It has been revealed that former software entrepreneur and current cryptocurrency enthusiast Jonn McAfee charges $105,000 to tweet about new initial coin offerings (ICOs) or to promote cryptocurrencies in general.
Last week, McAfee tweeted about how his company, McAfee Team Crypto, had created a guide relating to their cryptocurrency promotion service and had posted it on their website. He admitted that their service makes them look self-aggrandizing, but, at the same time, he says that if a company wants to get exposure for their cryptocurrency, they should overlook this and consider using the service. He further insists that, while the service costs $105,000, when this amount is divided by his more than 800,000 followers, the price is only $0.13 per person.
His company’s website further declared that McAfee and his tweets are the most influential force in the cryptocurrency industry. According to information gleened from a poll McAfee himself conducted, McAfee believes that 259,000 of his followers have more than 50% of their holdings in cryptocurrencies and that 224,000 of them have at least $4.8 billion invested in cryptocurrencies.
McAfee has shown that he can influence cryptocurrency markets. A site called Motherboard tracked McAfee’s tweets about various cryptocurrencies in the month of January, and they found that there was a direct correlation between the tweets and the performance of the cryptocurrencies he was promoting. One cryptocurrency called Burst rose 350% in value after McAfee promoted it.
Back then, Motherboard speculated that McAfee could have been taking part in what is called a “pump and dump scheme” to artificially raise the value of cryptocurrencies he owned in order to later sell them off at big profit. While this could still be true, it is now apparent that the software legend had at least one other reason for promoting the cryptocurrencies.
However, Tom Créance — who is a member of the development team behind Burst — insists that the company did not have the financial resources to pay McAfee. He further says that, not only did they not pay McAfee for the tweet, but that they were surprised by it. He went on to say that being involved in such a scheme goes against everything the company believes in.
So far, McAfee has yet to comment about the promotion of Burst.
Dil Bole Oberoi
