BLUM Disappointment or Why Mining on Phones No Longer Works
Introduction: The Rise of Fake Authenticity
Ever wondered why your phone-based mining app suddenly decided you’re not a real person — and then asked you to complete an actual crypto transaction just to prove… wait, what exactly are they trying to prove again? Concept of the airdrop was always for project creators — to reward you; not for you to reward them…
Logic, anyone? Familiar concept? Or maybe not? Left the building? Gotcha. Just checking.
And welcome to the era where phones, brilliant multi-tasking tools, not only farm crypto non-stop — but emulate humans more convincingly than actual people. Entire rooms packed with dozens — sometimes hundreds — of phones function as active and highly valuable community members, whereas you… well, sorry — you are not. Nothing personal.
It’s the wild west of “authentic engagement”, and everyone, including tech giants, is struggling to keep up.
Algorithms Gone Rogue: Our x.com Experience
Let’s use our x.com account as a prime example of things getting… well, let’s just call it “strange”. One moment we’re happily growing, interacting naturally with around 600 genuine followers, and the next — OOOPSIE! — “Your account has been suspended, and you are not permitted to perform this action.” Set aside the near-hysterical tears it caused our lovely Sophie’s assistant, a young lady in her early 20s — “All I did was create a post… did I break it? I knew it — I knew I’d break Twitter…” — “No, honey, you didn’t break it. The closest anyone came to breaking Twitter was Musk, so you’re completely off the hook.” But seriously, why exactly was it suspended? Your guess is as good as ours. We can only assume that the algorithms designed to detect bots decided either we, or our hard-earned followers, weren’t “real” enough. Yet, ironically, unsolicited half-naked images seem to effortlessly bypass these very same algorithmic gatekeepers. So let’s recap: engaging content for our followers equals “bot,” while random, half-naked human body parts equal “real person.” Got it. Irony at its absolute finest, isn’t it?
Naturally, we reached out to x.com’s support team, trying to reason with… well, with what exactly? Complete silence? Automated responses? To this day, we haven’t received a single reply — human, non-human, or otherwise — despite being paying customers who, theoretically, are entitled to some form of genuine “support.” At least, that’s what the premium subscription promised: “You will get support”.
Well, technically, we did chat briefly with Grok — back when our account was “not suspended” — to ask why they thought charging our credit card for a service they couldn’t provide was acceptable. But hey, that’s an entirely separate (and equally hilarious) story. Perhaps this brief Grok interaction counted as “support provided”? Maybe someone at x.com headquarters gleefully checked it off as “support received,” signed, dated, stamped, and filed away neatly in their “job well done” folder.
Eventually, we shrugged the whole thing off, recreated the account, and called it a day. Sure, the new account now mainly serves as a reposting outlet after our content lands elsewhere — but that’s not a huge loss. Most of our followers found us again, many migrating comfortably to Medium, and new followers — well, there are plenty of other ways for them to discover us.
As for our enthusiasm to run specialized campaigns or post engaging, original content exclusively on x.com? Thanks, but no thanks. Who knows when they’ll randomly decide to suspend us again — maybe for excessive authenticity next time?
BLUM Mining Fiasco: When Genuine Users Become Bots
But hold on — it gets even better. Social media platforms aren’t the only places plagued by bizarre algorithmic misfires. Take the crypto-mining app BLUM, for instance. BLUM initially offered enticing rewards for phone-based mining, prompting a group of friends and me to jump in, driven by nothing more than idle curiosity and a pinch of that irresistible ‘Wait, people actually pay money for THAT?! We’ve got to try this!’ feeling. This was over a year — maybe even a year and a half ago — right before DOGS went live. Back then, we patiently listened to repeated promises: “We’re about to launch,” soon followed by, “Definitely launching at the end of this quarter.” Eventually, our enthusiasm faded, and we lost track altogether.
Then, one random day, one of us stumbled across BLUM listed on an actual exchange. OMG! They actually DID go live! Well, that was an interesting twist. Excited messages quickly made the rounds (remember, we’d previously spent quite a substantial amount of time on their app). But guess what? When we checked in again, we found ourselves officially labeled as “non-real people” and subsequently disqualified from receiving any rewards.
Just picture that for a moment: genuine users — actual human beings — being flagged as bots, while pictures surfaced online showing entire rooms packed wall-to-wall with phones tirelessly farming bonuses, inflating engagement, and creating artificial activity. Irony? This was irony on steroids, the premium edition.
Faking It to the Top: A Digital Epidemic
This phenomenon isn’t limited to crypto. The “fake it until you make it” mentality now dominates our entire digital landscape. Dreaming of becoming an influencer overnight? Just swipe your credit card, and suddenly your follower count magically soars “organically”. Strangely enough, none of the platforms — whether Facebook, LinkedIn, X.com, or even GitHub (yes, GitHub pull requests are now part of this bizarre trend) — seem to mind your newfound popularity. No genuine interactions required, just a smooth, 21st-century transfer of funds. Ah, isn’t modern technology wonderful?
