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Note: This topic will be a series, because posting all these in one go would be too much for me to write, and too much for you to read and digest. I will continue the series every day. In this one, I won't talk deeply about how to protect yourself; tomorrow, it will be explained. (it is 3:11 AM right now where I live, so, for me, it will be written later today, but anyways... here we go.)
Oh, yes, the good old friend, Reddit. Back when Cryptocurrencies didn't get this much attention like in 2020-2021, it was a safer place for discussion.
Moons wasn't in the picture, so shitposting was way, way less, news were more trustworthy, and I could go on, and on how it was used to be back then.
Let's hop into the water right away!
2020.01.03 | This is a snapshot which was scraped and saved by WayBackMachine
954k members at the time. Of course bots and scams existed at these times, too. But we will get into it deeper in this article.
Fast forward, this is the screenshot I took at the moment of writing this article:
"But, of course this happened, Crypto got mainstream!" (yet again?) Yes, you are absolutely right. Now, notice the difference between:
The number of members in 2020.01.03, and the number of Online members. Now, compare it today's stats. If you don't want to scroll back and down, here it is for you:
2020.01.03
Members: 954k | Online: 2.9k
2022.06.01
Members: 4.9m | Online: 8.2k
A reasonable person would say that averaging the numbers, this is not really a problem, it is just healthy grow. But, between the 2 screenshots, the time is not the same. Most people are not active on Reddit at those times I took the screenshot.
Then, suddenly, a new post may come up. Awards within seconds/minutes. The awarders are that intelligent! They just needed some seconds to read through the post, and then they said: "You are goddamn right! Take my award! People need to hear this!" "Humans" suddenly hop on Reddit and go to CC, and, for example let's say that this happened right after I screenshotted this, and those 8.2k Online members are now 60k+. What a coincidence!
The post can be anything that is beneficial to the person who did it; be it FUD, Hopium, Copium, ecetera. Don't forget, Moons are here now; you can earn money by everything, you just need some machines to help you out. And, those are "just" Moons; the real money is in the posts itself.
This may seem obvious to some, but in reality, this is not a conscious decision most of the time. People WILL click on posts that has alot of awards (doesn't matter if it comes from bots, and the awards are the daily free ones; they show up, and they look nice. BUT scammers also have the money to fund some of their bots; be it via Moon farming, or just simply purchasing coins to throw in some expensive awards. This is the same with upvotes. 1000+ upvotes, 46 awards? In 56 minutes??? You WILL look into that post. You know you do. They know you will.
This, alone, brings another, sad problem: Genuine post that really wants to raise awareness about something, and, if that something is in conflict with those who have the robots, they can do the opposite: carefully downvote it to oblivion, not with dumping those on it, but slowly; to not raise suspicion. The comments which would be genuine can get this same exact treatment, too.
Fortunately, protecting yourself from such botposts are easy, it is a little bit of hassle, but doesn't it worth it if you won't lose your money on it? Or, what if your friend suggested it to you, and you can warm them, explaining exactly why this is not a good idea to believe and gamble their money. This can be reversed: You see a botpost, you don't know it is a botpost, because you have either no idea how to examine it, or it is so well written that you fall for it. Do note, tho; once you know the steps you have to take, you will be able to tell, and protect yourself, and everyone around you if they would fall for it.
The more people who will know the steps to identify a botpost, the more people can report it to the admins, and also explaining it to the admins why is it a botpost. If the admins won't remove that post; now THAT is an another serious matter. Or should I say, strange behaviour?
In the next article, "The Infestation of Scammers on Reddit; Explanation & Protection II.", I will provide all the details, in a fool-proof way, to defend yourself against these lowlifes who steals the money from the desperate, who may just want even just 2x the money he put in.
Thank you for your time, I hope I gave you just a little bit of insight. Stay tuned for tomorrow/today, for the next chapter.
