Musk casually knocked the rice bowl of crypto KOLs

Author: Golem, Odaily Planet Daily

Crypto KOLs active on the X platform are in an uproar.

The reason is that on March 1st, Platform X updated its paid collaboration policy , which mainly included two core changes. First, the disclosure requirement for posts published by KOLs through paid collaborations changed from requiring the inclusion of the "#ad" tag to requiring the "paid collaboration" disclosure mark to be enabled . Second, for non-compliant paid collaboration posts, the reporting channel changed from sending an email to anonymously filling out a reporting form .

Besides these two core changes, X platform also made a blunder in this policy update. The community was surprised to find "cryptocurrency" included in X platform's new list of prohibited industries for paid promotional partnerships. Just as crypto KOLs were preparing to collectively criticize X platform for intentionally marginalizing the crypto industry, X product manager Nikita Bier posted that the change was a mistake and that categories such as "financial products and cryptocurrencies" had been removed from the prohibited promotion list (promotion is still not allowed in Australia, the EU, and the UK).

Nikita Bier later clarified that the "paid collaboration" label was not aimed at the crypto industry or prediction markets, but rather at strengthening the disclosure mechanism for commercial content. While the X platform encourages creators to collaborate with third-party brands, undisclosed paid promotional content can damage product integrity and undermine user trust in the content. The new feature helps fans clearly distinguish between commercial collaborations and organic content.

Although the misunderstanding has been cleared up, the two core changes in X's new paid partnership rules still apply to the crypto industry, and the impact of these changes is only just beginning to emerge, causing considerable anxiety among crypto KOLs...

The era of covert advertising benefits for crypto KOLs is over.

How much can a crypto KOL earn for posting a single message for a project? This topic frequently sparks discussion in the community, primarily because it's a highly opaque and highly individualized revenue model. There are no publicly available standards for crypto KOL pricing. Project teams typically determine prices based on factors such as the KOL's follower size, the specific niche they're targeting, the content's influence, and its ability to drive up prices. Sometimes, a project team might even pay a KOL simply because the boss likes them.

According to Odaily, Binance offered $5,000 a month to a well-known crypto KOL with over 30,000 followers. The terms included an exclusivity clause, prohibiting the KOL from posting content promoting Binance each month.

It's not only KOLs with 10,000 followers who can get sponsorships from exchanges. According to a crypto KOL with 5,000 followers, OKX paid him $600 a month for advertising, requiring him to post at least four posts promoting OKX each month, and his personal introduction and background must include OKX elements.

Besides long-term partnerships with exchanges, crypto KOLs often receive individual advertisements from project teams, which generally include promotional posts, investment analysis posts, or direct trading recommendations. The pricing for these posts varies significantly among different KOLs. For example, when the market is bullish, the bigwigs of the Meme project, in order to get KOLs with "price influence" to post trading recommendations, not only pay thousands of dollars in advertising fees but also directly send tokens to their private addresses.

The immense profits generated by these diverse collaboration methods once made becoming a KOL a career goal for many in the cryptocurrency world, but all of this may soon be a pipe dream. With the changes to X's paid collaboration policy, the era of easy profits for crypto KOLs has come to an end.

X's new paid collaboration rules explicitly require that all paid promotional posts by crypto KOLs must include a "paid collaboration" label. This means that the hidden ads that previously flooded the timelines of crypto users will no longer exist. As Nikita Bier stated, creators clearly disclosing paid promotional content is a responsible act towards their fans. In short videos and other content industries, it's perfectly normal for creators to insert explicit ads into their content.

However, in the crypto industry, KOLs have made it clear that accepting money to promote a project is a major taboo.

First, project teams that have paid for promotion are generally not keen on overtly positive publicity . If readers can clearly tell from a post that it's a paid advertisement, then no matter how objective the content is, the project's true strength will be questioned. Therefore, KOLs promoting a token/project are usually required to use a writing style that reflects their own research and confidence in the project.

Imagine if, in the future, to meet X requirements, all KOL paid promotion posts were marked with a "paid collaboration" label, and "hidden investment research ads" became "open recommendation ads." Would fans still blindly follow and buy?

Secondly, KOLs themselves are hesitant to accept endorsements . The crypto industry is one that is closest to money, and the research behavior and information acquisition of crypto users are highly directly reflected in their trading decisions. When they see a KOL recommending a project, they buy in, and if they profit, they attribute it to the KOL; if they lose, they quickly blame it on the KOL for being misled. This emotional reversal has become the norm.

If fans buy something after seeing a post about a KOL's "paid collaboration" with a project, it will likely be seen as evidence that the KOL is colluding with the project to exploit them. At best, the KOL's reputation will be ruined; at worst, fans will take legal action. KOLs cannot afford to take that risk.

If a KOL is thinking: "As long as I disguise my project promotion posts as my own investment research as usual, and don't include the 'paid collaboration' label—can I be detected?" The second core change to the X paid collaboration policy, which changed the reporting channel from email to anonymous reporting forms, is precisely to leverage the power of the masses to catch those who slip through the net.

KOLs who were forced into a corner

Users simply need to access the online reporting form, fill in the encrypted KOL's username and the corresponding post to report, and the entire process takes less than one minute. According to X's latest rules, if a KOL's violation is verified after being reported, they will be subject to tiered penalties.

