Back in 2017, many ICO projects pride themselves of having one of the biggest telegram community. Some of them would market it as a proof or sign that many investors believe in their project. People who have been around all know that most members there are airdrop/bounty hunters who only joined to qualify for the reward.
I also saw one
post earlier asking for telegram group members and one of the condition the buyer posted is that it "needs to look real".
Anyway, this post is just a reminder to beginners in crypto. We don't want you to fall for these tricks to lure you into investing into their projects.
This is spot on and entirely true and anyone investing because of the number of members in the project's telegram group is causing himself harm. Like you said, back in the days, a large telegram community signifies how strong the project is because members shares knowledge etc but nowadays the aim is to have a large community which will be used to attract investors and nothing more; while the project in question have nothing to offer. I have seen a project with less than 5k members doing well at the early stage then naturally grows which was even after listing.