Being the naturally curious journalist that I am, I felt obligated to test this firsthand. Quora or Reddit? Let’s flip a coin — Reddit it is. So I registered an account using my real, publicly available email — verified and legitimate. I crafted a straightforward Reddit post, nothing complicated, simply a friendly, “Hey, interested in people’s experiences” type of query. Link to the subject in question. And what happened next? You guessed it — I was promptly labeled as a “non-real” person, an apparent figment of Reddit’s imagination. Their bots detected…something (still not sure exactly what), my account was limited, and the post vanished into thin air.
But my little experiment wasn’t over yet. A mere $10 later, a nearly identical post resurfaced on Reddit. And surprise! Three weeks later, it’s still there — no detection, no deletion, absolutely nothing problematic. Remember, both posts shared about 80% similarity and were written by yours truly. Meanwhile, my original legitimate account faced “strict community guidelines,” “bot detection,” or whatever excuse was handy at the moment. Maybe Reddit and other platforms should simply drop the act and straightforwardly announce, “Please slip us a few dollars to use our platform.” It might make the process more honest, streamlined, and far less frustrating. Just a friendly suggestion for our digital overlords — honesty is, after all, the best policy.
Corporate-Level Shenanigans
This digital charade doesn’t just affect individuals; businesses aren’t immune either. About 12 to 14 years ago, my IT director collaborated with a massive company — let’s call it Company X — providing support for their Facebook games. The job was fairly typical tech-support stuff: deployments, user training, troubleshooting, the usual routine. The games themselves were quite ordinary, but people did play them. Thanks to internal monetization, these games generated some revenue — just enough to cover support costs and leave a little extra as profit. Given that the games were neither particularly brilliant nor well-coded (in fact, they awkwardly combined half a dozen technologies without clear purpose), even that modest profitability was quite an achievement.
So, how exactly did my IT director end up involved in this circus? Easy: a substantial portion of the games original source code was mysteriously missing, and keeping them running required nothing short of constant miracles. Naturally, the IT director was enlisted as the official “miracle maker”.
You’re probably wondering, what’s the actual point of this story? Well, here’s where things get interesting. Company X was big, and big means large budgets. One day, my IT director, puzzled by the oddity of these mediocre games being under the wing of such an impressive corporate giant, finally asked the question: “How did a massive, established company like Company X end up with… well, THIS?”
The answer turned out to be, well… rather “interesting,” to put it mildly. Company X wasn’t the original owner of these games. They had purchased them from another entity — let’s creatively name them Company Y — in a genuinely massive, multi-million dollar deal. Remember, 14 years ago, a multi-million-dollar transaction had serious buying power; you could really do something substantial with that kind of money. As you’d expect, lawyers, financial analysts, and auditors thoroughly vetted the entire operation. The due diligence was so rigorous that they might as well have verified the underwear sizes of Company Y’s owners.
Eventually, the contracts were signed, payments began flowing, with the largest, final payment conveniently scheduled for about a year later, just to guarantee fairness and authenticity. When the big payment day finally came, everything went smoothly — until about a month later, when player numbers didn’t just decline slightly — they catastrophically dropped by approximately 90%. Not a gentle downturn, but a full-blown crash. Investigations promptly followed, but the contract was airtight. Other than a lot of angry finger-pointing, Company X couldn’t legally do much about it.
Driven by curiosity and bewilderment, Company X dug deeper and eventually uncovered the truth: when Company Y initially launched these games, they hired groups of people specifically to emulate active players. These fake “players” engaged almost continuously, 24/7, through various VPNs to mimic global diversity, and made frequent monetary transactions. Except, these transactions turned out to be just transfers between Company Y’s own accounts — costing them only minimal transaction fees. And the moment Company Y received that final, hefty payment, these simulated players were let go: leaving the new owners staring at an empty, ghost-town of a user base.
All of this unfolded on Facebook — the very platform famously strict about “real names” and “authentic identities” and all that nonsense. The same place that, amusingly enough, once decided that Sophie, our marketing director, simply didn’t exist. Yet, accounts on this very platform could (and still can) be bought wholesale for roughly 50 cents each. Perhaps this is why Company X faced such baffling problems. Come to think of it, it might also explain Sophie’s identity troubles — clearly, she didn’t pay her 50 cents!
Mystery solved! Congratulations to everyone involved. If irony were a cryptocurrency, we’d all be billionaires by now.
Let’s keep rolling though. It seems that the algorithms designed to protect us from digital manipulation seem remarkably better at penalizing genuine engagement rather than eliminating endless bot farms. Our digital landscape thrives on inflated numbers, driven by automation and so-called “authentic bots”, creating a surreal illusion of active engagement that’s typically more artificial than authentic. Likes and followers propel content upward regardless of its quality, and public subscriber counts create superficial market excitement. Participate organically without financial backing, and you’ll remain virtually invisible. But invest just a small amount, and voila — another digital influencer is born.