First-time or minor violations will result in restrictions on the visibility of the offending post, removal from search results and recommendations, and limitations on interactions such as likes, replies, reposts, and quotations. The KOL will also be required to delete the offending post. Repeated violations will result in the KOL's account being set to read-only mode, restricting posting, reposting, and commenting functions, and requiring the KOL to undergo KYC verification. If the platform determines that the violation is serious, the account may be banned directly.

Several crypto KOLs have already fallen victim to this. On March 2nd, crypto KOL Eva Tree (X: @EvaCmore) posted that her account had been banned for violating X's new paid collaboration terms. Fortunately, her account was restored after she was asked to delete the post. She later stated that due to the risk of being reported, she may not share projects for free in the future.

X's new rules aren't just targeting the Chinese crypto community. On March 1st, the X account of Ashley (X: @AshleyDCan), an overseas crypto KOL with 190,000 followers, was also banned. The X platform required her to delete a post published on February 27th that promoted OKX but didn't disclose a "paid collaboration." Currently, Ashley's profile clearly discloses her paid collaboration with OKX and Polymarket.

X requested that Ashley remove the post promoting OKX.

According to X's new "Paid Promotion Partner Policy", paid promotion mainly includes the following four scenarios:

• The product or service is given as a gift by the brand owner or a representative of the brand owner;
• Creators are paid in cash or in kind for promoting these products or services;
• Products or services generate commissions for creators through sales (such as via referral links or discount codes);
• Creators have signed commercial agreements with these products or services, such as serving as brand ambassadors.

However, the above definitions remain rather general. Specifically within the crypto industry, what kind of content will be banned if it doesn't display a "paid collaboration" label? Where exactly is the boundary between research content and paid collaboration posts? These questions remain unclear , and responses to reports rely heavily on AI review or manual judgment in the X backend. Worse still, the asymmetry of power and responsibility in the reporting mechanism objectively amplifies the risk of abuse.

The crypto industry is inherently a dark forest. When the cost of reporting decreases and whistleblowers bear no risk, crypto KOLs become naked targets, vulnerable to attack .

Prior to this, there have been instances in the industry where KOLs were maliciously boosted with fake followers and comments, then reported, resulting in the KOLs' accounts being banned. Therefore, those who have suffered losses after following investment advice can now mass-report content posted by encrypted KOLs (previously) that is ambiguous between paid and free content. If enough accounts are reported simultaneously, the probability of them being punished by the platform increases. Even if the reports are not malicious, there is still a possibility of being mistakenly banned by users.

The effects of the new regulations will ultimately impact the revenue of crypto KOLs. The various forms of sponsored content that KOLs previously collaborated on with project teams are no longer viable. Some major KOLs are collectively using memes to protest the new paid content policy of Platform X by labeling abstract content as "paid collaboration."

The "Abstract Protest" of Crypto KOLs

However, some argue that crypto KOLs should "fight fire with fire" by labeling all future posts as "paid collaborations," thus desensitizing users.

Are crypto KOLs about to migrate again?

Incentive mechanisms are key to retaining high-quality content creators on social platforms. In 2025, X will continue to expand its revenue sharing with platform content creators. According to official sources , the revenue distribution in 2025 has reached the highest level since the monetization plan was launched. Furthermore, the scale of revenue sharing will continue to increase in 2026, which will be called the "Year of Creators".

Some crypto KOLs often share their monthly "salary" from Musk on their accounts, ranging from tens to thousands of dollars. However, with the release of X's new paid advertising rules, the importance of this revenue has decreased, as crypto KOLs may lose a larger source of income.

People in the crypto world will never sit idly by. In 2021-2022, due to changes in the domestic regulatory environment, Weibo banned crypto accounts on a large scale and prohibited the posting of crypto-related content. Subsequently, crypto KOLs chose Twitter (now known as X) as their new crypto platform and established a project marketing/promotion model around Twitter in the following years, with a "project team-agency-KOL" link.

Now, with the shrinking space for crypto KOLs due to changes in content policies, where can they migrate to? The answer might be exchange-based social platforms like Binance Square. (Just kidding: This is not a paid advertisement.)

In 2025, thanks to the continued growth of the Binance exchange, coupled with the traffic generated by CZ He Yi and the content mining mechanism, Binance Square saw a significant increase in daily active users and user numbers. Although its main task is still to recruit crypto creators from the X platform, it has already accumulated a group of loyal users.

Previously, when Farcaster announced its shift to wallet business (Farcaster has since been acquired by Neynar), I pointed out that exchanges have a unique advantage in building crypto social products, as trading naturally fosters scenarios and desires for communication. In that article, I also predicted that inclusivity towards crypto users is the core competitive advantage of exchange-based social products against competitors . When competitors implement policies detrimental to crypto content creators, the large-scale migration of crypto KOLs five years ago might repeat itself, and building a new project-KOL promotion system around exchange-based social products is only a matter of time. (Related reading: Farcaster turns around, "Binance Square" and similar platforms take over crypto social media )

If crypto KOLs really leave X, X won't lose anything, or rather, the X platform won't do anything to retain the crypto community. Because looking at the entire internet, the crypto community is just a very small information cocoon; its collapse wouldn't have a major negative impact on the platform.

X's updated paid collaboration policy is not specifically targeted at crypto KOLs; it's just that the unique characteristics of the crypto industry have made it a target.