Original Article Title: "Foreign KOL Rug Pulling Postures Collection: Shilling, Hype, and Concealment"

Original Article Author: San, David, Deep Tide TechFlow

On September 1st, when the market's attention and liquidity were focused on Trump's $WLFI, renowned on-chain sleuth @ZachXBT started revealing again.

He exposed a list of overseas KOL paid promotion, documenting multiple English-speaking KOLs on Platform X engaging in paid promotion for crypto projects. The list involved many accounts, with a total payment exceeding one million US dollars. The price for a single tweet ranged from $1500 to $60,000 based on the KOL's tier.

ZachXBT pointed out that out of the KOLs on this list, fewer than 5 accounts labeled their promotional posts with the word "Ad," meaning the vast majority of KOLs did not disclose whether their social media posts were sponsored or purely voluntary.

Subsequently, another sleuth @dethective conducted further analysis and categorization of this original list, discovering that these overseas KOLs had more elaborate schemes when it came to paid promotions.

One Person, Multiple Accounts, Earning Double for the Project

In @dethective's analysis, one initial question that arose was the reappearance of some wallet addresses in the list.

This implied that the same wallet may correspond to multiple KOL accounts, yet they received promotion fees multiple times for the same project.

Take, for example, the accounts @Regrets10x and @lynk0x. The list indicates that the former received $8,000 for four posts, while the latter received $12,000 for an equal number of posts, possibly due to differences in their follower counts.

However, their wallet addresses are identical:

EKvYizd7LqTmMj4QqmKsHm8wdg7TXzFoHHg664FdnhCRh

After cross-referencing, blogger @dethective found not only these two accounts but approximately 10 similar instances of duplicate wallet addresses in the entire list.

One possible reason is that some overseas KOLs, in order to expand their influence, use alternate or associated accounts to participate in promotion, but do not change their wallet address, leading to their tracks being exposed;

However, upon deeper reflection, whether not changing the wallet address is due to laziness or negligence, it actually reflects the situation of community hype, where multiple accounts posting simultaneously for the same project are more likely to dominate the social media timeline and attention, thereby triggering fan FOMO.

Of course, the two KOLs whose accounts were exposed didn't just sit idly by.

@lynk 0 x denied receiving any payment in the comments, saying that @Regrets 10 x is just a friend and that the shared wallet was purely coincidental. However, @dethective quickly presented evidence:

The wallet mentioned earlier received a $60,000 airdrop from a project called "Boop," and to claim the airdrop, one must link it to an X account. This indirectly proves the relationship between the account and the wallet; denying it now seems a little shaky.

Regrets 10 x's response was even more casual; he did not directly address the accusation but instead said that as long as he disclosed the paid promotion in the post, there shouldn't be an issue;

There's nothing wrong with having sponsored content, and appropriate disclosure also helps others understand the motivation behind the post and the associated interests. Some more professional KOLs often add a sentence like "Related Interest" or "Unrelated Interest" at the end of a post.

However, the issue arises when if two accounts belong to the same person, promoting the same content, where one publicly announces that it is an advertising post, and the other remains silent, this resembles more of a strategy to create a persona matrix for the account.

Moreover, some have taken the strategy of opening multiple accounts for promotion and turned it into an industry chain.

Previously, the research organization DFRLab published a study titled "Anatomy of Cryptocurrency Scams on Twitter," which mentioned that some gray actors can control dozens of accounts, tweeting nearly 300 times per day, creating false public acceptance through bulk nurturing, automated retweet-reply, and cross-endorsement.

Operators usually buy old accounts or register new accounts in bulk, change the nicknames and avatars, creating a brand-new KOL. They then use scripts to copy the same promotional text to the comments section of high-traffic tweets to attract followers.

「To The Moon」

Another noteworthy point after the list was exposed is that the wallets of these overseas KOLs often saw profits strongly aligned with the tokens they were promoting.

In other words, they didn't just casually post about their "insights," but rather, they first received a task, promoted the post, and then conducted the trades themselves.

For example, in @dethective's wallet analysis of the @0 xSweep account, the largest source of profit came from several tokens on the BullX trading platform: $AETHER, $BOB, $BARSIK, and others.

However, the backstory is that these tokens all had paid promotion records on ZachXBT's list, and @0 xSweep's posts also repeatedly mentioned them, expressing that the tokens had great potential and the possibility to reach the moon.

Yet, his wallet records show that these profitable trades occurred right around the time of the promotion, indicating that it was highly likely the project team paid him to post, he increased the token's popularity with his post, and then he personally conducted trades to show activity.

This also implies that if an account keeps telling you repeatedly about their trading experiences with certain tokens, their income might not actually come from trading and market analysis.

A similar situation occurs with @ShmooNFT. His Telegram channel promotes around 10 tokens daily, initially appearing as enthusiastic sharing.

However, wallet tracking reveals that his few profitable trades in tokens like $DEGE, $BON, $BOTIFY all were previously promoted on X and made it onto ZachXBT's leaked list.

The core issue with this pattern is that KOLs' "recommendations" come with hidden agendas: the promotional posts are not disclosed as advertisements, leading fans to believe they are genuine recommendations when, in reality, they are paid partnerships.

If the tokens indeed have potential, it could be a win-win situation. However, if the pump-and-dump tokens consistently go to zero, the KOL's own credibility and influence will also decline.

The ingenuity of this scheme lies in the fact that these overseas KOLs may be earning triple income.

First, they receive free tokens through airdrops, then they charge the project team for promotion, and finally, they dump the airdropped tokens after pumping the price through shout-outs.

Additionally, in the common advanced play: by showcasing trades and profits to shape their image as a "trading deity," they then establish paid groups to charge an "entry fee."

Where There's Demand, There's a Market

In the final analysis post, dethective also asked a thought-provoking question:

Why do some project teams, knowing full well the habits and routines of some overseas KOLs, still choose to collaborate with these accounts?

The answer lies in the fact that where there's demand, there's a market.

Some projects prefer the audience that seeks to "get rich quick," and some of the previously exposed accounts in the post perfectly cater to this audience: lacking independent research capabilities, more inclined to believe in pump and dump schemes, and attempting to discover an undervalued "golden coin."

Such KOL accounts are often defined as having "more business value" in a marketing environment where bad money drives out good.

The exposure itself is often involved in disputes of interest, easily drawing criticism and trouble. However, as long as one or two recommended tokens succeed, it is easy to transform the image into that of a trading master.

In a market where noise and truth are hard to distinguish, cryptocurrency investment is not as simple as following someone's investment advice. There will always be self-proclaimed gurus who claim to make endless profits, but the lost funds will never come back.

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