Protecting crypto customers from scams on social media
Crypto and web3 represent an exciting vision of the internet’s future, but the community is constantly targeted by opportunists peddling scams and grifts.
The bold new world of crypto
It’s been a huge few years for crypto, with the once marginal space now pushing its way into the mainstream. Everyone’s talking about cryptocurrencies, tokens, NFTs and DAOs, while engineers, tinkerers and enthusiasts are imagining web3, a vision for a new internet built with blockchains at its foundation.
All that excitement — and, yes, the crazy speculative activity that comes with it — is attracting curious new audiences to the crypto community. They’re walking into an exciting world, but one that is also very complex and ever-changing.
According to a study from crypto firm Grayscale Investments, over half of current bitcoin holders only got into the cryptocurrency in 2021. NFT marketplace OpenSea surpassed $14 billion in transaction volume in 2021, up by a factor of 646 compared to the previous year. That’s a lot of fresh faces.
These new audiences aren’t quite as sophisticated as the cutting-edge power users who have been on the scene since the beginning, and are often looking for something which can be a challenge to find amid the madness and the bag-pumping: clear, credible information.
A haven for scams
Sadly, the bad actors often get there first.
According to data from blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis, crypto scammers made off with a record $14 billion in 2021.
On Twitter, if a user posts a tweet which references popular crypto wallets like Metamask or trading platforms like Coinbase and OpenSea, they’ll quickly find their mentions flooded with scammers trying to part them from their tokens.
These attackers exploit the fact that there are so many new entrants to crypto’s wild frontier who don’t necessarily have a high degree of technical know-how, and are looking for guidance.
Back in 2020, hackers gained access to verified Twitter accounts for high-profile figures like Bill Gates, Elon Musk and Barack Obama, and used them to peddle a bitcoin scam. These sorts of attacks are effective because new and less-informed users will generally gravitate towards figures they trust for guidance.
In conjunction with the recent spate of NFT thefts and crypto project rug pulls, the average investor would be forgiven for asking whether they should get involved with this space at all.
It isn’t just a problem for individual crypto and web3 companies trying to protect their users from scams. It’s a problem for the industry as a whole, and is actively damaging trust and credibility with the sorts of audiences it needs to win over.
Keeping conversations healthy
Being a successful crypto or web3 company doesn’t just mean offering a great product. You could be a customer’s first ever experience with this exciting new world — and the difference between a lifelong convert or a scorned skeptic.
That means being on the front foot with educating users and maintaining a healthy information ecosystem.
But, as I’ve mentioned, blockchain companies face a much tougher challenge than most. Many new crypto customers come via social media, and that is where much crypto discussion and education takes place. But it is also where bad actors work — giving false information and guiding users to harmful links and scammy Discord servers.
Social media managers for blockchain companies are often overwhelmed with the sheer volume of harmful content targeting users of their products and platforms. There’s quite literally too much to tackle.
So what do you do?
Conversation Health from Pattr
This is where AI can help.
Using sentiment analysis, intent and image classification, Pattr’s Conversation Health helps brands identify unwanted and spammy messages, posts and images across its social media channels and immediately take action.
Within seconds, we can identify unhealthy conversations related to your brand across social media. These conversations are sorted by priority in your Unified Inbox, where your team can tackle all of your social channels in the one place.
It isn’t a one-size-fits-all policy, which is super important when it comes to a world as complex and deep as the blockchain ecosystem. Conversation Health can be trained on specific words and phrases with bespoke language and AI models, making sure it is operating hand in glove with your brand.
On the one hand, this makes dealing with harmful and scammy content much easier. You can rapidly identify bad actors and take the appropriate action to minimise their effect on your users and prospective users.
But it runs deeper than that. Leveraging Pattr’s Conversation Health enables you to be a much more active part of user education as they make their way through the crazy world of web3. Spot a user with a question? Get in there and answer it first with clear, credible information and instruction.
The wild world of crypto and web3 can be overwhelming. But it doesn’t need to be for your customers.
Want to know how your crypto or blockchain company can tackle bad actors on social media and keep conversations healthy? Talk to our team today.
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