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, 16 tweets, 6 min read Read on Twitter
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We investigated which cryptocurrencies are the most and least overhyped on crypto Twitter.

In other words, which coins are being manipulated the most, which have the most bot accounts tweeting about them, and which have the most inflated engagement.
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We created a metric called Hype-to-Activity Ratio, which measures the # of tweets each crypto has per $1M in trading volume. Across the 450 cryptos we investigated, there were an average of 1.02 tweets per $1M in volume.

We used 30-day averages for tweet and trading volumes.
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Let's start with the least overhyped cryptos (which coins have the lowest number of tweets per $1M in trading volume).

At the top are Tether, EOS, Ethereum Classic, Cosmos, and NEO.
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Because these coins had low tweet volumes, we looked at any coin that averaged >25 tweets per day.

Tether is a stablecoin highly used in crypto trading, so it makes sense that the coin would have a relatively small number of conversations as compared to its trading volume.
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On the other hand, some cryptocurrencies had astronomical tweet volumes vs. trading activity.

TokenPay, Electroneum, and Dragonchain all had more than 500 times more tweets per $1M in trading volume than the average crypto.

Telcoin and DigiByte were similarly overhyped.
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To put this into perspective, TokenPay had a Hype-to-Activity ratio 33 million percent higher than Tether!

In other words, TokenPays ratio of tweets/trading activity was 330,770X higher than Tether's was.
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Across the board, the largest cryptocurrencies by market cap have relatively consistent Hype-to-Activity ratios, with the exception of XRP, which was significantly higher than the other largest coins.
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In the previous tweet we ignored the hashtags #XRPCommunity, #XRPTheStandard, and #XRPArmy, but if we include them the hype to activity ratio of XRP spikes to 6.66.

>33% of all XRP tweets use those hashtags and XRP accounts for 6x more tweets/trading than the average coin.
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However, XRP's Hype-to-Activity ratio is tiny compared to some of the other cryptos.

Have a look at this chart showing coins with at least 50 daily tweets.

Look at the massive differences between many of the more overhyped coins vs. the lesser ones.
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Even when logging the chart we can still see the massive discrepancies that exist.

The red line shows the average of 1.02 tweets per $1M in trading volume.
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So what does this hype without activity look like?

Just like trading volume manipulation, many of these coins are similarly being manipulated on Twitter by hoards of bot accounts, fake followers, and manipulated engagement.
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Take Electroneum for example, when creating this deck 2 of the 3 most recent tweets on ETN came from accounts with strings of arbitrary numbers in their handle, typically a sign of fake accounts.

Often numerous overhyped coins are mentioned in the same tweet — see below:
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Frequently cryptos with artificially high levels of conversations on Twitter will also have similarly high numbers of Twitter followers.

In many cases these cryptos will buy fake followers to try to establish legitimacy. Example, Electroneum 127K vs. BitMEX only 65K.
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Manipulation and the purchasing of fake followers doesn't just manifest itself on Twitter.

On Facebook Justin Sun has 6 million likes, while Coinbase, the largest exchange in crypto with over 30 million users, has just 187K.
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While significant efforts are being made to improve cryptos legitimacy, the industry remains very much the wild west.

Although many within crypto can easily detect manipulative practices, this deception is aimed at new entrants into crypto who are often less informed.
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While this metric is not perfect, we think its a good tool for identifying massive outliers.

As always, we have made the data available for free in a Google Sheet.

Note: Lowest ones have minimum of 25 tweets, highest have minimum of 50 tweets.

docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d…
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