Crypto press release distribution services have become a tool for questionable projects to avoid third-party scrutiny and create an illusion of legitimacy, a new report from Chainstory shows.
Researchers looked at 2,893 news releases sent between June and November last year. They found that more than 60% came from projects with “classic red flags,” such as an anonymous team making unrealistic claims, copy-and-pasted websites, and aggressive tactics to scare investors into action. Some were outright scams confirmed as fraudulent by cross-checking with active blacklists and scam alerts.
Unlike established traditional distribution services, crypto-focused press releases often offer deals guaranteeing their placement on dozens of websites with little oversight. These paid placements often appear alongside real news stories, sometimes without clear labels, making it difficult for readers to tell the difference.
“If you come across a crypto press release on a news site, there is a better than 50/50 chance that the project behind it is of low credibility (or worse),” the researchers wrote in the report released Tuesday.
Most of the posts were self-written marketing announcements about minor product updates, token sales, or trading lists, the team said. Only about 2% reported significant news like venture capital funding or acquisitions, types of stories that would typically merit editorial coverage.
CoinDesk contacted several newswires, but none had responded at the time of publication.
Pay to view
At the heart is the relationship between distribution services and websites. Feeds act as a pipeline, serving content for a fee, while websites charge to display them without editorial filtering, according to the report.
To the casual reader, this may look like coverage from reputable outlets, even though no journalists reported the story and the claims in the release are unverified.
This tactic is not limited to startups. Major exchanges regularly issue press releases announcing each token listing to create a sense of constant activity, the researchers noted. There is no indication that the exchanges were involved in wrongdoing.
The scattershot approach, however, increases visibility with search engines, clutters news feeds, and blurs the line between reporting and promotion while giving otherwise unproven or high-risk projects a veneer of undeserved legitimacy.
“The central mechanism of the crypto press release industry is piggybacking,” the study states. “By routing content through syndication networks, issuers avoid the “news value” filter of an editorial team and instead rely on the credibility of the distribution platform. »
In one example from December, scammers used fake branding to impersonate Circle Internet (CRCL), the issuer of the USDC stablecoin. The release promoted a fake tokenized metals platform and linked to what appeared to be a wallet draining site. The statement was debunked by CoinDesk, but only after appearing on several news sites.
Although some media outlets have begun to label or limit the content of press releases, the lack of clear standards and editorial filters remains a vulnerability in the crypto media ecosystem, the report states.
