Twitter Bots Boosted Crypto Token Prices

According to a report by the Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI), a legion of Twitter bots boosted the price of crypto tokens traded by Sam Bankman-Fried’s quant trading firm Alameda Research shortly after FTX listed the tokens.

The NCRI, an organization that researches cyber security and social media threats, published a report on Wednesday indicating that “inauthentic chatter” on Twitter, now X, significantly impacted the prices of five FTX-listed tokens traded by Alameda insiders.

The denominations of the coins were BOBA, GALA, IMX, RNDR, and SPELL.

After FTX officially listed the coins, fake tweets increased by as much as 30%, with “inauthentic” remarks eventually comprising roughly half of all tweets about the tokens.

The report states, “The pattern of account creations and bot-like activities suggests an orchestrated effort, possibly designed to manipulate market sentiment artificially and trading behavior surrounding these tokens.”

Alameda owned at least five tokens before their listing on FTX.

A previous report from compliance firm Argus demonstrated that Alameda Research employees used privileged information to profit $60 million from IMX and other tokens before their listings on FTX.

Last fall, a report revealed that Alameda Research and its sibling company, FTX, had unusually close ties.

Later reports disclosed that Alameda executives were involved in the alleged misappropriation of user funds by FTX.

Four times between 2022 and 2023, the value of a token they held, Render (RNDR), increased by 11% to 30% in less than 24 hours, according to NCRI data.

Between January 1, 2019, and January 27, 2023, NCRI conducted a scaled analysis of over 3 million tweets that mentioned any of the 18 tokens publicly listed on FTX and explicitly promoted by its official Twitter account.

Nearly one million of these tweets referenced any of the six tokens described in the report, including the five tokens held by Alameda.

In October, Bankman-Fried will stand trial on federal securities and wire fraud offenses against which he is accused.

In addition, he faces accusations from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).