Some social media influencers are being paid thousands to endorse cryptocurrency projects

Ben said his crisis of conscience came in January of this year when he realized he had to stop his business practice.

More than 1.5 million people have subscribed to his channel. For years, he said he accepted payments from companies to promote their products. He regrets that practice because it resulted in some painful losses for his own viewers.

In the fall of 2020 he announced his partnership with a coin called DistX. The project itself ended up being a scam, despite the fact that he said the whole idea of the project was to stop scam in digital currency. The project team pulled the rug because they worked to increase the market cap then vanished. The coin is no longer worth a penny.

Crypto influencer Ben Armstrong in his studio recording a live episode of BitBoy Crypto.

He made more than $30,000 for a single endorsement, which included his promotional video for DistX, and could easily make more than $100,000 a month in promotions alone.

He admits that he is responsible for the losses suffered by his followers. I don't like talking about things that didn't do well.

The market for paid promotions is still lucrative despite the fact that he stopped accepting them. Some online personalities are paid thousands to endorse questionable projects, according to CNBC. A list of 44 YouTubers and their prices for paid promotions was posted on the social media site. According to that list, some of these people were paid as much as $65k for a single promotional video.

He says that is the only project in which he was involved in that way.

Many of the ventures he promoted have plummeted, despite the fact that he is not a financial professional. He deleted the promotional videos for the ventures after their value went down.

Some of the people on the list said the prices were inflated and others said they made at least $1,000 per promotional video.

Some people don't share that they're getting paid to promote projects. Many of the companies that contacted him didn't want him to tell his viewers the content was sponsored

Five years ago, many people wouldn't reveal that they were paid to plug projects, but now most of them do.

There are still people who don't have transparency. Rotunda is the director of the enforcement division of the Texas State Securities Board.

Joe Rotunda, the director of the enforcement division of the Texas State Securities Board.

Rotunda and a team of regulators recently filed enforcement actions against two casinos in the metaverse, where users can attend virtual concerts, purchase digital assets or gamble at a casino. Flamingo Casino Club and Sand Vegas Casino Club were accused of trying to cheat retail investors.

The casinos didn't respond to requests for comment.

Rotunda said that they need to identify the frauds that are out there.

Rotunda's team found fraudulent metaverse operations through promotions on the internet. Flamingo Casino Club was promoted in videos that reached about 80,000 viewers, he said.

According to the cease-and-desist order against Flamingo Casino Club, one of the people promoting the casino was recruiting other people to promote the casino. He found a message on a chat platform that said one of the influencer brought in a lot of investors.

CNBC reached out to the two people mentioned in the enforcement action in order to promote the metaverse casinos that are accused of deceiving investors.

FLOZ IN deleted his promotional video after CNBC started asking questions. The Dream Green Show did not reply to CNBC.

There are questionable promotions happening all over the place. The House Ethics Committee said in May that it was investigating the promotion of cryptocurrencies by Rep. Madison Cawthorn.

The committee revealed that Cawthorn bought between $100,000 and $250,000 worth of "Let's Go Brandon"cryptocurrencies. He commented "Tomorrow we go to the moon" in a photo with the coin's co- founders. The price of the coin went up 75% after news of a sponsorship deal with a NASCAR driver was broken.

He sold between $100,000 and $250,000 of the coin the day after the rally. The value of the coin collapsed as a result of NASCAR rejecting the deal.

Taylor Monahan is the product lead at the MetaMask wallet.

Taylor Monahan, product lead at the digital currency wallet MetaMask.

Anyone who considers themselves legitimate should not form these sort of partnerships.

She is hesitant to support banning online promotions because of the negative effects she has seen from limiting and regulating Cryptocurrencies. She believes that the community could make partnerships less common by calling them out.

The decision to stop paid promotions has taken a toll on him. He understands why other people continue to make sponsored videos.

It was a good way to build your business. You just have to do it honestly.

The more interested people are in the metaverse, the more scam will pop up. Digital asset transactions need to be the focus of regulators because there is more crime yet to be detected.

Rotunda said that what they're seeing is the tip of the whole.

The paid promotions business is not what it was in 2021. More scrutiny and ghosting of subscribers is possible in a bear market, according to the author.

This article was written by rica and Margaret Fleming.

If you have a tip, email it to investigations@cnBC.com.