Thread by @swombat

Being doxxed *should* be more important in the NFT space. It would reduce the amount of scams.

Also, being doxxed should be better understood. Many people claim to be doxxed, but actually aren't.

Let's have a look at when and why it matters and how to do it right.

👇

A disclaimer first: I understand there are ppl who have very good reasons for not wanting to use their public name.

That's fine. I'm not arguing everyone should be forced to doxx. It's a personal decision, I get it.

I will, however, argue that if you want to raise millions of dollars from random ppl on the internet, there is a basic standard of commitment you should offer in return.

And we should demand that commitment from founders b4 giving them our money.

Let's take a little detour through startup land.

In the startup world, investing in an anon team would not only be unthinkable, it'd be impractical. Who's signing the docs? Who's the company raising the funds?

The government requires this data to be real, transparent, doxxed.

Of course, part of it is about having someone to sue. Investors have been burned many times in history, and they want to know that if the founders just run with the money, they can at least try to bring charges... but actually that's not the main reason.

It is very rare (thankfully) for investors to actually bring any sort of legal proceedings against founders. Things have to have gone sideways in a spectacular fashion for that to happen.

The reason for the doxxing is very different:

Doxxing is a form of proof of stake.

Most startups fail. That's life. As an investor, I know I'm bringing the money, often because the founders can't afford to fund it themselves, and sometimes because they could, but they want to share the risk.

But I want there to be *some* risk on the founder side.

At the very least, the founders should feel like their personal reputation is attached to the venture. Not that they should be ruined if it fails, but at least it'll be on their record, and like anyone they want to avoid a string of failures to their name.

Btw, if you like this thread, please don't just "like" posts, but also retweet them! These ideas are more powerful if they spread! You can find more of these collected threads on swombat.io , if you're hungry for more.

Back to NFT land. In this space, so few founders are doxxed, it's not even funny.

And the bad behaviour it enables is absolutely atrocious.

Forget about hiding failure: pseudonymity is being used to hide straightforward criminality in our space.

People start projects that are pure ponzi schemes. Those eventually blow up. Then they move on, create a new pseudonym, and start again. And they will keep doing it until we wise up and demand a setup that inflicts some consequences for stealing ppl's money.

Many ppl in crypto don't actually know how proof of stake algos work. It's very simple.

In a PoS blockchain, nodes put a "stake" up to become validators. It's a substantial stake. If they lie/cheat and are found out, they lose their stake.

Strong incentive towards honesty.

In a fully doxxed alternative timeline, ruggers would have a cost imposed on them: they would never be able to convince anyone to invest in their project again. Just like in startup investments: fraudsters find it very hard to burn investors a second time.

This is what we buy if we demand doxxing from project founders. This is why it matters. It's probably the most effective protection mechanism against the tidal wave of fraud and ponzis and scams in the NFT market today.

But it needs to be done right.

So what does doxxing mean? It doesn't mean just putting up a real sounding name, or posting a photograph, or even an address. Much like investors don't tend to actually sue founders, I doubt any NFT investors want to show up at a fraudster's house with a baseball bat.

We don't care about the founders' names because we want to do things to them, send them letters, threaten them, or, god forbid, actually interact with them violently. Fuck no. We're not mafia thugs or online abusers.

We care about knowing who the founders are because this way if they do turn out to be criminals, at least we know they won't get to do it again. And again. And again. And again... with nothing stopping them ever.

And if we do end up getting scammed, at least we know it was the first time for that founding team, and we took a risk on some fresh new people and it didn't work out. That's easier to swallow than giving yet another multi-million payday to professional thieves.

So in that context, doxxing is about putting something at stake, not even really about a name. It's about putting up something that's very hard to reproduce, that would be costly if tainted by the stench of scammy behaviour.

So I'd like to do two things in this thread. One is introduce this concept and hopefully inspire some people to demand more transparency from NFT project founders.

The other is to present a scale of what it actually means to be doxxed, how it can be done.

Level 0: Let's start with the basics. At the lowest level you have ppl operating under pseudonyms with no track record. Sadly this is extremely common in the NFT space rn.

Does an "actual name" lift you above this level? not necessarily.

Also at L0 is someone who gives a "real name", but there is no way to verify if that name is actually real. There is no track record attached to that name, and no validated identification. It could be anybody. Could be made up. The truth is, this is no better than a pseudonym.

Claiming they worked for a prestigious company is equally empty if there's no way to verify that. Basically, if you assume the person is lying, are there ways you can validate that they are truthful?

