'Fake' press release issue rocking cryptocurrencies
Every day, the price of virtual currency fluctuates in response to various news. Among them, there was a series of incidents in which the market moved due to fake "fake" press releases. I would like to sort out what is going on.
Around 7:30 on November 5th, US Eastern Time, the price of Bitcoin Cash (BCH), one of the altcoins, soared by about 5% in just 15 minutes. After that, it showed an abnormal movement to immediately return to the original level.
When I checked if there was any news, Kroger, a major US supermarket, "announced" that it will accept Bitcoin Cash as payment from December. Bitcoin Cash, a cryptocurrency that forked from Bitcoin in 2017, would come as a surprise if true.
However, the impression I had when I saw this was, "Isn't it fake?" The reason for this is that in September, a fake press release was distributed stating that Walmart, a major US supermarket chain, would adopt Litecoin (LTC), and major media outlets around the world reported it, causing a stir.
However, this press release is firmly posted on Kroger's official website. I checked the domain name etc. to see if it was a fake website, but it was indeed a genuine website.
However, two to three minutes after the release was posted, an East Coast media person contacted Kroger's spokesperson for confirmation, and it seems that the information that "this announcement is fake" spread on SNS. . At this point many people were confused by two conflicting situations.
・Kroger's publicity is said to be fake (and it is flowing on SNS)
· Kroger's official website has a press release
After that, after 8:15, the press release in question was deleted from Kroger's official website, and it was almost confirmed that it was a fake. According to Kroger, the official website contains information from PR Newswire, the press release distribution company, as it is. This suggests that Kroger's account within the PR Newswire was abused in some way.
As for the press release itself, it looks well-formed at first glance. However, if public relations and media personnel read it carefully, it was at a level that could not be considered "real". This is because there are some unspoken rules in the text of press releases, and if someone who doesn't know them writes them, it will feel uncomfortable. The processing of the logo image was also lax and not up-to-date. Now deleted but still in the archive.
Are relatively major altcoins being targeted?
The common point of the fake press release problems that followed Walmart and Kroger was that relatively major altcoins were targeted. If this was an announcement to adopt Bitcoin, it would be a weak news to move the market because there are already many adoption cases.
On the other hand, if it is a minor brand such as so-called grass coin or meme coin, it is unlikely that a major company will adopt it, so it will be immediately obvious that it is a lie. This may have targeted well-known altcoins like Litecoin and Bitcoin Cash.
As an issue on the media side, there seems to be a point of how much we should be suspicious of press releases. In general, press releases of large companies are sent after many internal reviews, so the media writes bulletin articles assuming that "what was sent" itself is reliable.
Since these incidents continued, the media side seems to have a considerable sense of caution, and compared to September, it seems that there were fewer media that were "hooked" this time. Although it seems that the same trick will not work anymore, I would like to pay attention to the news about altcoins just in case.