Written by: Sanqing, Foresight News

On February 21, Nikita Bier (@nikitabier), the product lead of the X platform, publicly intervened in a suspected undisclosed paid promotion post, directly demanding the original poster add a disclosure statement or face account suspension. User @infodexx posted a list of "The Most Valuable Startups of 2025," predicting that the market Kalshi would rank second with a valuation of 11 billion dollars, including a green brand image of Kalshi and a photo of its founder.

The post garnered over 420,000 views, nearly 2,000 likes, and hundreds of retweets, appearing to be an objective ranking, yet was marked in the reader community notes as "this is a paid post." Furthermore, @infodexx's Bio explicitly states "partner of @Kalshi," but the original post did not include any explicit disclosure tags such as #ad or #sponsored.

Nikita Bier responded to the post the same day: "Please add a follow-up reply disclosing that this is a paid promotion for Kalshi. Otherwise, this will lead to account suspension." Subsequently, when user @AlexFinn complained about the platform being filled with undisclosed advertisements (especially related to prediction markets and AI), Nikita Bier further replied: "We will launch a disclosure feature for such issues next week."

High-View Dark Advertisements Will Be Exposed

Here are several high-view "dark advertisement" examples selected by the author. These tweets appear to be naturally shared but are in fact suspected promotions with no disclosure tags added. They attract high views, induce degen behavior, yet evade responsibility.

A Spanish account @jota_snchez shared a story titled "Chinese Students Make a Fortune on Polymarket," which received over 1.29 million views, 7,313 likes, and 312 retweets. The content detailed the strategy with images and videos, looking like an inspirational post, but was actually soft promoting Polymarket's earning potential. It lacks an #ad tag, yet indirectly promotes the platform, making it a typical disguised experiential share.

User @FluentInFinance quoted Kalshi's tweet, complaining "The wealth of the top 1% in the U.S. exceeds that of the middle class," which resulted in 1.68 million views and over 150,000 likes, with over 20,000 retweets. On the surface, it's a social commentary, but it in fact cites Kalshi's "JUST IN" news, guiding users to bet on related events on the platform. It didn't label #sponsored, yet amplified exposure using high engagement. This is where Web3 degens often find themselves at a loss.

@Shelpid_WI3M "exposed" the 5-minute setup framework of Polymarket Clawdbot, which garnered 940,000 views, 2,940 likes, and 6,091 bookmarks. It detailed steps + links, looking like "free sharing," but was actually promoting a copytrade tool, indirectly pulling new users to Polymarket. It disclosed no collaborations, and such "developer perspective" dark ads mostly deceive tech-savvy degens.

@karbonbased openly "refused cooperation with Kalshi but continues to free shill Polymarket," achieving 95,000 views and 764 likes. On the surface, it's a "principled" refusal, but in reality, it's a disguised promotion for Polymarket. The term "free" raises the biggest suspicion; is there really such a thing as free in Web3? There’s no #ad, yet it uses moral high ground to induce follows.

@pablofindsout uploaded a video discussing the essence of Polymarket and Kalshi, gathering 300,000 views and 1,657 likes. It cites expert opinions, appearing neutral, yet amplifies platform exposure, serving as a sponsored hidden advertisement without being marked.

These examples illustrate that high views do not equate to sincerity. They rely on FOMO viral spread while avoiding disclosure, costing many wallets. After the new regulations, similar tweets will be restricted.

Impact of New X Regulations on Web3 Marketing

For Web3 projects, this means a noticeable increase in marketing costs. Many prediction market projects (like Polymarket and Kalshi) depend heavily on KOLs' soft promotions to drive users' FOMO at a low cost.

Now, the new regulations require any content involving paid promotions, giveaways, affiliate links, or material incentives to be prominently marked with "#ad," "sponsored," or "paid partnership," otherwise the tweet will be removed directly, and accounts could face suspension or even permanent banning.

In the short term, growth for these platforms will slow, KOLs will be hesitant to freely share, cooperation thresholds will rise, and budgets will be forced to shift to more expensive channels.

For KOLs, the most direct impact is the end of the "low-cost passive income" model. In the past, many project parties were highly reliant on KOLs' "soft advertising" strategies: disguising as neutral experiential shares, complaints about data pain points, or viral memes, creating FOMO at a low cost to drive user participation.

Now with mandatory disclosure, KOLs can no longer hide commercial relationships and will be hesitant to "naturally share." Once detected by AI or reported, the risks of having tweets deleted or accounts suspended are very high.

This will also raise the cooperation threshold between project parties and KOLs, as KOLs face increased risks, their quotes may rise. But in the long run, this is beneficial for the Web3 ecosystem, as transparency improves, user trust in promotional content rises, reducing rug pulls and short-term speculation.

Common alternative solutions include turning to the official promoted post system on X: these advertisements automatically carry "Promoted" or "Ads" labels, with disclosures managed by the platform, avoiding the risk of manual labeling. However, this also means that project parties pay directly to X, concentrating advertising revenue more into the platform's hands rather than dispersing it to KOLs.

X's actions may also deliberately enhance its advertising monetization capabilities by enforcing mandatory disclosures and promoting official advertising tools, allowing the platform to attract more budget inflows into its system, seizing the share of original "dark advertisements" flowing towards KOLs, further strengthening its position as a source of advertising revenue, especially in competitive fields like prediction markets and AI content.

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