GitHub’s Fake Star Economy
TL;DRA peer-reviewed CMU study (ICSE 2026) found 6 million fake stars across 18,617 repositories using 301,000 accounts – with AI/LLM repos the largest non-malicious categoryStars sell for $0.03 to $0.85 each on at least a dozen websites, Fiverr gigs, and Telegram channels – no dark web requiredVCs explicitly use stars as sourcing signals: Redpoint found the median star count at seed is 2,850, and firms run automated scrapers to find fast-growing reposWe ran our own analysis sampling 150 profiles per repo across 20 projects and found repos where 36-76% of stargazers have zero followers and fork-to-star ratios 10x below organic baselinesThe FTC’s 2024 rule banning fake social influence metrics carries penalties of $53,088 per violation – and the SEC has already charged startup founders for…
