John McAfee has become a celebrity face in the cryptocurrency world. In a recent tweet, McAfee has publicly taken this role further by announcing the formation of the McAfee Crypto Team.
We finally wrote down how our promotional tweets work. It's self aggrandizing and ego stroking for us, however, if you're planning an ICO, trying to boost a coin or want to shine a light on your latest project, you should overlook our swollen egos and see:https://t.co/O6TBWrxDzm
— John McAfee (@officialmcafee) March 30, 2018
McAfee is a well-known businessman and computer programmer who formed McAfee Associates 25 years ago. The company had great success with antivirus software, which led to Intel acquiring the company in 2010 for $7.68 billion.
McAfee’s Twitter feed is loaded with cryptocurrency discussion and promotional material. Multiple posts on many days feature tweets about crypto exchanges, altcoins, and Bitcoin. He is also known for mentioning Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) and coins that he is supporting, which has led to allegations of his involvement in ‘pump and dump’ campaigns.
The https://t.co/y2hmHFKYkv ICO tokens are now on sale. My advice is to check it out.
— John McAfee (@officialmcafee) March 4, 2018
SAFEX spiked 92% hours after McAfee tweeted about them in December of 2017. Another promoted coin was BURST in late December, which saw a 350% gain.
Disclaimer: SAFEX is the majority of my holdings. I ran numbers for weeks before I chose it – knowing it had technical problems and that it would be delisted from most exchanges. But I have, to my knowledge, never lost money on an investment. But take this with a grain if salt.
— John McAfee (@officialmcafee) December 15, 2017
Coin of the day: BURST — First truly Green coin and most overlooked coin. Uses 400 times less power than Bitcoin. Super secure and private. Includes smart contracts, encrypted messaging, decentralized wallet, libertine blockchain. Most undervalued coin. https://t.co/vOJOtNYLXp
— John McAfee (@officialmcafee) December 22, 2017
Prior to announcing his new promotional marketing plan, McAfee has been silent about whether he is paid for his tweets, as a single positive Tweet to his 811,000 followers about a coin has at times resulted in dollars flowing into the specific cryptocurrency.
He has also been known for making some obscure cryptocurrency predictions, such as his Tweet about “eating his own d*ck” if proven wrong about his Bitcoin prediction of $1 million by 2020.
When I predicted Bitcoin at $500,000 by the end of 2020, it used a model that predicted $5,000 at the end of 2017. BTC has accelerated much faster than my model assumptions. I now predict Bircoin at $1 million by the end of 2020. I will still eat my dick if wrong. pic.twitter.com/WVx3E71nyD
— John McAfee (@officialmcafee) November 29, 2017
The McAfee Crypto Team website is confident and energetic about the influence McAfee has with his tweets, stating:
Within the cryptocurrency industry, nothing can match the power of a McAfee tweet. Frequently, a single tweet has resulted in more than a million dollars of investment into an ICO, and multiple currencies have increased more than 100% in price from a single tweet.
The team uses McAfee’s social media reach as its justification for the $105,000 price tag, calling it cheap when compared to other alternatives:
“Given Mr. McAfee’s price of $105,000 per tweet, the cost per investor reached is the least costly of any marketing avenue in the Crypto world. Considering only his own followers, the cost per investor reached is $0.13. Considering his reach beyond his own followers, the cost per investor reached is frequently less than a penny. This is orders of magnitude less than any other approach.”
The website used a poll conducted by McAfee in his tweets, where 50,000 followers contributed. The findings claim that:
“737,000 of his followers buy or sell cryptocurrencies at least once a month. 154,000 buy or sell cryptocurrencies daily.
380,000 have more than 25% of their total assets stored in cryptocurrencies. 259,000 have more than 50% of their total assets in cryptocurrencies.
518,000 have more than $3,000 already invested in cryptocurrencies. 224,000 have over $20,000 invested in cryptocurrencies. This las group alone represents, at a minimum, $4.48 billion in crypto investments.”
McAfee has received some negative feedback from his pay-to-play promotion. McAfee tweeted shortly after the website release about his process for choosing ICOs.
They say I sold out 'cause I use my tweets to promote, but the last 200 ICOs that lined up, we rejected 195 and chose 5. I only promote what I believe. In addition, all ICOs that we promote, since Finacoin, are audited by Crypto Connection. And I limit promos to 2 a day max. So..
— John McAfee (@officialmcafee) April 1, 2018
McAfee spoke with The Independent and explained that “I’m the only person in the crypto field that has openly divulged the outrageous amounts of money charged by crypto promoters.”
“It’s embarrassingly huge, but it’s true,” McAfee said. “I have been getting these fees for over six months. I decided to go public with it because I am an advisor to many of these companies and I know that I’m in the cross-hairs of the SEC [US Securities and Exchange Commission], so it is in my interests to prove transparency.”
McAfee also recently announced that he launched a Telegram group focused on chatting “about all things crypto,” and made sure to note that moderators in the group would ban its members upon any “pumping and shilling.”