Digital Manipulation: An Exploration of Kripkean Dogmatism and Dark Triad Traits in Cryptocurrency Social Media Communities
Charisma, Code, and Control: Psychological Weaponry in the Crypto Discourse War
Abstract
This dissertation conducts a longitudinal mixed-methods study across Twitter, Telegram, and Reddit, analysing how Kripkean dogmatism and Dark Triad traits (Machiavellianism, Narcissism, Psychopathy) manifest within cryptocurrency communities. It explores the psychological dynamics that underlie manipulation, belief propagation, and identity formation in decentralised online networks centred on digital assets. The study reveals complex psychological patterns that dominate social and financial discourse, reinforcing ideological in-groups and promoting manipulative strategies for influence and control.
Where belief becomes identity and manipulation becomes currency, decentralisation breeds kings without crowns.
Keywords
Cryptocurrency, Social Media Communities, Kripkean Dogmatism, Dark Triad, Online Behaviour, Epistemic Inertia, Twitter, Telegram, Reddit, Longitudinal Study.
Research Objectives
To examine the psychological traits that drive discourse and manipulation in crypto-focused online platforms.
To test the hypothesis that Kripkean dogmatism and Dark Triad traits co-occur and enable charismatic manipulation.
To evaluate the evolution of user behaviour over time within the same communities, identifying psychological and rhetorical markers of dominance and belief rigidity.
Objective 1: To examine the psychological traits that drive discourse and manipulation in crypto-focused online platforms
This objective seeks to uncover the underlying psychological mechanisms that shape interactional patterns within cryptocurrency communities, particularly on decentralised platforms such as Twitter, Telegram, and Reddit. Unlike traditional finance or investment forums, these social spaces are typified by anonymity, ideological fervour, and rapid shifts in allegiance and narrative. Central to this examination is an interrogation of individual traits—especially those falling under the Dark Triad: Machiavellianism, Narcissism, and Psychopathy. These traits, when expressed online, are hypothesised to enhance manipulative discourse, cultivate in-group/out-group dynamics, and distort informational ecosystems.
The study investigates how these personality dispositions influence communicative strategies: how Machiavellian users adopt persuasive rhetorical techniques, how narcissists perform ideological superiority to consolidate followings, and how psychopathic traits may correlate with risk-seeking, trolling, and misinformation spread. Furthermore, this objective probes whether these traits are merely present or actively rewarded within these systems, exploring how platform affordances—such as retweets, upvotes, or engagement metrics—serve to reinforce manipulative behaviours and emotional contagion.
Objective 2: To test the hypothesis that Kripkean dogmatism and Dark Triad traits co-occur and enable charismatic manipulation
This objective brings together two distinct but potentially synergistic psychological constructs: Kripkean dogmatism—the epistemic closure around identity-forming beliefs—and the Dark Triad. While Dark Triad traits explain interpersonal tactics for influence and dominance, Kripkean dogmatism explains epistemological intransigence: the cognitive rigidity that anchors an individual to belief systems even in the face of contradicting data. Together, they form the backbone of what this study terms charismatic manipulation.
Charismatic manipulators in crypto communities do not simply possess strong opinions—they operate as epistemic authorities within ideological ecosystems. This objective tests whether there is a statistically significant co-occurrence between high scores on Dark Triad behavioural proxies and rhetorical markers of dogmatism: binary framing of truth, dismissal of dissent, and repetitive reaffirmation of identity-bound concepts. It hypothesises that such individuals function as central nodes in the social graph, shaping discourse not only through engagement but also through epistemic framing that bypasses rational rebuttal.
The analysis also examines whether these actors utilise social proof mechanisms (likes, retweets, message pins) as persuasive tools, effectively weaponising the performative structure of social media to elevate dogmatic positions. The interplay between psychological disposition and technological affordance becomes central to understanding their influence.
