A study conducted by ICODA in partnership with Semrush examined how AI engines cite cryptocurrency sources, revealing that three widely-recommended data aggregators—CoinGecko, CoinMarketCap, and DeFiLlama—received no citations across over 100 controlled query tests.
The research tested ChatGPT and Perplexity across four query categories: recommendation-style searches, breaking news, safety and legitimacy questions, and community-focused prompts. All queries ran in clean sessions with citations fully captured.
Sources That Were Cited
Instead of data aggregators, four distinct source types consistently appeared in AI responses:
- Purpose-built SEO roundups: Sites like Coin Bureau, Strategy Arena, and Datawallet were cited for recommendation-style queries, appearing in both engines independently.
- Financial media and trade press: Safety queries surfaced Investopedia, Reuters, Yahoo Finance, and Business Insider. Regulatory queries pulled The Block and other legal analysis sources.
- Primary sources: Circle and Tether were cited directly on stablecoin safety queries, specifically due to their records of recurring, audited reserve disclosures.
- Community platforms: Reddit appeared in queries that explicitly named it, typically alongside secondhand summaries.
Query-Specific Patterns
Citation overlap between the two AI engines varied by query type. Recommendation queries showed high overlap, with both engines independently citing Coin Bureau. Breaking-news and safety queries showed zero overlap, with each engine selecting different sources based on content structure rather than authority.
Semrush's separate analysis of 126 million prompts found similar structural patterns, with citation overlap between platforms dropping to 30% on individual engines like Gemini.
Key Finding
The research indicates that AI engines prioritize matching content structure to query intent rather than consulting traditional authority markers in the crypto space. This structural matching differs from the optimization approach most crypto marketers currently employ.
