Instagram has removed prominent Mark Cuban-backed account @NFT over recurrent rules breaches. “This account was disabled following multiple breaches of our regulations, and it won’t be reinstated,” a spokeswoman for Instagram told Rolling Stone.
The account has been accused of constantly publishing sponsored content and touting new NFT collections without labeling the postings as promotions.
The revelation of the allegations was made public through a thread of tweets by @topshotfund:
How did topshotfund identify the scammy promotions?
In one of his tweets, he said that over the past couple of weeks, he had an increasing number of normie friends reaching out to him about new NFT projects that he had surprisingly never heard of. He started researching what they all had in common.
When he came across the @NFT Instagram handle, he noticed that they promoted the first introduction to NFTs to over 1.7m followers. He identified that they monetize daily by promoting similar projects that practice scammy tactics without disclosing that they are ads.
He added that these scammy NFT projects searching for legitimacy would buy fake followers, pay influencers, & pass it off as organic interest.
They also charge a minimum of $100k / campaign. He ran the numbers and of their 36 promotions that he analyzed:
-25 (70%) currently at or below the mint price
-4 blatant rugs
-0.16 avg / 0.06 median floor price
Stay away from scammy NFTs
Space Cowboy feels that @NFT intentionally supports ventures that don’t have apparent lasting worth. “They’re definitely in it for the fast $$ and did not always have an eye out for the community,” he claims. While the majority of the Twitter users who participated in his thread only voiced thanks for its cautionary presence and concern about the detrimental effect on widespread adoption, numerous acknowledged they’ve been cautious of @NFT for months.
In the past, the @NFT Instagram page routinely uploaded material that encouraged its followers to check out other NFT projects—many of which were profile picture (PFP) collections. Before you jump on and buy some shitty NFT, do your research before losing all your money to fake marketing tactics.