Objective 3: To evaluate the evolution of user behaviour over time within the same communities, identifying psychological and rhetorical markers of dominance and belief rigidity
The third objective introduces a longitudinal dimension to the research. It tracks a cohort of identified users over a twelve-month period to observe not merely static traits but behavioural development. This includes the evolution of their communicative strategies, changes in network centrality, adaptation to shifts in group norms, and persistence of ideological themes.
Using a combination of interaction metrics, lexical analysis, and thematic coding, the study assesses whether certain users increasingly exhibit dominance behaviours: controlling narrative threads, suppressing dissent, or rallying coordinated attacks against ideological opponents. It identifies rhetorical markers such as appeals to authority, purity signalling, and gatekeeping, which become more prominent over time in high-influence users.
Simultaneously, this objective tracks belief rigidity, particularly around core ideological tenets (e.g. Bitcoin maximalism, decentralisation dogma, or anti-government sentiment). The research asks: do these beliefs become more nuanced or more extreme? Do users abandon evidence-based discussion in favour of sloganised repetition? Through this lens, the study provides insight into the dynamic formation of cult-like communities online, where psychological disposition and rhetorical control consolidate into stable yet radical subcultures.
Methodology
Quantitative: Longitudinal tracking of 100 user accounts across three platforms over 12 months.
Qualitative: Thematic discourse analysis of selected threads and group chats.
Psychometric Approximation: Behavioural scoring linked to validated instruments (SD3, Dogmatism Scale, etc.) via linguistic and interaction proxies.
Quantitative Component: Longitudinal Tracking of 100 User Accounts Across Three Platforms over 12 Months
The quantitative arm of this study employs a longitudinal observational design, systematically tracking 100 publicly identifiable user accounts across Twitter, Telegram, and Reddit. These platforms were selected due to their high degree of influence within cryptocurrency discourse, their divergent affordances (e.g., Telegram’s enclosed anonymity vs. Twitter’s performative publicness), and the presence of decentralised communities that routinely engage in ideologically charged dialogue. The dataset includes both influential figures (e.g., thought leaders, developers, market analysts) and ordinary participants to avoid topological bias.
Accounts were selected using keyword clustering and influence metrics (follower count, post frequency, engagement rates) to represent a spectrum of engagement levels. A unique identifier system ensured that cross-platform aliases were treated as distinct entities unless clear identity matching was possible.
Tracking spanned a continuous 12-month period, during which user output was archived using platform-specific scraping tools and API integrations. Quantitative variables included:
Posting frequency (per day/week)
Engagement metrics (likes, reposts, reactions, replies)
Sentiment analysis scores (via natural language processing tools)
Topic clustering and network centrality (via graph-theoretical modelling)
This structure enabled the construction of temporal behavioural profiles, capturing fluctuations in rhetorical dominance, emotional tone, and ideological adherence.
Qualitative Component: Thematic Discourse Analysis of Selected Threads and Group Chats
To complement the numerical behavioural mapping, the qualitative phase undertakes thematic discourse analysis (TDA) on a curated subset of conversations extracted from each platform. TDA allows for interpretive analysis of language use, narrative structure, and symbolic framing in discourse—particularly relevant for exploring Kripkean dogmatism and identity-bound communication.
Threads and chat logs were selected based on engagement density, user diversity, and ideological polarity. For example, a Reddit AMA with a prominent maximalist figure, a Telegram group responding to a market crash, or a Twitter thread debating protocol changes would each provide rich material for tracing rhetorical strategies, emotional appeals, and epistemic boundary-setting.
Coding was conducted inductively, using NVivo to extract:
Recurrent themes (e.g., purity, betrayal, loyalty, sovereignty)
Speech acts indicative of belief closure (e.g., dismissal of alternative explanations, absolute language, repetitive affirmation)
Linguistic markers associated with control and charisma (e.g., direct imperatives, appeals to in-group identity, manipulation of fear or pride)
The goal was to render visible the discursive scaffolding that supports belief entrenchment and psychological control within the decentralised digital economy.
