I haven't heard about Authorship.com so thankfully I didn't participate.

Let's say they indeed had fake referral problems. First of all, companies have to be prepared for that. All the decent crypto startups offered tokens for things that grow their company. Like giving a few tokens for joining their discord channel or giving out a portion after the tokens your referrals bought. That's how they raise money after all.

Of course, some people will spam them with fake referrals but if they don't have a plan to tackle a simple problem like that, then what did they even want?