The Tangled Web of Bitcoin Bots

Virginia Murr May 6, 2019

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In my experience, it’s easier to find fake Bitcoin accounts on Twitter than real. One of the reasons for this is that Bitcoin bots are intricately linked to the fake follow-back accounts that usher millions of fake followers into new accounts. Daily.

Bitcoin Bots and Marketing Tropes – Sex Sells

Model bots of all stripes, including ones commonly seen in American accounts, are the front-face for many of these Bitcoin bots.

Even Russian Bot Hostesses serve as the face on some of these accounts.

From Russia to America and Vietnam, the tangled web of Bitcoin bots extends across the globe.

Fine-Tuned Bitcoin Bots

And while many of the fake Bitcoin accounts seem to be focused on the idea that “sex sells,” some take a different approach. This account tweets about American politics in conjunction with Bitcoin-related information and hashtags.

And this fake Bitcoin account tweets about gaming in conjunction with Bitcoin information and hashtags.

Bitcoin Bots have a System

Notice that the follower counts tend to be much higher than one would expect from an account with few tweets. This is not an accident. On the contrary, the extreme follower counts are directly attributable to the systematic way these accounts are created and spread in order to amplify Bitcoin (and Blockchain, Crypto, etc.).

The system goes something like this:

1 > For years, day after day, create bot groups to amplify Bitcoin-related information.

2 > Interconnect these bot groups by having them follow each other.

3 > Increase the number of followers by attaching the fake accounts to fake follow-back accounts.

4 > After years, you’ve created millions of fake accounts to falsely amplify Bitcoin and create the illusory appearance that it is far more popular than reality dictates. This illusory appearance is used to appeal to real users to convince them to purchase bitcoin.

5> Additionally, with such a large social media presence, it’s possible to manipulate the real price of Bitcoin.

If you want to see the system in action, just scour Bitcoin accounts’ followers. It’s impossible to miss the redundancies.

Who Gains From the Mass Duplicity?

From the massive, tangled web of Twitter’s Bitcoin bots, it certainly appears that someone (or several someones) have a vested interest in falsely inflating the popularity of Bitcoin and Bitcoin-related subjects. And, given Russian’s heavy involvement with fake Bitcoin accounts, I have to wonder what benefit Russia’s government would get from viral buying and selling of Bitcoin?

More than that, however, I have to wonder why Twitter has allowed the tangled web of Bitcoin bots to dupe real users and to become so massive that it is able to influence real Bitcoin prices? Could it be a coincidence that Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey is a strong proponent of Bitcoin? I certainly hope that’s all it is.

Written by Virginia Murr