When data fabrication and traffic bribery become standard practices on the platform, what remains of the industry?
TechFlow Selected TechFlow Selected
When data fabrication and traffic bribery become standard practices on the platform, what remains of the industry?
We've seen bull and bear markets, and weathered storms, so we know how truly difficult it is to stay true to one's original aspirations.
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insightsWell, given how terrible the market is today and seeing all these so-called experts analyzing data, market sentiment, community热度, etc., I—having lived through 94 and 319—want to share a recent anecdote from work along with some reflections on the industry (also a way to reminisce about the past).
PundiAI is currently undergoing a brand/mainnet upgrade plus token swap, so we’ve been in touch with exchanges. Having built since 2017, we’re quite familiar with standard procedures: compliance processes, code audits, and beyond that, things like marketing budgets, how many new users/traffic we can bring, how existing users can capture upside, etc. Projects need liquidity and new trading venues; exchanges need users and volume—it’s mutually beneficial, nothing wrong with that.
The interesting part comes after initial business discussions, when it moves to the research team's evaluation. They raised several objections against listing us—or suggested increasing our budget due to "unmet criteria." Let me highlight a few:
First, they claimed our data and热度 aren’t strong enough—specifically citing insufficient social media metrics and on-chain activity, then comparing us to other projects in the same space. I was baffled—aren’t you guys researchers? Don’t you see through fake vs real data? Come on, an account with hundreds of thousands of Twitter followers but only thousands of views per post and fewer than 10 comments? You call that genuine? And on-chain data showing one transaction hash containing dozens of trades—tell me, are all your retail users suddenly blockchain engineers who can directly connect RPCs and batch transactions themselves? That doesn’t make sense. Especially for AI data labeling, which has inherent barriers to entry—it’s unlikely that large numbers of annotators would simultaneously label the same dataset. Plus, post-labeling validation and cleaning often cost more than labeling itself, making mass parallel annotation even less plausible—unless you don’t care about costs or your goal isn’t really about data at all.
Second, lack of backing from investment institutions. Nowadays, almost every project (except memecoins) needs VC support to get listed. But as a long-standing project—from FunctionX in 2019 to PundiAI today—we’ve been building independently for over six years, funding everything ourselves without raising a single dollar externally. From our perspective as “old-timers,” isn’t this admirable? Community-driven, no VC dumping pressure, emotionally speaking, it’s full of “sentiment.” Yet to the research teams, this translates into “not legit,” lacking institutional endorsement and热度. Not sure what to say about that…
Third, token circulation and valuation. Since 2019, all tokens have already unlocked—our market cap equals FDV, with nearly 70% locked in validator nodes. The research analysts said, “There’s huge sell-off pressure.” I was confused: First, most tokens are held by validators; second, we’re purely community-run—who exactly is going to dump? Also, we’re not some unknown token—we’ve been on major exchanges before. After six years of ups and downs, if someone wanted to dump, would they really wait until now to do it on your exchange? Moreover, sell pressure correlates with FDV. Our market cap and FDV are under $150M—an AI data layer with actual business, products, customers, and revenue valued at just $150M. Why don’t you check out those newly launched projects with $1B+ FDVs? Their potential sell-offs deserve far more attention! Actually, their *later-stage* dumps should be watched even more closely!
There are many more complaints I could list, but I’ll stop here. I understand research analysts review countless projects daily and rely on their own frameworks and data points—this involves deep expertise. But at the very least, shouldn’t basic distinctions between truth and falsehood, right and wrong, be clear?
I don’t know when it started, but traffic bribes, data bribes/fabrication, project re-skins (I even heard of founders swapping coins?), airdropping to studios—these have somehow become standard practices for getting listed.
Sometimes I feel getting listed, especially early listings, is a lot like venture capital—you're investing in the team's character. If listings are secured solely through tactics aimed at pleasing exchanges or VCs, then the long-term prospects of these projects are truly worrying.
We’ve been around this space long enough to know these tricks. It’s not that we *can’t* do them—we simply choose not to. Because in the end, these schemes only benefit studios, gray-market operators, and whales. The price is paid by new retail investors, builders distracted from real work, and the overall stagnation of the industry. (And pardon my arrogance, but many of today’s airdrop tactics are stuff we experimented with years ago and left behind.)
Having weathered bull and bear markets, we know how hard it is to stay true to your初心. Sometimes I really miss the ICO days of 2017–2018—the people I met back then (so many founders have already retired). Back then, communities were poor but passionate. Every conversation revolved around improving efficiency, enhancing security, pushing to market, rallying together after hacks—building toward shared success. Introducing someone to a VC or helping secure an exchange listing? Done freely and generously (I could write volumes here). Now everything comes with kickbacks, referral fees, management fees—it’s all transactional.
I really miss the pure version of us back then.
Join TechFlow official community to stay tuned
Telegram:https://t.me/TechFlowDaily
X (Twitter):https://x.com/TechFlowPost
X (Twitter) EN:https://x.com/BlockFlow_News
@agintender
