Over 60% of crypto press releases are linked to high-risk or scam projects, study finds

Crypto property merchandise services often supply misleading selling content, creating an illusion of legitimacy by placing unverified announcements alongside morganatic news.

Feb 4, 2026, 9:48 a.m.

Crypto property merchandise organisation services person go a instrumentality for questionable projects to sidestep third-party scrutiny and make an illusion of legitimacy, a caller study from Chainstory shows.

The researchers reviewed 2,893 releases sent retired betwixt June and November past year. They recovered that much than 60% came from projects with “classic reddish flags” specified arsenic an anonymous squad making unrealistic claims, copy-paste websites and assertive tactics to scare investors into action. Some were outright scams confirmed arsenic fraudulent by cross-referencing with blacklists and progressive scam alerts.

Unlike established, accepted organisation services, crypto-focused property wires often person deals that warrant placement connected dozens of websites with small oversight. These paid-for placements often look alongside existent news, sometimes without wide labels, making it hard for readers to archer the difference.

“If you stumble upon a crypto property merchandise connected a quality site, likelihood are amended than 50/50 that the task down it is of debased credibility (or worse),” the researchers wrote successful the study published Tuesday.

Most of the releases were self-authored selling announcements astir insignificant merchandise updates, token income oregon speech listings, the squad said. Only astir 2% reported meaningful quality similar task backing oregon acquisitions, types of stories that would typically gain editorial coverage.

CoinDesk contacted respective property wires, but nary had replied by work time.

Pay to display

At bosom is the narration betwixt organisation services and websites. The wires enactment arsenic a pipeline, pushing retired contented for a fee, portion the websites complaint to show them without editorial filtering, according to the report.

To the casual reader, it whitethorn look similar sum from reputable media outlets, adjacent though nary writer reported the communicative and the claims wrong the merchandise are unverified.

This maneuver is not constricted to startups. Major exchanges regularly propulsion property releases announcing each token listing to make a consciousness of changeless activity, the researchers noted. There is nary proposition the exchanges are progressive successful wrongdoing.

The scattergun approach, however, boosts visibility with hunt engines, clutters quality feeds and muddies the enactment betwixt reporting and promotion portion giving different unproven oregon high-risk projects a veneer of unearned legitimacy.

“The halfway mechanics of the crypto property merchandise manufacture is piggybacking,” the survey said. “By funneling contented done syndication networks, issuers debar the ‘newsworthiness’ filter of a newsroom and alternatively trust connected the credibility of the organisation platform.”

In 1 illustration from December, scammers utilized fake branding to impersonate Circle Internet (CRCL), the issuer of the USDC stablecoin. The merchandise promoted a fake tokenized metals level and linked to what appeared to beryllium a wallet-draining site. The merchandise was debunked by CoinDesk, but lone aft appearing connected aggregate quality sites.

While immoderate quality outlets person started labeling oregon limiting property merchandise content, the deficiency of wide standards and editorial filters remains a vulnerability successful the crypto media ecosystem, the study said.