile, other industry commentators claimed they had never heard of Professor Crypto before he received the award.
“Who the hell is the crypto professor???” asks NFT artist Matthew Varnell.
“I’ve been here since before the stars came out and I have exactly one mutual friend with this account (who I added last week),” said Wildcat Labs co-founder Laurence Day.
The crypto professor did not immediately respond to Cointelegraph’s request for comment on these accusations.
magazine: $1M Betting ChatGPT Won’t Lead to AGI, Apple’s Use of Intelligent AI, AI Millionaires on the Rise: AI Eye