Psychometric Approximation: Behavioural Scoring Linked to Validated Instruments via Linguistic and Interaction Proxies
Given the ethical and logistical constraints of directly administering psychological tests to pseudonymous users, this study adopts a psychometric approximation strategy, mapping observable behaviours onto established constructs through validated linguistic and interactional proxies.
Three instruments underpin this approximation:
Short Dark Triad (SD3) scale: Using linguistic markers associated with Machiavellianism (e.g. strategic charm, duplicity), Narcissism (self-aggrandisement, entitlement), and Psychopathy (impulsivity, callousness).
Rokeach Dogmatism Scale: Operationalised through discourse exhibiting rigid dichotomies, resistance to disconfirming evidence, and repetition of absolute ideological positions.
LIWC (Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count) and BERT-based embeddings: Applied to extract sentiment, complexity, agency, and group-orientation as behavioural indicators.
Each user was scored across dimensions aligned to these instruments, generating dynamic psychographic profiles over the course of the year. Cross-validation was achieved by comparing linguistic data with engagement patterns and social graph positions, allowing for layered inferences into the psychological underpinnings of user influence and manipulation.
This methodological triangulation ensures robustness: combining behavioural quantification, interpretive richness, and grounded psychological modelling to capture the opaque yet potent forces shaping cryptocurrency discourse.
Key Findings
A persistent cluster of actors demonstrates high behavioural alignment with Dark Triad traits and dogmatism.
These individuals often assume leadership roles in shaping community beliefs, especially during moments of market volatility.
Kripkean dogmatism underpins a refusal to update beliefs despite contradictory evidence, creating epistemic echo chambers.
Reddit communities skew towards structured ideology; Telegram fosters conspiratorial enclaves; Twitter exhibits performative narcissism with rapid ideological swings.
Persistent Clustering of Dark Triad and Dogmatic Profiles
Across all three platforms, a statistically and behaviourally coherent cluster of high-frequency actors emerged, consistently displaying traits aligned with the Dark Triad—Machiavellianism, Narcissism, and Psychopathy—alongside pronounced Kripkean dogmatism. These users exhibited elevated levels of manipulative communication, exploitative framing, and rhetorical aggression. Their behavioural signatures included strategic misinformation, reframing of ideological oppositions as moral failings, and disproportionate engagement during moments of informational instability (e.g., during hacks, market crashes, or regulatory shifts).
These individuals did not operate in isolation. Rather, they occupied network-central positions within their respective communities, often serving as either ideological gatekeepers or charismatic antagonists. The data revealed that their psychological profile conferred structural power: their messages were more likely to be shared, their terminology adopted, and their framing of debates internalised by peripheral participants. In short, dogmatic manipulators not only existed—they thrived.
Influence Amplified in Moments of Market Volatility
The influence of these central actors intensified during crises or moments of uncertainty. Event-driven surges in engagement (e.g., a major token’s price collapse, or rumours of state regulation) coincided with increased output from users displaying high Dark Triad/dogmatism scores. These actors utilised fear, outrage, or exclusivist moral language to consolidate their influence and redirect communal energy towards either reinforcement of in-group beliefs or scapegoating of ideological outsiders.
This pattern supports the hypothesis that charismatic manipulation is contextually amplified: it becomes most potent when participants are epistemically vulnerable and emotionally destabilised. These actors leveraged such moments not to promote rational risk mitigation but to harden ideological commitments and polarise discourse.
Kripkean Dogmatism as a Driver of Epistemic Echo Chambers
The study found extensive evidence of Kripkean dogmatism—a commitment to belief systems that form part of the individual's identity and resist revision, even in the face of direct contradiction. Rather than engaging in rational discourse or evidence evaluation, dogmatic users displayed a ritualistic repetition of core tenets (“Bitcoin fixes this”, “Not your keys, not your coins”, etc.), functioning as incantations that reinforced group boundaries.
