Many investors turn to crowdfunding and crowdlending looking for information. Too often they end up inside a marketing machine designed to get them to open one platform after another, chase the next bonus, and confuse popularity with knowledge.
There is an uncomfortable reality within the world of crowdfunding and crowdlending that almost no one wants to talk about clearly: many of the supposed experts who dominate YouTube, X and Telegram groups are not really financial experts. They are salespeople.
They are marketers who have chosen investments as their market niche.
Their job is to attract traffic, retain attention, build a community, and turn followers into sign-ups. To do so, they publish videos, articles, threads, and messages about investment platforms. But the main goal of much of that content is not to educate. It is to get the click.
And in finance, getting a click through exaggeration is not an innocent game.
We are not talking about selling a mediocre vacuum cleaner. We are talking about influencing decisions that can lead a person to deposit 10,000, 50,000 or 100,000 euros in a foreign company they barely know.
They are not trying to educate you: they are trying to capture your attention
The pattern is easy to recognize.
Videos with titles like:
“I invested 10,000 euros in this platform.”
“This investment will supplement my income.”
“The incredible platform that pays 15% per year.”
“Earn an instant 5% just by depositing.”
All accompanied by the well-known YouTube thumbnails: open mouths, hands on heads, giant numbers, arrows, exclamation marks, and expressions of fake surprise.
They are not thumbnails created to accurately represent the reality of an investment. They are marketing pieces optimized to generate curiosity, greed, fear of missing out, and finally, a click.
In other sectors, exaggerating a product’s features is already questionable. But the severity is not comparable. A vacuum cleaner that promises 90 minutes of battery and lasts 30 can harm the consumer. Someone presenting a high-risk financial platform as an extraordinary opportunity can cause a family to lose a significant part of their savings.
Finance should not be sold using the same emotional tricks as a miracle product.
ESMA itself recommends distrusting finfluencers who appeal to emotions, warns against urgency and fear of missing out, and insists that the number of followers or likes does not prove the reliability of the content publisher.
Having many followers does not make anyone an expert
The problem begins when a person discovers crowdfunding or crowdlending.
It is logical that they seek information. They want to know how it works, what risks exist, which platforms are more reliable, and how they should build their portfolio.
They go on YouTube and find someone who has been posting videos about dozens of platforms for years. They have thousands of followers. They speak confidently. They show screenshots of their portfolio. They manage a Telegram group, and hundreds of people seem to follow each of their recommendations.
The investor’s brain makes an automatic association:
“They have many followers, so they must know a lot.“
But that conclusion can be completely false.
Getting 50,000 followers shows that a person knows how to attract attention. It does not show that they know how to analyze a financial company.
A true analysis of a platform should study, among other things:
- Its annual accounts and, when available, audited reports.
- The evolution of its revenue, expenses, losses, and equity.
- Its liquidity and its ability to continue operating.
- The corporate structure and the background of its executives.
- The concentration of its portfolio.
- The quality of the borrowers, promoters, or originators.
- Potential conflicts between the platform and the funded companies.
- The legal status of contracts.
- The way investor money is held and segregated.
- What would happen if the platform stopped operating.
- The exact scope of its regulation, if any.
However, this type of in-depth analysis rarely appears in channels dedicated to promoting platforms.
It is much more common to find messages like:
“The company has made a profit this year, so everything seems to be going well.”
“I have been receiving payments on time for two years.”
“I have money invested and I am calm.”
“I personally know the team.”
None of those statements replace a financial analysis.
Getting paid on time up to today does not prove that a company will be solvent tomorrow. Knowing its executives does not eliminate risk. And an influencer saying they are calm does not make an investment safe.
The ESMA recognizes that social media has brought financial information closer to more people, but also warns that content may be biased by commercial interests and, in the most serious cases, be misleading or fraudulent.
The Telegram group manufactures an artificial authority
The YouTube channel is usually the entry point. The Telegram group is where influence is consolidated.
The user enters and sees hundreds or thousands of people talking about investments daily. The group creator appears as the community leader. They decide which platforms are discussed, which promotions are highlighted, and which questions deserve attention.
Little by little, they stop being perceived as a content creator and begin to be treated as an authority.
Their opinion carries more weight than others’, not necessarily because it is better founded, but because they control the space. They have the channel, the audience, the seniority, and a group of followers that validates almost everything they say.
