To doxx (oneself) or not to doxx? That is a question faced by many operating in the cryptocurrency and blockchain space, including developers, influen
To doxx (oneself) or not to doxx? That is a question faced by many operating in the cryptocurrency and blockchain space, including developers, influencers, and investors. Does one use one’s own name when venturing into the often chaotic and largely unregulated crypto world — or don an alias?
Consider Embrik Børresen, developer of RobinHood Inu — a reflection token that was launched in February. Like many crypto and blockchain founders, he considered using a nom de guerre when starting out. But Børresen, 22, raised in a small town, had also served in the Norwegian military where he says he learned some lessons about the value of trust.
So, when it came time to launch his new coin project, he opted to use his real name. “For me, it is the moral thing — to present yourself as who you are,” he tells Magazine. Many of his peers disagree, however. “Pseudo-anonymity has been a fixture of the internet since it began, and I believe it will remain this way,” Ghostbro, a Generation Z developer for the DogeBonk project, tells Magazine. For Ghostbro (a pseudonym), revealing their true identity — or “doxxing” themselves — makes little sense.
“It would essentially put a target on my back to people who might have lost money trading DogeBonk, or wish to steal from me either online or by actually coming to my house and threatening me or my loved ones.”
They have already received threatening messages, they tell Magazine, and have been subject to some “extremely obsessive behavior from people who genuinely ‘hate’ our cryptocurrency.” They’re in no rush to make themselves “a flesh and blood figurehead these people can mess with.”
It is a debate that has been going on in at least some form since crypto’s beginning: To what extent does one really need to reveal one’s personal identity in a decentralized world? After all, one’s transactions are already on display in the form of a public key for any and all to see. Does one really need to put a bullseye on one’s chest, too? Moreover, aren’t assumed names a part of the crypto ethos going back to Bitcoin inventor Satoshi Nakamoto — who assumed an alias that has never been penetrated?
Has it gone too far?
It may seem that pseudonymity just comes with the turf in the cryptoverse. How many “influencers” on Crypto Twitter use assumed names — e.g., PlanB, Cobie, The Crypto Dog, Rekt Capital? Twitter personality Cobie is actually on their second handle — until 2021, they went as Crypto Cobain.
But pseudonymity arguably has some social and economic costs. It can provide cover to “rug pullers,” fraudsters, money launderers and other less-than-trustworthy types. This was nakedly displayed in the recent Wonderland saga where it was revealed that one of the founders of that DeFi protocol, going by the alias Sifu, was actually Michael Patryn, a convicted felon and co-founder of QuadrigaCX, the Canadian crypto exchange, whose collapse under murky circumstances led to a loss of $169 million in user funds.
While the crypto space today has become safer and more user-friendly as it approaches mainstream acceptance, many still believe that anonymous scammers run rampant.
1/ This needs to be shared @0xSifu is the Co-founder of QuadrigaCX, Michael Patryn. If you are unfamiliar that is the Canadian exchange that collapsed in 2019 after the founder Gerald Cotten disappeared with $169m
I have confirmed this with Daniele over messages. pic.twitter.com/qSfWNnQPhr
— zachxbt (@zachxbt) January 27, 2022
“This pseudonymous stuff is so dangerous,” Brian Nguyen, a crypto entrepreneur who lost $470,000 in what might have been a crypto “rug pull,” told CNBC.com. “They could be a good actor today, but they could turn bad in two or three years.”
It makes one wonder what they’re hiding from.
Maybe it’s time then to rethink this pseudo-anonymity thing? “If we want crypto to be taken seriously as a community, then we must start unveiling identities,” Hadar Jabotinsky, a research fellow at the Hadar Jabotinsky Center for Interdisciplinary Research of Financial Markets, Crises and Technology, tells Magazine. It is important because this remains a new, unregulated market, Jabotinsky continues. “It’s based on trust, but it is subject to rumors — so, it’s beneficial to use real names.”
Failure to supply one’s true name is traditionally a cause for suspicion, and it remains so still in many quarters. “If people must be anonymous, it makes one wonder what they’re hiding from,” University of Texas finance professor John Griffin tells Magazine. Meanwhile, Børresen adds, “If someone asks about a person, and they are unable or unwilling to answer, a lot of the time, that indicates some murkiness in what is being presented, even if it is not an outright scam.”
Yes, some project founders choose anonymity to further their fraudulent activities, acknowledges Amy Wu, a well-known venture capitalist who was recently…
cointelegraph.com