Waltonchain, a China-based blockchain company that’s set to provide the Internet of Things (IoT) a commercial ecosystem, recently ran a promotional campaign for Valentine’s Day, that allowed lucky users to win a part of a 565 WTC (roughly $10,700) prize pool just for following the project on social media.

The company released a list of over 200 winners on Twitter. These, according to a blog post, will receive 2.14 WTC tokens, while another 5 lucky winners will receive an extra 21.4 tokens. Accidentally, a Waltonchain employee revealed he was among the 200 lucky winners, while still posting from the company’s official Twitter account.

The result was a controversial image now circulating on social media:

To explain what happened, Waltonchain revealed through a video on Instagram that the selection process wasn’t spoofed so an employee would win the tokens. The video suggests the script selects winners at random, and merely happened to select one of the company’s employees.

Many have argued the footage does little to explain the actions of Waltonchain’s employees. On Twitter, the company issued an apology statement to its 46,000 followers. It reads that the situation will be dealt with in a “serious and responsible way,” and that the team member’s prize has been canceled.

Community’s reaction

Given the controversy, the winners list was analyzed. Some users pointed out that a winning account under the handle “waltonchain_bot” was seemingly created just for the giveaway. Once it drew in too much attention, the account was deleted. Similarly, other accounts seem suspicious.

On social media, users started questioning the company’s legitimacy, while others defended that it’s technology is still part of the future. Reddit user “DeeboTheWise” sated:

“It’s unfortunate, I’ve looked into waltonchain to hold. I won’t anymore. Things like this kill it for me, it’s like why fake something like this? If Walton is going to do things like this are they actually legit? I’d bet money that the answer to that is no

Reacting to Waltonchain’s apology, other users tried to defend the company:

Guys wake up, this company doesn't have time to muck around. They are far too busy to get their projects complete as they recently signed up numerous partnerships with billion dollar companies. It was a marketing mistake which most of you probably picked up extra coins from it. — Thorin (@MecMecz) March 1, 2018

Nevertheless, some investors claimed they were about to sell their WTC holdings in light of the red flag, which seemingly happened as at press time Waltonchain’s WTC token is down by 12 percent in the last 24-hour period.

Featured image from Shutterstock.