Anphatcapital
Script error: No such module "Draft topics".
Script error: No such module "AfC topic".
ANPHAT CAPITAL is an open source cryptocurrency project and social media platform. On the platform, users can buy and sell "creator coins" (personalized tokens whose value depends on people's reputations) post short-form writings and photos, award money to posts they particularly like by clicking a diamond icon, and create and sell non-fungible tokens. The platform was launched with 15,000 "reserved" accounts - a move intended to prevent impersonation, but which backfired as some people with reserved accounts tried to actively distance themselves.
BitClout runs on a custom proof of work blockchain, which has been known since September 2021 as DeSo (short for "Decentralized Social"). BitClout's founder and primary leader is known pseudonymously as "diamondhands" (slang for a person who holds an investment in a turbulent market), but his real name is Nader al-Naji.
Under development since 2019, BitClout created its first block in January 2021, and it launched publicly in March 2021. The supply of BitClout cryptocurrency was fixed in June 2021. In September 2021, BitClout rebranded as DeSo.
Contents[edit]
History[edit][edit]
Origins (2019 - March 2021)[edit][edit]
In early 2019, Nader al-Naji became interested in "mixing investing and social media". He started creating a custom blockchain in May 2019, but didn't tell anyone else until November 2020.[unreliable source?] However, in the fall of 2020, al-Naji had pitched BitClout's own investors under his real name and began posting job listings for a "new operation".
Although BitClout was not originally intended to launch until mid-2021, its development was sped up after "zeitgeist about decentralized social media" and "this news about GameStop that ignited a trend towards investing being a more social thing" in January 2021.[unreliable source?]
BitClout's first block was mined on 18 January 2021. Its next block was mined on 1 March 2021; mining sped up after that point.
As BitClout (March - September 2021)[edit][edit]
In early March 2021, about fifty investors received links to a password-protected website with the BitClout white paper. They were encouraged to explore the site and send the same link to "two or three other 'trusted contacts'". Within weeks[when?], users were spending millions of dollars per day[quantify] on the platform. The platform's founders were "completely unprepared", having planned to have a "soft-launch", but decided to keep the platform up anyhow.
On 24 March 2021, BitClout launched out of private beta. Early investors include Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, the venture capital firm Social Capital, Coinbase Ventures, Winklevoss Capital Management, Alexis Ohanian, TQ Ventures, Arrington Capital, Polychain, Pantera, Digital Currency Group (CoinDesk’s parent company), Huobi, and Variant.
On 26 April 2021, diamondhands announced that the "BitClout Exchange Listing API" had gone live; as of that date, BitClout developers were working on integrating it with Coinbase's Rosetta standard to enable the cryptocurrency to be listed on Coinbase.[better source needed] As of July 2021, BitClout's open-source Rosetta API implementation is live.[better source needed][clarification needed]
On 12 June 2021, the supply of BitClout was capped at ~10.8 million coins (consisting of the then-current supply of ~11M coins as well as the ~275k coins to be mined in the next 30 years[better source needed]), in what diamondhands called the "Deflation Bomb" and "the most deflationary event in BitClout history". From this point, coin value is determined by supply and demand.
On 18 July 2021, BitClout added the ability for users to mint and purchase NFTs within the platform.
As DeSo (September 2021 - present)[edit][edit]
| This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (December 2021) |
On 21 September 2021, BitClout rebranded as DeSo, short for "Decentralized Social".[better source needed] As part of the rebrand, diamondhands confirmed his identity as Nader al-Naji. The rebranded project again raised $200M in funding, which went to setting up the DeSo Foundation.
On 4 October 2021, the DeSo Foundation announced the creation of the "Octane Fund", a $50M fund to fund developers working with the DeSo blockchain.
On 1 December 2021, ZenGo X, the "research arm" of ZenGo, wrote that it discovered a "critical double spending vulnerability" in BitClout named "Griphook". The vulnerability was fixed.
Overview[edit][edit]
BitClout is a social media platform; its users can also post short-form writings and photos. They can also award money to posts they particularly like by clicking a diamond icon (similarly to Twitch Bits).
Top: graph of the BitClout creator coin price curve. Bottom: a tabulated version of the same.
The prices of each account will go up and down with the popularity of the celebrity behind it. For example, if someone says something negative on Twitter, the value of corresponding account may go down. This price is computed automatically according to the formula .[better source needed]
At launch time, BitClout scraped 15000 profiles of celebrities from Twitter to create "reserved" accounts in their name, allowing the platform to raise money off of their likeness without their knowledge or consent. To claim a reserved account, the account holder will need to tweet about it (which also serves as a marketing strategy). The platform's founder diamondhands states that this was done "to prevent handle squatting and user impersonation".
As of April 2021[needs update], about 80[quantify] profiles have been claimed.
BitClout uses proof of work, but is planning to use proof of stake.[better source needed]
DeSo coins sent to be exchanged for Bitcoin are sent to a user known as "Gringotts Bank" (a reference to Gringotts Bank, the fictional bank in Harry Potter of the same name), which was set up especially for this purpose. The account refills itself whenever emptied.[better source needed]
Controversies[edit][edit]
| This section may need to be rewritten to comply with Wikipedia's quality standards, as for neutrality reasons, there should not be a single "Controversies" section. Rather, negative aspects of the subject should be discussed throughout the article. You can help. The talk page may contain suggestions. (December 2021) |
The development team made concerted efforts to remain pseudonymous. The CEO goes by the name "diamondhands" on the platform. However, as early as April 2021, it had been widely believed[by whom?] that diamondhands is the former Google software engineer Nader al-Naji. In September 2021, Nader al-Naji interviewed with Fast Company under his real name, confirming that he is indeed diamondhands.
During its initial launch, BitClout could not be independently mined and the source code was not published, leading to claims of decentralization being disputed. BitClout coins could only be bought with Bitcoin, but could not be sold on the platform;[unreliable source?] users could only sell on sites like Discord servers or Twitter threads. However, on 18 May 2021, diamondhands announced that 100% of the BitClout code went public, and the code for BitClout.com became available on GitHub.[clarification needed]
Some people with reserved accounts have actively tried to distance themselves from the BitClout platform. For example, in March 2021, law firm Anderson Kill P.C. sent Nader al-Naji, the presumed leader of the BitClout platform, a cease-and-desist letter, demanding the removal of Brandon Curtis's account and alleging that BitClout violated sections 1798 and 3344 of the California Civil Code by using Curtis's name and likeness without his consent. Curtis also tweeted, "Adopting Bitcoin's aesthetic to raise VC funding to carry out unethical and blatantly illegal schemes like BitClout: not cool". (However, Curtis's coin, despite not being listed on the official website, can still be bought by users searching for the original username.) Additionally, in April 2021, Lee Hsien Loong asked for his name and photograph to be removed from the site, stating that he has "nothing to do with the platform" and that "it is misleading and done without [his] permission".
A single bitcoin wallet related to BitClout[which?] received[how?] more than $165M[quantify] worth of deposits.
References[edit]
This article "Anphatcapital" is from Wikipedia. The list of its authors can be seen in its historical and/or the page Edithistory:Anphatcapital. Articles copied from Draft Namespace on Wikipedia could be seen on the Draft Namespace of Wikipedia and not main one.