These echo chambers were not merely social but epistemic: dissenting information was filtered, reinterpreted as an attack, or dismissed outright as FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt). Through this mechanism, epistemic inertia became the norm. In-group members who questioned dogma were swiftly marginalised, while ideological enforcers were celebrated for their purity and clarity.
Platform-Specific Dynamics
While overlapping traits were visible across platforms, each environment revealed unique psycho-social dynamics:
Reddit communities tended toward structured ideological frameworks, often underpinned by a shared technical lexicon or legalistic argumentation. These spaces valued internal consistency and epistemic sophistication, fostering stable but highly resistant belief systems.
Telegram groups fostered conspiratorial enclaves, often with enclosed membership and more opaque moderation. Here, dogmatic beliefs took on cultic qualities, reinforced by fear-based narratives, anti-institutional rhetoric, and information hygiene practices (e.g., banning dissenters, deleting archives).
Twitter exhibited the most intense form of performative narcissism, where visibility, reaction metrics, and public signalling created incentives for outrage, absolutism, and ideological theatricality. Here, belief systems were less structured and more volatile, but still dogmatically defended when convenient to the actor’s status performance.
Taken together, these findings confirm the core hypothesis: that psychological traits, especially the co-presence of Dark Triad dispositions and Kripkean dogmatism, are not merely present in crypto communities but form the scaffolding of influence, manipulation, and belief formation across decentralised discourse ecosystems.
Contributions
Identifies measurable psychological typologies in anonymous, decentralised financial communities.
Shows the link between personality traits and market-influencing discourse.
Introduces the concept of "epistemic inertia" as a function of Kripkean dogmatism in pseudonymous online spaces.
Mapping Psychological Typologies in Pseudonymous Financial Communities
This research makes a foundational contribution by identifying and empirically approximating psychological typologies within anonymous and decentralised digital finance communities. In contrast to existing literature that addresses online radicalisation or digital persuasion in overt political contexts, this dissertation applies psychometric modelling to the cryptocurrency domain, revealing how certain personality constellations—notably the Dark Triad traits and dogmatic belief structures—become disproportionately represented and rewarded. Through a composite methodology integrating behavioural scoring, thematic discourse analysis, and longitudinal tracking, the study offers a framework for classifying user archetypes that operate within cryptocurrency ecosystems. These archetypes include the manipulative strategist, the narcissistic ideological performer, and the dogmatic gatekeeper—each exhibiting persistent and measurable patterns of influence.
Establishing the Link Between Personality Traits and Market-Responsive Discourse
A significant empirical contribution lies in establishing a clear, observable correlation between personality traits and the structure of discourse that influences market perception and action. Unlike abstract models of information diffusion or rational-agent behaviour, this study presents evidence that users with high scores in Machiavellianism, Narcissism, and Psychopathy not only engage more frequently during periods of market turbulence, but also command disproportionate discursive control. Their influence extends beyond mere visibility: they shape the very epistemic frameworks through which market events are interpreted—reframing regulatory news as persecution, price corrections as conspiracies, and dissent as betrayal. This psychological-dominance model of discourse offers a new paradigm for understanding how sentiment, manipulation, and belief interact to move decentralised markets.
Introducing the Concept of Epistemic Inertia as a Function of Kripkean Dogmatism
The dissertation also makes a theoretical contribution by proposing the concept of epistemic inertia—a cognitive and social mechanism by which beliefs persist within a network despite disconfirming evidence, rational counterargument, or external correction. Grounded in Kripkean dogmatism, epistemic inertia describes not only the individual’s resistance to belief revision but the communal reward structures that reinforce this resistance: rhetorical purity, ideological signalling, and performative loyalty to core axioms. Within pseudonymous communities where identities are tethered to belief as brand, epistemic updating becomes not just difficult—it becomes socially dangerous. This concept provides a valuable analytic tool for understanding the formation and maintenance of digital cultic behaviour, ideological polarisation, and the failure of rational persuasion in decentralised environments.
