Recently, an interesting phenomenon has sparked some reflection. On January 2nd and January 3rd, a leading official media outlet and another authoritative media almost simultaneously published articles with highly similar content. Behind this coincidence, it’s hard not to think—this could be a carefully orchestrated content-buying operation.

For the alpha operation logic of exchanges, this undoubtedly reveals a new straightforward approach: KOL tweets → media publicity → small exchanges → large exchanges. Those experienced in public account management know that these journalists and editors hold certain publishing permissions. Such highly covert "hidden agendas" are difficult for regulators to constrain, and the cost-effectiveness and expected results often far surpass traditional KOL or front-line collaborations.

Interestingly, the credibility of KOLs and front-line promoters is marginally declining, but the expectations across different media channels have not yet been fully eroded—that’s where the opportunity lies. Spending some money to buy a few articles and then leveraging the ecosystem on-chain to generate significant operational leverage is indeed a clever tactic.

But looking deeper, the Web2 readership of these articles isn’t actually very impressive. One media public account has fewer than 60,000 reads, and another less than 20,000. Frankly, it’s just insiders experiencing some FOMO, but the Web2 traffic and attention haven’t truly translated into on-chain funds. Perhaps this is the most worth reflecting on—the real question is, when all tags can be substituted and all narratives can trigger interactions, how do we determine what is a genuine signal?