Have $105,000 To Spend on a Tweet? McAfee Would Like a Word

It can be tough for an ICO to get their name out. Given the number of projects that are completing ICOs currently, how do you most appropriately get your message across.

Fear not, there is a simple solution that will get your ICO in front of John McAfee's 810,000 twitter followers. However, this comes at a cost of $105,000 or $0.12 per follower. This was all revealed recently with the creation of the McAfee Crypto Team.

For those who do not already know, John McAfee is an American security researcher who is famous for creating the antivirus software that now bears his name. He has also become quite a celebrity in the cryptocurrency community for his outspoken views

However, he has also being quite controversial as he has promoted a number of different cryptocurrencies. There was always speculation around whether these promotional efforts were "sponsored" and came with a fee. Now it seems as if we have some idea.

Coin of The Day / Week

This all started last year as John McAfee announced that he would be Tweeting about a particular cryptocurrency that he liked once every day. He claimed that this was being done in order to give cryptocurreny users more information about coins that were under the radar.

These tweets came with a heavy punch no doubt.

For example, when he tweeted about the privacy coin, Verge (XVG), the price skyrocketed after the tweet. People were falling over themselves in order to get their hands on Verge. They all took the word of McAfee to be like a blockchain, immutable.

The only problem is that McAfee subsequently changed his position on Verge after the hysteria that it created. There was quite a fallout in the Verge community as the project missed a number of deadlines as McAfee contained his support.

Verge was not the only coin that McAfee helped to skyrocket. There was also Reddcoin which shot up in the immediate aftermath of the announcement but then collapsed just as quickly. Burstcoin also got a favourable mention by McAfee for its environementally sustainable mining algorithms.

However, there was a great deal of criticism that was levelled at McAfee so he decided that it would perhaps be wiser to decrease the regularity of the tweets. This was how "Tweet of the Day" became "Tweet of the Week".

Hacks, Bots and Obscurity

There was also lots of other activity that surrounded these tweets. Firstly, there were those traders who programmed bots that would monitor McAfee's feed for mention of any coins. The strategy behind this was to profit on the immediate euphoria surrounding the price.

These bots further distorted the market as they would create a positive feedback loop. They would increase the buying pressure and hence make it look as if the coins were on an organic rally. In reality, they were just an algorithmic and lightning fast Pump-and-Dump scheme.

However, the Bots also met their match one day when McAfee had his twitter account hacked. Someone started blasting out a number of different obscure cryptocurrencies in the span of only 30 minutes. McAfee managed to get a grip but not before it burned out a few bots.

There was also always the uncertainty as to whether McAfee was paid for these tweets. There were rumours that this was the case for Verge but other projects such as Burstcoin claim that they would never pay for promoting their coin.

Money (CryptoCurrency) Talks

Now that team McAfee has officially created a promotional website for their marketing efforts, we hear first-hand how they have been offering his tweets as a service to cryptocurrencies and ICOs.

True to McAfee form, the website is far from modest.

There is no mention about the due diligence process that is undertaken by the team to vett the projects. It mostly talks about the massive influence that McAfee has on social media and other digital marketing mediums. For example, the website stated

Frequently, a single tweet has resulted in more than a million dollars of investment into an ICO, and multiple currencies have increased more than 100% in price from a single tweet

It went on to explain the amount of wealth the followers of McAfee had. They quoted a poll that he ran earlier this year when he asked his followers a series of questions related to their cryptocurrency investments.

For example, the website stated that "518,000 have more than $3,000 already invested in cryptocurrencies. 224,000 have over $20,000 invested in cryptocurrencies. This last group alone represents, at a minimum, $4.48 billion in crypto investments".

What does McAfee have to say about the website selling his services? In true McAfee style, John stated the following.

It’s self-aggrandizing and ego-stroking for us...However, if you’re planning an ICO, trying to boost a coin, or want to shine a light on your latest project, you should overlook our swollen egos and see

Is it Worth the Price?

While there may be some that take issue with the promotional tweets on ethical grounds, there are many who would actually consider making use of the services. It is hard to separate an ICO from the crowd and this is one of the sure-fire ways to do it.

It all comes down to how much value a user reached ads to your ICO. If this is more than the 12 cents per user then McAfees tweets are economical. It could also be one of the only paid alternatives on social media as Facebook, Twitter and Google have banned ICO advertising.

Of course, there is also the possibility that many of his followers would now know that his tweets were now paid for and hence generate less interest and buying power. This is something that is quite hard to measure currently.

Eccentricity Sells

John McAfee is an eccentric individual with a successful yet colourful past. This has driven a great deal of interest in his opinions and will hence his twitter feed.

People love his quirky personality and love to hear his often crazy take on crypto currency topics. These tweets and actions also gain interest from large news sites which further drives interest in following him.

Yet, it would help to take his coin promotions with a pinch of salt. In fact, you should never take someone's recommendation as the only basis to invest in cryptocurrency for that matter. As many will say:

Do Your Own Research (DYOR)

Featured Image via rt.com