One post tagged with "crypto"

When I started working on crypto projects, I chose to work under a pseudonym. Here's why, and why I ultimately chose to reveal my identity.

Why I went anon:​

Robbery Risk​

Targeted robberies, SIM swaps, and harassment happen. Reducing links back to you reduce your risk.

For the culture​

The application developers I looked up to the most in the space were anons: TzTokChad, 0xSami, Banteg, Zeus, Fully... I could go on.

Their market knowledge and technical chops spoke for themselves. There was no need to lean on the reputation of their "previous life".

I wanted to be like that.

I wanted to become so good I couldn't be ignored, regardless of my name, race, or history.

Also, being anon just looked cool imo "¯\_(ツ)_/¯"

Career Risk​

It felt overly risky betting all of my professional reputation on such a niche field.

Using a pseudonym would allow me to build legitimacy in the space without associating my real identity with the "crypto dev" label - one widely associated with vaporware and scams.

Meanwhile, I could maintain my existing reputation by keeping up my traditional software skills and relationships.

In summary, I liked the optionality of pseudonymity. If crypto became more socially acceptable, I became valuable enough in the niche, or I got tired of the mask, I could always exercise my option to dox.

And that's what I chose to do.

Why I doxed:​

In the end, the opportunity cost of being anon bothered me. Also, I realized I was overestimating my personal robbery risk.

Opportunity Cost of Accountability​

You have to build credibility, and you have to do it under your own name as much as possible.

- Naval Ravikant

While being a high-integrity anon is respectable and profitable, it can have a high opportunity cost.

If there is a large overlap between the goals of your pseudonym and your true identity, you're missing out on the compounding returns of accountability. And if you know anything about managing money, you know compounding returns are the juiciest.

Being anon is also a lot of upkeep. Keeping accounts straight across multiple SIM cards, keys, and other opsec drudgery started cutting into my personal and professional life.

That said, pseudonymity makes sense in a lot of cases.

If you can grow or have fun by expressing yourself in a way that clashes with societal norms, try it as an anon! Making a throwaway account to ask Reddit bondage questions as a Fortune 500 CEO is a wise choice. Calling yourself BasedBeffJezos and inspiring a wave of techno-optimism is also a great cause.

Or, if pseudonymity is your only hope for accomplishing a net good for humanity that the authorities would consider "subversive", tighten up your opsec and get to it (RIP TornadoCash).

But for my case, where my main quest is to accumulate wealth, using a pseudonym was doing more harm than good.

Overestimating my Robbery Risk​

Another reason I doxed is because I overestimated my personal robbery risk.

The things that put me at ease are my travel frequency and high personal security standards.

I travel frequently enough that pinning my location down remains tricky. Obviously, not everyone has this luxury. What else can you do?

Well, don't walk around with your trezor in your pocket, its code written on your forehead while live streaming your location.

On top of that, you can keep the expected returns to a violent attack on you low by making your assets difficult to retrieve. Copytrade Vitalik - store crypto assets behind a combination of hardware wallets and multisigs. Keep more traditional accounts safe with multi-factor auth methods like Yubikey and OTP codes. Don't use text messages for 2FA, or you'll get rekt by a low-tier SIM swap attack.

Fin​

May Terrance Andrew's Research Center live on in our hearts and git histories.

- 0xTARC Luis