Chatterbox Twitter Bots and Musk’s Quirky Tweets Stir Altcoin Market: Fresh Research Reveals
Hang on a minute! Our virtual friends, Twitter bots, might be a tad more influential in pumping up altcoin prices than we ever thought. That’s the bombshell dropped by a recent study.
On the heels of examining a mixed bag of cryptocurrencies listed on FTX, the Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI) spilled the beans on the 3 million plus tweets it combed through. These tweets, sent out between New Year’s Day 2019 and January 27, 2023, all revolved around 18 different altcoins.
The study’s findings? Well, it seems our robotic pals on Twitter have been busy bees, working overtime to inflate these digital currencies. A few examples include The Sandbox SAND at 41 cents, Gala at 2 cents, Gods Unchained (GODS), and LooksRare (LOOKS). Surprisingly, half these coins showed signs of price tampering, thanks to our tweeting bots.
Moreover, it appears these crafty bot-crafted tweets picked up the pace whenever FTX posted about the token on its social media. That raises an eyebrow or two. Did FTX or Alameda Research have a hand in driving this bot brigade?
The study minced no words, “For half of the FTX listed coins we checked out, fake tweet volume seemed to predict price changes down the line. Could it be that sneaky networks were purposefully deployed to mess with FTX coin prices? And here’s the million-dollar question. Did FTX or Alameda roll up their sleeves and engage in social media shenanigans to pump up market values artificially?”
But wait, there’s more! The study also peered into the influence of Elon Musk’s cryptic crypto tweets and bot activity on the prices of meme-coins. The lucky (or unlucky) pair? Pepe and PSYOP.
Before PEPE took off, NCRI spotted a flood of new bot accounts, all eager to tweet about one or both coins. Add to this mix a couple of Musk’s seemingly approving tweets, and you’ve got a recipe for a meme-coin boost.
Take, for instance, Musk’s Pepe meme tweet on May 13, which skyrocketed the token’s price by over 50% in just 24 hours. And to stir the pot even more, a wave of new accounts popped up right before Pepe’s April 17 debut. This points to a calculated move to use bots to jazz up the token’s popularity.
Explaining Constitutional Amendments pic.twitter.com/oYkMPBe9Zi
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 13, 2023
And if you think it’s just crypto feeling the heat, think again! This phenomenon could spill over to stocks and other securities. The study recalled the 2022 social media frenzy over “meme stocks” like GameStop and AMC as a prime example. So, folks, hang onto your hats. The financial world might be in for quite a roller coaster ride!