There are many, actually.

For example, the longer they have been active the harder it is for their identity to be fake. Someone who joined Twitter 10 years ago and has been consistently active since then... that's a track record, however meaningless. It's unlikely they started planning a rug in 2010.

Level 1: Pseudonymous, but with some minor track record. An example of that would be someone who joined NFT twitter and has interacted with many ppl over a period, say 6+ months. Those people reckon it's a real individual.

If the person turns out to be a fraudster, those budding relationships will be sacrificed. That is not an enormous cost, but it is a cost. It is more than just some anon with no history.

L1 would also include someone with a real name that is actually validated in some way. "I am so and so, I went to this university, here's my LinkedIn, here's a photo of me held by a third party and a recent photo of me - I am who I claim to be."

Level 2: pseudonymous but with a long, valuable track record. The star example of this would be @punk6529 . If 6529 starts a project, their considerable good name is at stake in such a project. If they turn out to be a criminal, the loss of reputation is substantial.

Most people who follow @punk6529 would be disgusted, and soon unfollow, if they rugged their own followers. 6529's good reputation is worth more than most projects. Therefore, if they put their reputation at stake, they will likely not rug.

Most people who follow @punk6529 would be disgusted, and soon unfollow, if they rugged their own followers. 6529's good reputation is worth more than most projects. Therefore, if they put their reputation at stake, they will likely not rug.

But if they did decide to steal a lot of money, @punk6529 would likely still be able to get away with it, start a new profile, and begin again. So the pseudonymity puts a hard cap on what they're staking.

On the non-pseudo side of things, L2 means a validated name that also links up to some personal reputation and track record which would be painful to burn to the ground.

For example, if Joe Bloggs just left Facebook after 5y there, they have made contacts, built a reputation with ppl there... if they then launch a PFP project and turn out to be a common thief... well that won't look good to their professional contacts.

Having a reputation at stake in this way will greatly reduce the chances that Joe Bloggs will pull one of the moves that are so common in the NFT space: rugging, stealing, designing a ponzi... they have something valuable to lose.

And if Joe does decide that their business contacts are worth trashing for a $3m mint payday... at least he won't get to do it again, at least not under his real name. He'll have to fall down to L1 or even L0. And so hopefully smart ppl won't fund him anymore.

Level 3: This is not available to pseudonymous folks. This is where I think I am - a person operating under my own name, with a reasonably substantial track records which would be really unpleasant to have tainted by credible accusations of scamming people.

I've outlined my "track record" on the newly launched swombat.io - find it here on swombat.io/about.html .

There is a track record going back 15+ years. If I were to steal from my followers, this would attach to my track record forever.

That is what someone operating at the L3 level of doxxing is putting up. That's pretty substantial. But there are levels above this of course.

Level 4: Someone operating transparently under their own name, who is a minor/niche celebrity. Someone like @ZssBecker . Love him or hate him, at least the risk that he will shamelessly take the money and run like so many scammers is very small.

Level 5: Someone who's a full on celebrity with a very valuable brand name. Snoop Dogg's personal brand is worth more than any NFT project. If he backs a project, he's not going to rug it because why the hell would he? His name is worth way more.

This scale is not there to suggest that you should only invest in projects started by Snoop Dogg. Though that's probably not a bad call now I think of it. Dude seems damn smart and a project he starts would probably do well.

The point of the scale is to measure and understand how much a founder or founding team has actually put at stake in starting this project.

If they've risked nothing, should you risk your money on their project?

Maybe. But do so with your eyes open.

I also do appreciate that some ppl are at the beginning of their careers. They have no reputation to stake. That's ok. It's still worth investing in them. But in such a situation they should make lots of efforts to improve the safety of the project.

For example, I hope the market will trend towards using minting contracts like @CuriousAddys (which offer a refund for the first 100 days) to reduce risk, when the project is being started by people who can only offer L1 doxxing.

And I think L0 doxxing (which is still so damn common today) should die out and disappear. If someone has zero track record and no evidence whatsoever that the person who is starting the project isn't the one who just stole $3m last week... why invest in them???

Here's to hoping 2022 is the year when the NFT space cleans up its act and we stop giving money to anonymous fraudsters just because they dangle some fomo in front of us.

hny & gm & gl 🥂

PS: Does having lots of followers count as a "proof of stake"? Maybe, sorta, it depends.

It's so easy to accumulate huge amounts of followers through giveaways and contests, or even simply by paying for bots to follow you... that this is too easily faked. Don't trust it.