The act of enthusiastically promoting a cryptocurrency or ICO project.
What Is Crypto Shilling?
Crypto shills advertize various tokens with false or overblown promises of their utility and potential price appreciation, often in their own interest as they plan to sell their own token holdings at a higher price.
How Does Crypto Shilling Work?
What Are Examples of Crypto Shilling?
Crypto shilling is easiest to explain with a hypothetical example.
If you do this correctly and find the right accounts to advertize SHILL, the token price will rise. Let’s say the SHILL price is $1.50 after a successful campaign (a conservative target in a bull run), you and your crypto shills will have 50% unrealized profits on your token holdings. Finally, you only have to make sure to slowly and carefully start selling your token holdings, so as to not tank the price and not draw attention to your scheme.
Do All Crypto Tokens Shill?
Not each cryptocurrency is marketed in such a way. Genuine crypto promoters do exist and can be told apart in several ways.
For example, legitimate promoters and supporters of tokens disclose their interest in a cryptocurrency. Promoting a token for personal gain is not inherently wrong, as long as the act of promotion is communicated. Furthermore, genuine promoters do not promise unrealistic price targets or overhype the token they are promoting.
How to Identify Crypto Shilling?
There are several telltale signs of a crypto shill and their motive to promote a coin purely to pump its price.
Influencers
Crypto influencers are more often than not shills. Some disclose their profession in their bio while others try to keep an aura of legitimacy. Influencers with hashtags of tokens are most of the time shills, particularly if these tokens are obscure and little known. Moreover, influencers that promote several different cryptocurrencies often do so because they have been paid. Finally, influencers that only give superficial information about a token often do not have a genuine interest in it and only promote it for money.
Marketers
Excited Founders and Team Members
Finally, founders and team members with a genuine interest in their own token can also be shills. Though some founders genuinely try to build a useful project, crypto is rife with scammers and founders with unrealistic expectations. These individuals promise revolutionary technology or use cases that are solved with the help of blockchain technology. Often they employ buzzwords and popular niches that generate a lot of investor interest.
However, their execution is often lacking and the roadmaps often fail to live up to their promises. Some of the biggest cryptocurrencies have been accused of being pushed by crypto shills for their constant failure to deliver the lofty promises they have made. These shills are easiest to tell apart by having a “long-term approach:” they are not as obvious as other shills and focus on one project only. But they remain in a loop of never-ending promises, without delivering real utility to their users and hating on other projects that rival their own.