Maybe you are right here but this is nothing new.
it is quite possible that they had an airdrop
in fact I am quite sure where is required joining in their Telegram group, follow on Twitter, Facebook etc... As you can see, pinned posts on Twitter have >10k retweets and 1700 comments, where other people mention friends, #airdrop hashtags etc...
in the end, you drew attention to these numbers and thus pointed to the ability of the manager. As you say, he made some impressive results in a short time. I guess any new project wants something like that.
OP, I hope you have some criteria and that you will not accept fraudsters no matter how much they will pay you.