I started writing this as one of those long twitter threads but decided to just put it into a blog post..
I’m only 55% of the way through this epic Twitter space with @monad_alexander , @wabdoteth and @ponziratti. But a lot has been covered so I wanted to share my thoughts.
https://twitter.com/i/spaces/1YpKkgMELlVKj
1. Firstly I normally hate listening to NFT spaces as they normally sound like a school playground. But @wabdoteth did an excellent job moderating and was smart enough to follow along with @monad_alexander POV and hence could step in and summarise the points for the broader audience. 👏
2. TAS seems like a genuine project to me and based on analysis of their token distribution I’ve done in the past I know that they have a much fairer distribution than other NFT projects (another bit of research I need to publish)
3. However the main point @monad_alexander is making is not whether TAS is a scam but that the crypto space is full of NFT projects that utilise the same strategies as TAS that are scams & rugs (wish @wabdoteth had stepped in to get the conversation on to this point perhaps he does later)
4. And hence the bigger q is how can one tell a genuine NFT project that has good intentions from bad ones if they all seem the same on the outside.
5. @ponziratti gave a decent answer in that it takes time based on conversation with the founders. But of course scammers can do that. @monad_alexander suggested doxxing though @wabdoteth pointed out that one of the philosophies of crypto is that it should allow anonymity.
He’s half right. It should guarantee trust without knowing the other person. Therefore the big question is how can one do that?
I feel like there’s no easy answer to this and I’m wondering what they’ll talk about for the next 2.5 hours of this twitter space that’s remaining but here’s some ideas I can come up with.
You could put the community in charge of releasing funds for development
You could use SSI technology like Atala Prism technology (once that’s ready) to verify career history without doxxing. (And even that doesn’t guarantee a project isn’t a scam or won’t rug).
You avoid growth strategies that rely on the user having to continually buy more for a future expected reward. This is the point Monad was making. (Also isn’t this what a definition of a security?)
TAS are wanting to build out an NFT ecosystem that incorporates other NFT projects and fair play to them. I can see that being a distinctive and worthwhile endeavour.
I think Monad now gets this and appreciates the idea but his point remains: If someone else was to come out with a similar idea to TAS (think BossCats have a similar idea too?) then how can you tell the scams from a genuine project?
As an aside this makes me think I should release research I did for myself on calculating the distribution score of NFT projects or at least mention it to JPGstore so they could have it as a regular statistic.
Ok that’s all my thoughts for now…this has been an excellent discussion so far and really curious what they talk about for the remainder of it!
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