This is how a false knowledge hierarchy is built:
“The admin knows the most because he’s the admin.“
But managing a group does not grant financial training. Creating videos for years doesn’t automatically turn someone into an analyst, auditor, risk manager, or authorized advisor.
In fact, ESMA considers that those who frequently make recommendations or are seen as knowledgeable by investors may be perceived as ‘experts.’ That perception can lead to additional obligations, even if the creator has never formally accredited that experience.
When uncomfortable questions become personal attacks
An investment group should be a place where any platform can be questioned.
What happened previously with its executives?
Why has it changed companies several times?
Who audits its accounts?
Where does the profitability really come from?
Is there a corporate relationship between the platform and the borrowers?
What would happen if it disappeared tomorrow?
Why does it offer 17% when other seemingly similar companies pay 9%?
These questions should be well received.
However, some groups work exactly the opposite. When a user posts uncomfortable information, points out concerning backgrounds, or expresses reasonable doubts, the response is not always based on documents and data.
Messages like these appear:
“I’m tired of so much negativity.”
“Everyone should do their own research.”
“I trust the team.”
“It’s always the same alarmists.”
“No one is forcing you to invest.”
And if the user insists, they may be ridiculed, attacked by the admin’s core followers, or directly expelled.
Thus an echo chamber is born.
Positive information circulates freely. Promotions are pinned at the top. New bonds are celebrated. But doubts are interpreted as attacks, criticism is confused with negativity, and warning signs become nuisances that threaten the group’s atmosphere.
The danger is not only that the finfluencer might be wrong. The danger arises when they have built a community where questioning their recommendations is equivalent to questioning their leadership.
From passive investing to daily entertainment
For many investors, crowdfunding and crowdlending should be relatively passive activities.
A platform is analyzed. The project is studied. It is decided how much capital one is willing to risk. One diversifies wisely and periodically reviews the progress.
It should not be necessary to check Telegram twenty times a day to see what new promotion has appeared.
But the dynamics of these groups turn investing into a social activity. The user starts by asking a question and ends up logging in daily to read messages, compare returns, and see what everyone else is doing.
The community offers conversation, belonging, novelty, and constant stimulation.
There is always something new:
- a platform that just appeared;
- a bond expiring in ten days;
- a 3% cashback;
- a new originator paying 16%;
- a limited promotional code;
- a supposed opportunity that “cannot be missed”.
Investment ceases to be a reflective activity and starts functioning as a constant source of dopamine.
We could call it a soft casino.
Not because all crowdfunding investment is a gamble, but because the psychological dynamics start to resemble: constant novelty, immediate rewards, urgency, stimuli, comparison with other participants, and the search for the next opportunity.
The goal is no longer to build a solid portfolio. The goal becomes to collect the next bonus.
The Dangerous Drift of Risk
Imagine someone who comes to the sector with a simple idea: investing a small amount in Spanish real estate projects through a regulated platform.
They join a Telegram group to learn.
There they discover that many users have accounts on seven, eight, or twelve platforms. They see that there is constant talk of foreign companies, consumer loans, credit originators, business financing, renewable energy, and projects located in countries they do not know.
A few months later, that investor who wanted to be prudently exposed to regulated real estate crowdfunding may have ended up placing a huge part of their portfolio in recent, unregulated platforms, or with structures they do not understand.
They do not know how a loan originator works.
They have not read the financial statements.
They do not know the applicable jurisdiction.
They do not know which contract they have signed.
They do not understand where their money is.
They do not know what would happen in an insolvency.
But you know what: the platform pays 15% and there is a 5% bonus for depositing now.
The entire analysis comes down to two numbers:
profitability and cashback.
ESMA reminds us of something basic that too much promotional content seems to forget: there are no consistently high returns with low risk. Generally speaking, the higher the offered return, the greater the risk the investor must assume. It also expressly warns against herd behavior.
Opening eight platforms does not mean being well diversified
In these groups it is often repeated that the right thing to do is to open many platforms.
But splitting your money among eight companies does not necessarily imply real diversification.
The eight could:
- operate without comparable financial authorization;
- finance loans of the same quality;
- depend on the same economic cycles;
- work with related originators;
- use similar legal structures;
- be exposed to the same countries;
- depend on new funding to maintain their growth;
- have similar liquidity problems.
True diversification is not about collecting logos.
It consists of distributing risk across different assets, sectors, countries, borrowers, business models, terms, and regulatory frameworks.
