Twitter user @crypt0fungus changed their online persona to that of a woman and their engagement rose by 91%. One day fungus was tweeting about annoyances with the new Star Wars movie, and the next, he was catfishing Twitter as a female named Crypto Kimberly.
OMG guys! I haven't tweeted in like soooo long!
What kind of #crypto should I be looking at? ??
— Cryptofungus (@crypt0fungus) December 30, 2019
This was the first tweet in his new persona, reminiscent of @AltcoinSara‘s style as an actual female crypto Twitter influencer. To a new viewer of his page, it might not be obvious that he is essentially doing a satirical take on personas, but looking at his bio makes it a bit more obvious. “Crypto thot leader” is the first line in his bio, which is a play on the pop-culture word “thot,” a derogatory term for a woman who gets around and “thought leaders,” as in someone who influences the crypto movement.
Not everyone gets the joke though.
gosh yer hot
— ₿it₿oy (@Bitboy_Crypto) December 31, 2019
Decrypt just did a piece on how the crypto space has a diversity problem, and Twitter has always predominantly been used by men. It doesn’t seem far fetched to assume that in an environment that lacks the opposite sex, men will be excited when a new woman appears with similar interests to them. Unfortunately, that excitement can turn into a trusting person getting scammed with ease.
— Cryptofungus (@crypt0fungus) December 31, 2019
Crypt0fungus has a decent reputation on Twitter - the reason I found his page in the first place is because a reporter at The Block was liking his satirical tweets. So, I don’t think that he will be scamming people, but as you can see by his statistics linked above, the engagement earned by being a catfish is very tangible. When back searching the profile picture, I found that it was already listed on a website that outs scammers, so using that profile has proven to work in the past.