That's what happened although it soon slows down when literally zero response happens.
For several years I also got a lot of DM's requesting money, all from Nigeria. One asked me for money to buy a bigger TV for her gaming console "business" as the competitor down the road had a better TV and she was losing "business." I recall my response being very long, scathing and rather brutal.
I don't get requests like that much these days but unless I've communicated on Hive with someone for a long time, favourably, I don't respond to DM's. I have a really nice (small) group of people I communicate with in Threema and Whatsapp (most know my address and I theirs as we swap stuff), and that's one of my biggest benefits from Hive - they're good people.