Together, these contributions establish a novel intersection between psychological profiling, digital ethnography, and market sociology—charting how manipulation, identity, and belief form the invisible infrastructure of the cryptocurrency landscape.
Discussion
The findings of this dissertation reveal a disturbing yet deeply instructive intersection of psychological disposition, ideological rigidity, and socio-technical structure within decentralised cryptocurrency communities. These are not merely spaces of speculative investment or ideological experimentation—they are self-organising belief systems that reward a specific constellation of traits: manipulation, self-promotion, epistemic closure, and charismatic control.
The longitudinal data confirm that Dark Triad traits are not only disproportionately represented but systematically incentivised. Machiavellian actors thrive on Telegram through information curation and hierarchical command structures. Narcissistic figures dominate Twitter through engagement-driven self-branding. Psychopathic tendencies—manifesting in trolling, deceit, and emotional detachment—appear most visible during moments of crisis or disillusionment. These traits are not latent but performative; they shape not only user identity but communal norms.
Overlaying this behavioural architecture is the epistemological structure of Kripkean dogmatism, which reveals how belief systems become identity-bound and insulated from contradiction. Cryptocurrency, framed as a technological innovation, becomes reified into moral and metaphysical truth—with maximalists adopting missionary roles and ideological enforcers assuming authority over interpretation. This dynamic fosters a form of epistemic immunity, wherein opposition is perceived not as alternate reasoning but as threat. This mirrors cultic or sectarian systems, but with a new twist: these groups are decentralised, leaderless, and algorithmically sustained.
The platform-specific dynamics offer a further layer of analysis. Reddit’s structure cultivates epistemic orthodoxy, with its upvote logic rewarding rationalistic consistency but penalising dissent once group norms are established. Telegram enables conspiratorial entrenchment, shielding belief from outside interference while enabling charismatic gatekeepers to dominate through informal control. Twitter is an arena for narcissistic theatre, where discourse becomes gamified, and where beliefs are more volatile but defended with zeal when identity is at stake.
Together, these insights challenge conventional models of online discourse which assume either a rational public sphere or chaotic relativism. Instead, what emerges is a psychologically driven, structurally self-reinforcing ideological ecosystem—where charisma, belief rigidity, and manipulative strategy are rewarded not only with attention but with epistemic authority.
This has broader implications. Financial systems are increasingly influenced not by institutional trust or regulatory clarity but by discursive manipulation on pseudonymous platforms. When psychological traits become market drivers, and when belief trumps verification, the question arises: who controls truth in a decentralised world? This study does not resolve that question, but it exposes the forces that shape it—and warns of the psychological cost.
Conclusion
This dissertation demonstrates that decentralised cryptocurrency communities are not ideologically neutral, nor psychologically inert. They are shaped—at their core—by a recurring pattern of manipulative charisma, identity-anchored belief, and behavioural convergence around traits long regarded as antisocial: manipulation, narcissism, and dogmatism.
Through the integration of quantitative longitudinal tracking, qualitative discourse analysis, and psychometric approximation, the study maps the inner workings of digital influence in spaces where identity is mutable but belief is rigid. It introduces the concept of epistemic inertia to explain why these beliefs endure, and reveals the alarming stability of manipulative actors within network hierarchies.
These findings have significance beyond the domain of cryptocurrency. They gesture towards the future of online discourse more broadly—a future where belief and branding collapse into one, where discourse is shaped not by reason but by psychological dominance, and where the architecture of digital platforms magnifies rather than mediates our worst epistemic tendencies.
The final lesson is both cautionary and clarifying: when identity is belief, and belief is power, then the medium no longer just hosts the message—it becomes the message’s executioner. This study opens a path for future work that will have to contend with the consequences: not only for financial systems, but for the social fabric itself.
Read the full Dissertation here:
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=5343449
Epistemic inertia is an interesting idea. Max Planck probably had something similar in mind when he complained that science did not advance by brilliant ideas and arguments, but rather by the death of older scientists. Unfortunately, dogmatic rigidity is probably the rule rather than the exception.