The Avalanche blockchain is currently under the crypto community’s radar. Recent reports indicate that Ava Labs, the for-profit company behind the Avalanche blockchain, has employed an army of thousands of false “astroturf” social media accounts to misrepresent public opinion. With this opinion, they can configure it at will, enabling them to sell AVAX tokens, defame competitors, and mislead the community on crucial issues.
Ava Labs project goes ‘Vampire’ rogue
In a recent case study conducted by Crypto Leaks, a grave discovery involving fake Twitter accounts under the name Avalanche has come to light. Through these accounts, Ava Labs posts tens of thousands of false messages and replies that parrot malicious themes and language defined by Ava Labs leaders, such as Emin Gün Sirer, while remaining in the shadows.
These newly discovered reports were supported by Evan Richards, who served as a senior engineer at Ava Labs between November 2020 and May 2022. According to reports, Avalanche pursues its competitors like vampires.
A great deal can be learned about a project by observing how it defines competitors. Ava Labs does not classify competitors of its Avalanche blockchain based on their functionality or divergent future crypto visions. Using the logic of a vampire, it identifies them as chains with a higher market cap, as it believes that attacking them, it can cause the other chain’s liquidity to flow into the Avalanche blockchain’s AVAX token, which they hold in huge numbers.
How fake-deep does this go?
Let’s have a look at the Avalanche Bridge. Ava Labs built a bridge to convey tokens from other blockchains onto Avalanche by wrapping them. Ava Labs promoted this as a step toward Web3 collaboration and a multi-chain future. However, it appears to have been more about siphoning liquidity from their “competitors.”
The massive boiler room operation of Ava Labs, which consists of bots, shills, and trolls speaking through their astroturf social media accounts, is unlawful. However, its usage is so routine and pervasive that its existence and function are common knowledge among its engineering. According to Evan;
“Avalanche, to give you a concrete example, has like astroturfed fan accounts in places as — in places like Twitter, or in Telegram chats … allegedly, allegedly will pay people to boost their coins in social media.” Evan Richards
Ava Labs’ astroturf accounts are used not only to actively promote their AVAX token but also to target competitors. Furthermore, Emin Gün Sirer’s own Ava Labs engineers assert that he makes demonstrably false arguments in poor faith in public. This is unexpected, given that he enjoys promoting his heritage as an associate professor, and this sort of behavior is opposed to the academic ethos.
According to Evan, Emin Gün Sirer (founder and CEO) and Kevin Seqniki (Chief Operating Officer) have volatile personalities that could harm Avalanche’s public image.
Avalanche accused of being a back-alley operation
Evan is concerned that the enthusiasm of Emin and Kevin will result in them being discovered in a lie, thereby undermining the public’s faith in Ava Labs and the Avalanche blockchain.
Evan reports that those involved with Algorand, who were presumably on the receiving end of false statements and curses from Ava Labs’ astroturf accounts, have expressed remorse over Ava’s conduct. He describes Avalanche as “back-alley” in nature and claims that this is reflected in the team’s structure.
If the Avalanche Bridge were compromised, users’ assets on source blockchains could be stolen, rendering their wrapped assets worthless. In addition, if it were compromised, it could generate new worthless wrapped assets on Avalanche out of thin air. In both instances, holders of wrapped assets and consumers of Avalanche DeFi could incur catastrophic losses.
The Ava Labs Astroturf Army
Crypto evolved into the wildest of Wild Wests. Things became quite tense, and the crypto industry is still sorting out the cowboys and bad performers. Unfortunately, a reoccurring theme is bad guys posing as good guys and ruining honest actors. The path to recovery will be long, but it begins with sunlight.
Outsiders might struggle to understand what is going on in crypto, even when supplied with the facts. Sam Bankman-Fried might have deceived the world into thinking he was a financial genius by wooing Silicon Valley, attacking blockchain ecosystems that threatened his investments, subverting the crypto and mainstream press, and even democracy itself.
Ava Labs might use the American legal system to target competitors, create decoys for regulators, pursue Emin’s vendettas, and obtain confidential information. Everything appears implausible until you see the hard evidence.
Understand this
An astroturf account is a fake social media account created only to promote messaging on behalf of Ava Labs. Accounts are sometimes managed by technical infrastructure, which allows Ava Labs actors to send messages in an automated fashion. Other times, they are operated by freelance operators or Ava Lab’s direct contractors, who frequently run multiple astroturf accounts and push broad propaganda that is disseminated centrally.
The accounts all have some normal-looking postings to conceal their true nature and intent. The precise method by which astroturf accounts are generated and controlled is unknown, and numerous paths are likely to exist.
However, it is clear that Ava Labs has long sought freelance “marketing” help in the way of Chinese water army employees, who often live in impoverished nations with few other options. The idea uses Ava Labs’ community websites, where users can submit their “work” in exchange for “points” and “reputation,” which can then be converted into AVAX tokens.
