Spam and bots have been the bane of anyone that uses the internet for years, but recently this digital scourge has ramped up activity in the crypto sector in a big way.

Crypto intelligence provider LunarCrush has revealed spam in the cryptosphere has increased by an astonishing 3,894%. The firm has been collecting crypto-specific social data since 2019, and says not only is spam at an all-time high, it’s also “the fastest growing metric on social media.”

The findings were published in a May 25 report, stating that “more spam accounts than you would think are actually people.” For this reason, it is often a challenge for software to detect and flag spam.

Twitter is the social media platform of choice for the crypto industry, and it is awash with spam and bots. There has been an estimated 1,374% increase in Twitter spam volume over the past two years, according to LunarCrush.

LunarCrush CEO Joe Vezzani told Quantum Economics founder Matti Greenspan in his crypto newsletter:

“For a Web2 platform like Twitter, there is a direct incentive to turn a blind eye to fake accounts because it increases the value of their platform.”

Tokenized Web3 platforms (such as Aave’s Lens Protocol or Orbis) differ in that they want to have as many genuine users as possible holding the asset rather than trying to extract value from the community, he added.

Billionaire Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s sensational takeover of the platform was put on hold earlier this month pending further details supporting Twitter’s assertion that spam and fake accounts represent less than 5% of the platform’s traffic.

Musk plans to crack down on spam bots that have plagued the platform and suggests that the company’s claim of 95% genuine users is too high.

Twitter claims that >95% of daily active users are real, unique humans. Does anyone have that experience?

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 17, 2022

Purging the bot accounts would drop the number of followers most genuine accounts have. One estimate from SparkToro suggested that Musk could lose half of his 95 million followers. Earlier this month, the software firm conducted in-depth analysis reporting that almost 20% of all active Twitter accounts are fake or spammers.

Related: Elon Musk’s ‘top priority’ for Twitter includes cutting down on crypto scam tweets

Until Musk gets his way and shakes the spammers out of the Twitter tree, users of the platform and other social media sites will have to be extra vigilant regarding the rising tide of crypto scams and spam which none of them appear to have the power to control.