Shilling

Wiktionary lists "shill" as a derogatory verb meaning to promote or endorse for payment, especially dishonestly, sometimes used sarcastically for unpaid but strongly biased people; it quotes a 2022 New York Times line about A-list celebrities shilling for digital currencies and NFTs. The origin is unknown, with the verb recorded from 1914 and the noun from 1916, and the word came into English through carnival slang for a worker posing as an audience member. Wikipedia's shill article gives a similar definition and lists cryptocurrency among fields where shills operate. The coin called a shilling is an unrelated word. The existing entries on shill and forum shill are the base terms.