However, within Telegram’s dynamics, the number of open accounts can end up becoming a kind of badge. If everyone has eight platforms, the new user feels they should have them too.
When the criterion for opening an account is that the whole group is talking about it, you are no longer analyzing an investment. You are following the crowd.
The conflict of interest almost nobody wants to talk about
This is the elephant in the room.
The finfluencer recommends a platform. They show they have money invested. They repeat that they are also putting their own capital at stake and that, therefore, their interests are aligned with those of their followers.
But that may not be true.
Let’s imagine they maintain 10,000 euros invested in a platform, but have earned 30,000 euros in commissions by sending new clients.
Are they taking the same risk as the investor who just deposited 10,000 euros?
Obviously not.
Even if the platform disappeared and they lost their entire investment, the finfluencer would still have earned 20,000 euros. Economically, they are playing for free.
The follower, on the other hand, could lose all their savings.
The statement “I also have money in there” is worthless if it is not accompanied by other information:
How much have you earned promoting that platform?
This figure is almost never disclosed.
We know how much the influencer claims to have invested. We see screenshots of their returns. We know their profitability. But we do not know what percentage of their income comes from the platform, how much they receive per registration, how much they earn per deposit, or how much money they have made in total.
ESMA establishes that recommendations must be presented in an objective, clear, and accurate manner, and that interests or conflicts of interest must be disclosed so that recipients can evaluate them. IOSCO also identifies insufficient communication of conflicts of interest as one of the main risks associated with finfluencers.
Putting “this link may be an affiliate link” below a video does not really explain the conflict.
Transparency would be to say:
- what commercial relationship exists;
- how the compensation is calculated;
- whether it depends on registration or deposited money;
- approximately how much has been collected;
- how much of your own capital is still actually at risk;
- and whether the recommendation would change if the affiliate program ends.
The conflict becomes critical when problems arise
As long as everything works, it is easy to recommend a platform.
The test of honesty comes when serious signs appear:
- prolonged delays;
- blocked withdrawals;
- problems with payment providers;
- frozen funds;
- warnings from authorities;
- public contradictions;
- accounts that are not published;
- corporate changes that are difficult to explain;
- executives with concerning backgrounds;
- or evasive responses from the company.
At that point, the finfluencer should analyze the facts independently and clearly warn their community.
But doing so comes at a cost.
Acknowledging serious red flags can halt sign-ups, reduce commissions, and damage their reputation. It also forces them to admit they may have recommended a company for months without sufficiently vetting it.
That’s why some downplay the signs, ask for patience, attack those asking questions, or echo the platform’s official explanations without fact-checking them.
They are bound by their own financial incentives.
They have become informal spokespeople for the company they should be evaluating.
Someone who gets paid to send investors to a platform cannot present themselves as a completely independent observer when that platform faces a crisis.
When a platform fails, the wheel keeps turning
The most unsettling part is how quickly the business moves on.
A platform can freeze funds. Hundreds of investors can get stuck. The group fills up for a few days with doubt, anger, and worry.
But shortly after, another promotion appears.
Another new company.
Another 15% annual.
Another cashback.
Another link.
The previous content disappears under a mountain of new messages, and the commercial machinery starts again.
The loss is borne by the followers. The finfluencer keeps the commissions they earned while the platform accepted new investors.
And the cycle continues:
Platform, promotion, sign-ups, deposits, commissions, and next platform.
There is no natural limit. If a company appears with four months of existence and offers a good affiliate program, there will always be someone willing to promote it.
In too many cases, the first question is not:
“Does this company deserve my followers’ money?”
The first question is:
“How much does it pay for each new investor?”
The problem is not affiliate marketing
At Inverti, we also use affiliate links.
When someone signs up through some of our links, we may receive compensation. We work with both regulated platforms and others that lack the same sector authorization.
Therefore, we do not criticize affiliate marketing from a supposed moral high ground.
Affiliate marketing is a legitimate business model. It allows funding analysis, comparison tools, educational content, and specialized media without charging the reader directly.
The problem is not receiving a commission.
The problem is hiding, minimizing, or distorting risk to obtain it.
A responsible affiliate must explain:
- whether a platform is regulated and by whom;
- what activities exactly that authorization covers;
- what protections the regulation offers;
- what risks continue to exist;
- when the company was founded;
- what financial information it publishes;
- what its business model is;
- what return it offers and why;
- what conflicts of interest may exist;
- and what doubts remain unresolved.
