On social media, there are groups that focus on cryptocurrencies. Apparently as some sort of campaign to discredit cryptocurrecy, bots have attacked these accounts. Certain key words, such as “crypto” or “blockchain”, trigger these bots on the largest social media platforms.
Bots Flood VK Teams with Anti-Crypto Comments
Throughout this week, crypto-oriented teams on the Russian state-controlled social network VK have been getting a rising number of comments attempting to discredit cryptos and related technology, according to crypto news outlet Bits.RU and .media.
These comments often critique articles and posts about cryptocurrency assets. For example, “It is too pricey to get into crypto, there are always big risks”, “Does anyone still talk about bitcoin?”, or “The people who discuss crypto don’t even understand it.”
Nikita Zuborev, a senior analyst at the trade aggregator Bestchange, informed RBC that these bots appeared for the first time on the network and on the official website of their platform, VK.ru, on February 13. These accounts are typical in a campaign of this nature and have been either stolen or recently created.
Sometimes, these bots are used to spread spam and advertise or to lure people into fraud schemes. However, this is not the case here. There are no external links in the messages and the content of these messages is limited to comments about cryptocurrencies and actions such as buying or selling.
RBC was told by the press to inform that the company “does not register an increase in the number of bots on the platform” and that its moderators “instantly respond to complaints” concerning bots posting identical data in mass.
Zuborev further commented that it is still difficult to know what the bots are responding to. According to his observations, they ignore pictures in posts, but activate when phrases such as “Binance”, “bitcoin”, or “blockchain” are used. Analysts are well aware that assaults have increased this week.
Crypto Channels Telegram Bot Attacks are not an Issue
The CEO of defiBanking Platform, Sergey Mendeleev, commented that it is difficult to determine the effectiveness and means of such campaigns against cryptocurrencies, as the majority of the Russian crypto-speaking community does not use this social platform “for obvious reasons”.
Mendeleev believes that someone ordered the attacks so that they could later measure “the sheer volume of negative comments on the most popular social network”. It is well-known that such attacks have not been witnessed on cryptocurrency channels on Telegram.
In 2006, Vkontakte was founded by Russian businessman Pavel Durov. Later, he launched the Telegram messenger. In April 2014, Durov was fired as CEO of VK, claiming that the move was due to his refusal to give customers’ private data. Together with other members of a group dedicated to law enforcement, Euromaidan protests in Ukraine, he left Russia.
In September of that year, the Mail.ru Group became the sole owner of the company. In December 2021, Russian state bank Gazprombank and the insurance company Sogaz bought 57.3% of VK shares, making them the majority shareholders. Recently, NFT was launched on Vkontakte.
What do you think is behind the attacks on crypto groups? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.
