A look at the crypto promotion market, where paid influencers and middlemen like Dapp Centre coordinate campaigns that sometimes push the limits of US law
because it's not always disclosed—but many influencers posting about this or that cryptocurrency going 🚀 to the moon 🚀 are paid to do so: https://www.vice.com/... Edward Ongweso Jr / @bigblackjacobin : Great story from @maxwellstrachan diving into how influencers are paid to pump crypto and NFT projects by ad agencies. A core plank of crypto's ecosystem seems to be artificially generated hype and interest to further enrich wealthy people. https://www.vice.com/... Walter Hickey / @walthickey : lmao they're really just doing astro-pump and dumps https://www.vice.com/... Dan Gentile / @dannosphere : Great investigative work into one of the shadier sides of the NFT industry @maxwellstrachan https://twitter.com/... @vice : A cottage industry has sprouted up around coordinating influencer campaigns for crypto projects: Rather than finding people willing to tweet rocket emojis on their behalf, they can go to brokers who are already plugged in to a roster of influencers. https://www.vice.com/... Peter Atwater / @peter_atwater : This afternoon's garage band name - “Paid Crypto Shills” - comes from @maxwellstrachan in his latest must read article on the latest contortions in our Age of Illusion. The group's hit single “Buying Authenticity” is quite something. https://www.vice.com/... Amy Castor / @ahcastor : Shocker. I never would have imagined https://twitter.com/... Taylor Lorenz / @taylorlorenz : Around the world, influencers are hawking crypto projects for pay on Twitter, YouTube, and TikTok, fantastic piece by @maxwellstrachan https://www.vice.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
This VICE investigation maps the plumbing behind a phenomenon earlier coverage documented from the outside: the rise of influencers promoting altcoins to their fans, from Kim Kardashian to FaZe Clan. What's new here is the supply chain — middlemen like Dapp Centre brokering paid campaigns across TikTok, Twitter, and YouTube, often without the disclosure US law requires.
The story also extends a much older playbook. As far back as 2018, reporting showed brands paying $60K+ for a single video review or $85K+ to publicly disparage a competitor; crypto has industrialized that market around tokens whose value depends on attention itself.
First-order effects
- Influencers who took payment without disclosing it now face direct legal exposure under US disclosure rules, alongside the ad agencies and brokers like Dapp Centre that structured the campaigns.
Second-order effects
- Crypto and NFT projects that relied on coordinated hype face a credibility discount as audiences learn promotion was purchased, pushing them toward either compliant disclosure or harder-to-trace channels.
Third-order effects
- The pattern strengthens the case in calls for regulators to crack down on crypto's illusion of respectability borrowed from high-status figures, pointing toward enforcement that treats undisclosed token promotion as a securities-marketing problem rather than an advertising one.
The trend: Paid influence is becoming the primary demand engine for speculative assets, forcing regulators to treat influencer disclosure as a financial-market issue rather than an advertising one.