After providing that information, it can facilitate an affiliate link. The user will freely decide whether to use it.
Furthermore, being regulated does not make an investment safe nor prevent losses. But there is an objective difference between a company subject to authorization, information, conflict management, and investor protection requirements and one that operates outside that framework. The European Crowdfunding Regulation introduced a common regime for certain crowdfunding services, and ESMA maintains a register of authorized providers.
Hiding the absence of regulation, mentioning it in passing, or treating it as an irrelevant detail means hiding one of the central elements of any risk assessment.
Ethical affiliate or commission hunter
The difference is simple.
The ethical affiliate informs, contextualizes, and allows you to decide.
The commission hunter excites, simplifies, and pushes you to deposit.
The ethical affiliate shows advantages and risks.
The commission hunter only shows profitability and bonuses.
The ethical affiliate explains what he doesn’t know.
The commission hunter speaks with a confidence that the data does not justify.
The ethical affiliate updates his analysis when negative facts appear.
The commission hunter defends the platform as long as it keeps paying.
The ethical affiliate considers an alert important even if it may lose income.
The commission hunter sees an alert as an obstacle to his conversion.
The ethical affiliate wants the reader to make an informed decision.
The commission hunter just wants you to click.
You are inside a conversion funnel
The journey is perfectly designed:
- You find an emotional video, a thread, or a post.
- The number of followers creates authority.
- You join the Telegram group.
- The community generates trust and belonging.
- You notice that many users have numerous platforms.
- You start to imitate their decisions.
- You receive promotions and limited offers.
- You open accounts through the finfluencer’s links.
- You deposit money.
- The finfluencer gets paid.
What the user interprets as an educational process may actually be a sales funnel.
The community is not necessarily the product. It can be the conversion channel.
Videos are not necessarily training. They can be lead generation.
And the influencer the user considers their mentor may be acting primarily as a salesperson.
Questions you should ask any finfluencer
Before following a recommendation, it is advisable to ask very specific questions:
Are they authorized to provide financial advice?
Is the platform they promote authorized? By which body and for what activity?
How long has it been operating?
Have they actually analyzed those accounts or just repeated the company’s communication?
How much of their own money have they invested?
How much have they earned in commissions from that platform?
Do they charge per registration, per deposit, per invested volume, or for future activity?
What risks have they explained with the same intensity with which they advertise the bonus?
Have they ever publicly criticized a platform that paid them?
What did he do the last time a company he promoted had problems?
Does he accept uncomfortable questions or kick out those who ask them?
Would he still recommend the platform if its affiliate program disappeared tomorrow?
The answers reveal much more than any screenshot of profitability.
Not all finfluencers are the same
It would be unfair to claim that all act this way.
There are rigorous creators. Some provide financial education, acknowledge their limitations, research, correct mistakes, and communicate their commercial interests clearly.
But we should not take refuge in a comfortable ‘there is a bit of everything’ to avoid pointing out an obvious problem.
There are too many profiles whose activity is reduced to promoting an endless succession of platforms, bonds, and returns. They do not analyze deeply. They do not ask hard questions. They do not react independently when problems arise. And they do not explain the true magnitude of their conflicts of interest.
There is no need to name them.
It is easy to recognize them.
Look at their last twenty pieces of content. Count how many are dedicated to promotions and how many to analyzing financial statements. Observe how they react to criticism. Check if they talk about risks with the same intensity as they do about bonds.
And above all, ask yourself who wins when you deposit.
Conclusion: regain control of your decisions
The investor who comes to crowdfunding or crowdlending needs calm, data, transparency, and time.
They need to learn the differences between regulation and lack of regulation. Understand why higher returns usually imply higher risk. Analyze the track record, solvency, and business model of each company. Decide how much they are willing to lose and build a strategy consistent with their goals.
They do not need daily stimuli.
They do not need to open a platform every ten days.
You don’t need to chase every cashback.
You don’t need to obey a group leader.
And you don’t need to turn your savings into fuel for an affiliate funnel.
Popularity is not knowledge.
A community is not an audit.
Getting paid until today does not prove you will get paid tomorrow.
Having money invested does not eliminate a conflict of interest if you have already earned much more by recommending the platform.
And a high percentage should never stop you from asking where it comes from, what risk you are taking, and who is getting paid to convince you.
When you stop analyzing and start following the crowd, you stop behaving like a conscious investor.
You become a lead.
And someone, on the other side of the link, is getting paid for it.