1. Astroturfing definition and its relevance to the field of Crypto Assets

Astroturfing, derived from “AstroTurf” (artificial turf), metaphorically refers to a fabricated grassroots movement, commonly seen in politics, business, and financial markets. In the field of crypto assets, this behavior often manifests as:

• False social media accounts mass-publishing token promotion content;

• Faking project community activity, such as using bots to post and like.

• Manipulating media evaluations, exaggerating project technology or returns.

According to the IMF's 2024 Digital Financial Security Report and Chainalysis on-chain data analysis, the global blockchain sector saw fraudulent activities related to Astroturfing totaling approximately 210-250 million US dollars (median 230 million), a 58-72% increase from 2023. This statistic covers three major scenarios: exchanges, NFT markets, and DeFi protocols, using a combination of on-chain tracing, semantic analysis, and regulatory disclosures as evidence. Technical vulnerabilities, accounting for 45%, are the main driving factor.

Source:Chainalysis 2025 Blockchain Security Report

2. Astroturfing Technology Principles and Implementation Methods

Technical Toolchain

• Bot Farms: Creating thousands of fake accounts through automated scripts to simulate human behavior (posting, reposting).

• Natural Language Generation (NLG): AI generates "real" comments to bypass platform review.

• Decentralized Identity (DID) abuse: forging blockchain addresses to create 'real user' transaction records.

Typical Implementation Scenarios

Blockchain Social Engineering Attack Monitoring Matrix

Note: ⭐ The quantity corresponds to the detection cost (1⭐ = less than $50,000/case, 5⭐ = more than $500,000/case)

Data Source: 2025 Crypto Security Summit White Paper

3. How does Astroturfing manipulate the market by using chain brush volume?

Case 1: Data Analysis (Chainalysis Report 2025)

The platform allows users to enter the token smart contract address to generate transaction volume automatically.

The accumulated fake trading volume has reached $257,531,208 (over 2.5 billion US dollars).

Referral reward mechanism: providing 10% commission to encourage users to invite others to generate more trading volume.

Functional interface display: Users can freely enter token contracts, set trading volume requirements, and the system will generate them automatically.

Source:Volume.lii Platform- Trading Volume Generator

The Impact of Astroturfing

• Market manipulation

Through this platform, project parties can easily create false trading volume, boost the rankings on CoinMarketCap, DEXScreener, GeckoTerminal, etc., making it appear "hot".

Investors may mistakenly believe that the token is widely watched when looking at market data, increasing the psychological fear of missing out (FOMO).

• Manipulating social media popularity

Many Astroturfing projects will create discussions on Twitter, Telegram, Reddit, while using Volume.lii's trading volume tools to fake market demand, forming a double deception.

• Impact Exchange Listing

Some centralized exchanges (CEX) may select potential tokens for listing based on market data.

Using brushing tools to increase trading volume and the number of holding addresses may deceive the review mechanism, allowing tokens to be pumped or dumped on CEX after listing (Pump & Dump).

Tools like Volume.lii make Astroturfing more cost-effective and efficient by fabricating trading volume to mislead the market. This practice is used in countless marketing strategies for air coins, scam projects, and price manipulation coins, leading retail investors to misjudge investment opportunities.

Case 2: Data Analysis (Chainalysis Report 2025)

The wash trading frequency of the highest frequency trading address exceeds 50,000 times, and a single address can conduct a large number of buy and sell transactions in a short period of time.

The transaction frequency of the top 10 addresses exceeds 20,000, indicating that these addresses are highly automated market manipulation tools.

The number of transactions from the top 30 addresses far exceeds normal user behavior. These addresses may not be genuine investors, but rather bots controlled by project parties or market manipulation teams.

Source: DEX trading volume address - Top 30 high-frequency trading addresses

The Impact of Astroturfing

• Create fake trading depth

These high-frequency trading addresses create a "healthy" market depth on the DEX order book by continuously buying and selling the same asset, leading investors to mistakenly believe that the token has sufficient liquidity and high trading activity.

• Cooperate with social media marketing

The project party can promote on Telegram, Discord, and Twitter:

"XXX token 24-hour trading volume $100M, abundant liquidity, institutional investors are entering the market!"

Actual situation: Most of these large trading volumes come from volume-boosting bots, not genuine buying orders.

• Impact on price trends

Through fast buy-sell trades, Astroturfing teams can create the illusion of price increase, enticing FOMO retail investors to follow suit.

Once retail investors buy in, the project party can dump the market, take profits and exit, leading to retail investors taking over.

These high-frequency trading addresses play an important role in creating market illusions. Combined with social media hype, these robot trading patterns make it difficult for retail investors to distinguish between real market demand and manipulation.

Astroturfing the core means of manipulation:

The Volume.lii trading volume generator provides a tool for low-cost, mass production of fake trading volume, making market manipulation easier.

High-frequency trading addresses on DEX create false market liquidity on-chain through continuous wash trading, and then combine with social media marketing to influence investor judgment.

4. Astroturfing Case Studies

The following are real cases based on public information and known events in the field of crypto assets for comparison reference:

• The 2017 "Bitcoin Forking Speculation" Event

Platform: Twitter, Bitcointalk forum

Activity Type: False Community Support

Means: An anonymous team hired a navy to create the illusion of 'Bitcoin Cash (BCH) supported by developers'.

Loss: Over $300 million (stemming from price manipulation before and after the fork)

• 2018 Bitconnect Ponzi Scheme (Pump and Dump + False Community)

Platform: YouTube, self-owned forum

Activity Type: Falsifying User Testimony

Means: hiring actors to record fake profit videos, claiming to 'stably profit 40% every month' through the Bitconnect lending platform
Create a subreddit /r/Bitconnect on Reddit, where bot accounts mass-post profit screenshots.

Loss: Over $2.5 billion (U.S. SEC lawsuit data)

Technical features: Using P2P transactions to disguise fund liquidity, actually operating a classic Ponzi scheme

• 2020 "DeFi Liquidity Mining Scam"

Platform: Telegram, Medium

Event Type: Endorsement of Fake Projects

Means: Impersonating well-known developer accounts to release fake project reviews, leading users to pledge assets

Case: SushiSwap imitates the project YieldFarming.info, absconding with 26 million US dollars

Summary

In the field of crypto investments, investors need to be vigilant of three core risks and take corresponding strategies:

• Data authenticity verification: To avoid relying solely on trading volume to judge the value of tokens, one should use on-chain tools (such as Arkham, Dune Analytics) to verify the distribution of holding addresses, the proportion of independent traders, and the pattern of fund flow, in order to identify risks of single address manipulation or token concentration.

• Emotionally Detached Decision-making: Be vigilant against FOMO projects with abnormal social media hype, compare the on-chain activity with the matching public opinion volume, and guard against AI-generated false content creating a false impression of market prosperity;

• Expose Astroturfing manipulation: Such pseudo-grassroots movements create false consensus through coordinated promotion, essentially manipulating market sentiment. It requires third-party audits to penetrate marketing packaging and focus on the organic nature of community interaction.

By 2025, AI technology will exacerbate information pollution, but regulatory technology will upgrade synchronously: institutions like Viginum have already built detection systems to combat algorithm-generated false information, and projects need to build trust through transparent token models and compliant operations. The industry needs to establish a 'verification of authenticity' ecosystem through on-chain data openness, cross-platform collaboration, and AI anti-counterfeiting technology—only by solidifying the foundation of data can we resist speculative bubbles and promote the sustainable development of the crypto economy.