Is this kind of artificial success truly worth it? Debatable. Direct financial return — probably not. I recently stumbled upon an article where a YouTuber shared his earnings over six years. With about 1.1 million views and roughly 6.4 million minutes watched, his total earnings barely scraped the $500 mark. Unless his followers were actively tipping him or he had substantial external sponsorship, that’s hardly enough to live sustainably in today’s economy.
YouTube itself, however, faced no such struggles. They earned handsomely from those viewed minutes — making approximately $6,400 to $20,000 from direct advertisements alone. That doesn’t include profits from drawing users to their platform, many of whom eventually cave in and subscribe to “ad-free premium”, just to escape yet another unwanted, repetitive five-second miracle-tool ad.
Quite ironic, isn’t it? Platforms thrive while creators struggle. Perhaps “content creation” should come with its own warning label:
“Note: Views are for the platform, not the creator”.
Crossing the Uncanny Valley
Stepping away from the irony for a moment, here’s the real takeaway from this digital saga: we’re rapidly approaching — or, perhaps, already in the middle of — the “Uncanny Valley”; The tipping point; Where the majority of online interactions — comments, likes, debates, even code pulls — are no longer driven by humans, but by sophisticated AI scripts and automated bots.
Naturally, AI behaves differently from real people. But because bots dominate the landscape, algorithms designed to spot unusual activity ironically label authentic human interactions as “non-standard,” pushing genuine users toward the sidelines. Slowly but surely, humans risk becoming outsiders in the digital spaces they created.
There’s only one crucial piece still missing — for now: AI isn’t yet capable of independently handling payments. But let’s be honest — the moment artificial intelligence masters money management, genuine human involvement in online communities and social networks might become obsolete.
Could there be a better alternative?
An alternative could start with completely removing likes and dislikes, making these engagement metrics invisible — not just to algorithms (which heavily influence content visibility), but also to users themselves. After all, if you see two similar pieces of content — one with 10,000 likes and another with just 10 — which one would you instinctively pick?
Next, remove public subscriber counts — not subscriptions entirely; following favorite creators is still essential. But hiding subscriber numbers publicly could prevent artificially inflated popularity from influencing search results and rankings.
Then, drastically cut back on intrusive advertisements, or remove the direct relationship between the number of ads displayed and potential earnings altogether. Without monetary rewards directly tied to views, generating fake traffic becomes pointless. Additionally, hide public view counts, making them purely internal metrics with no influence on search rankings.
Implementing these measures would significantly reduce the incentive for shady services offering fake followers, likes, views, comments, and pull requests, effectively restoring the genuine “social” element to platforms increasingly dominated by AI-generated activity.
Utopian? Perhaps. But it certainly beats the alternative — constantly proving you’re a “real human,” especially when modern AI can convincingly fake your presence more effortlessly than ever.
The Spiral of Synthetic Engagement
In the ongoing battle between bots and the algorithms designed to stop them, the algorithms are currently losing — and that’s a serious problem destined to worsen.
Social networks requesting government-issued IDs and live verification videos (already a significant concern in a world where privacy breaches and stolen identities are daily occurrences) — aside from the profound ethical implications (seriously, a social network asking for my passport?! Have they completely lost their minds?) — are merely band-aids applied to far deeper-rooted issues.
The way these platforms are currently designed essentially motivates normal users to fund shady services offering “organic followers”, likes, subscribers, code pulls, and anything else imaginable, simply to gain an advantage over competitors who already use such tactics. This cycle generates public outrage (“we’re being manipulated!”), prompting networks to become even more insistent in demanding personal documentation — privacy be damned. It’s an endless spiral rapidly spinning out of control.
A sensible alternative would be to step back, reevaluate platform designs, and remove the underlying incentives driving users to create endless bots just to fabricate lively communities. This is the path we should advocate — not invasive, privacy-violating measures.
There have been attempts to move in this direction, though often in bizarre, even grotesque ways. For example, GDPR initiatives pushed by the European Union and subsequent privacy legislation from California could be seen as tentative first steps. However, given the EU’s current approach to crypto — “You have crypto money? Tell us exactly where, how much, and by the way, we want our taxes. Oh, and if you happen to get divorced, we’ll happily take half” — this often feels more like one step forward, two steps back. A rather grotesque dance indeed.
And let’s consider another critical aspect: what’s the likelihood that these platforms themselves aren’t benefiting financially from this proliferation of “organic followers”? Given the sheer volume of money flowing behind these supposedly organic growth services, the chance seems low. Significant funds attract influential lobbyists ready to fiercely defend the status quo, leaving us facing a critical unanswered question: is meaningful change even possible?
History suggests that it is — but it certainly won’t come easy. Observing these events unfold promises to be quite fascinating, to say the least.
Moreover, I haven’t even touched upon how “a manipulated community is a controlled community” — and no, that’s not just another conspiracy theory. Have you read much about social network manipulations during elections lately? But, of course, that fascinating discussion deserves an article of its own.
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