BitClout (BTCLT)

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## Basics

* Based in:
* Started in / Announced on: 3-2021
*"Pitching itself as a "crypto celebrity network." The site offers consumers the opportunity to purchase tokens tied to the identities of 15,000 influential Twitter accounts, including the likes of Elon Musk and Katy Perry—albeit without their permission. In the space of a week, BitClout has reportedly earned $160 million and attracted the interest of prominent investors and cultural figures. But already, crypto security firms are pointing to suspicious transactions patterns, and warning the site has all the appearances of a scam."*

## Token

### Token Allocation

* From CoinDesk (23-3-2021):

*"According to Diamondhands, there was a pre-mine of 2 million BTCLT tokens for founders and investors. There’s technically no supply cap on BTCLT, he explained, but the cost of new emissions will become so high at some point they don’t expect any more will be purchased after the supply hits something like 19 million. Miners securing the network will also earn BTCLT, but that’s only about 500,000 over the next few years."*

### Utility

* From CoinDesk (23-3-2021):

*"The BTCLT token is used as gas and will likely eventually be used in a governance process that manages the project’s BTC treasury."*

## Technology

* Whitepaper can be found here.
* Code can be viewed [insert here].

* From CoinDesk (23-3-2021):

*"The code will be open-sourced on the BitClout site soon and when that happens others will be able to join permissionlessly as nodes or as miners, Diamondhands said."*

### How it works

* From Decrypt (20-3-2021):

*"For those seeking to participate in BitClout’s marketplace, a necessary first step is to buy BitClout tokens with Bitcoin. Although you can supposedly buy BitClout tokens with BTC, you can’t take your BitClout tokens out of the BitClout network. You can only send BitClout tokens to other BitClout users or use them to buy creator coins; there’s no way to redeem any of this for cash or Bitcoin. And when Decrypt wired about $20 in Bitcoin to the platform, the site didn’t allow us to use our money to buy BitClout tokens.*

*Nor is there any way to verify that such transactions would take place on a blockchain. While there is an explorer, the network fee is zero and there’s no obvious way to create a node or mine coins. The anonymous team hasn’t published the code for the project."*

* From CoinDesk (23-3-2021):

*"BitClout is social media on a blockchain (like Hive, Steem or Cent). It also generates social tokens (like Roll or Rally), which represent actual people. Those social tokens’ supplies are controlled by automated market makers (like Uniswap or Curve), though one governed by a bonding curve that explicitly ratchets up the value as more tokens get minted."*

### Mining

* Proof-of-work blockchain designed for running social media (23-3-2021).

## Privacy Method

* From CoinDesk (23-3-2021):

*"“The awesome thing about BitClout is it lets you be totally anonymous, which most platforms in general don’t even allow,” Diamondhands said."*

## Governance

* From Rekt (24-3-2021):

*"Bitclout uses peoples image without their consent, tokenises them and put them up for sale. They say they are decentralised, but when presented with legal threats, somehow manage to take down certain profiles."*

### Treasury

* From CoinDesk (23-3-2021):

*"The BTCLT token is used as gas and will likely eventually be used in a governance process that manages the project’s BTC treasury."*

## Audits

* Bug bounty program can be found [insert here].
* From Decrypt (20-3-2021):

*"For those seeking to participate in BitClout’s marketplace, a necessary first step is to buy BitClout tokens with Bitcoin. And that has already given rise to a big red flag about the site: Namely, Blockchain explorer tools show that the funds ended up at just one address before getting transported across the cryptoverse.*

*Rich Sanders, who runs blockchain investigation firm CipherBlade, confirmed to Decrypt that almost all of the funds on the site are going to three exchanges—88.41% to Amber Group, 11.17% to Kraken, and 0.42% to Coinbase—and that the funds have since moved to other exchanges and wallets.*

*And one of the only non-exchange addresses that BitClout paid directly received money from Hydra, a darknet market. In other words: “They paid someone sketchy,” said Sanders. Signs point to the address being owned by a suspect individual from Nigeria, whom BitClout may have paid to drum up the Twitter bots to promote the project on social media, said Sanders.*

*Meanwhile, London-based Coinfirm, which specializes in tracing suspect crypto transactions, has also raised alarms about BitClout. In an interview with Decrypt, Coinfirm executives described the site as “Bitconnect 2.0*

*Two of the largest Twitter accounts for r/WallStreetBets, another account registered as verified, told Decrypt that they had nothing to do with WSB’s BitClout persona, which gushes about the project in daily messages on BitClout. Most of the BitClout fans on Twitter, a handful of followers each, have little other activity to their name save for their promotion of the project.*

*Making the operation murkier still, BitClout’s network keeps going offline. “Diamondhands,” which appears to be the account on BitClout that’s behind the project, said on BitClout that this was because nodes kept rebooting and missing transactions."*

### Bugs/Hacks

* From Decrypt (27-3-2021):

*"Speaking on condition of anonymity, a person close to a major VC firm described BitClout’s rollout as a “doozy,” while a different investor said BitClout has “fucked up their launch.” The launch has been further complicated by technical failures as a flood of traffic has knocked BitClout’s nodes—including the core one at BitClout.com—offline, and required developers to put up a password to limit the number of visitors."*

## Usage

* From Decrypt (20-3-2021):

*"In the space of a week, BitClout has reportedly earned $160 million and attracted the interest of prominent investors and cultural figures. But already, crypto security firms are pointing to suspicious transactions patterns, and warning the site has all the appearances of a scam. Minor celebrities who have tweeted about BitClout include Neil Strauss, author of a controversial pick-up artist book."*

## Pros and Cons

### Cons

* From CoinDesk (23-3-2021):

*"Lumi is a blockchain researcher who has been digging deep into BitClout since it started driving conversation last week, shortly after launch. “People are incentivized to cancel people,” Lumi told CoinDesk in a phone call. “All you have to do is open a short position and then try to mangle someone’s reputation.”"*

## Team, Funding, Partnerships, etc.

### Team

* Full team can be found [here].
* Anonymous (20-3-2021) however people say "it is an open secret" that it is Nader Al-Naji (24-3-2021).

* From Rekt (24-3-2021):

*"During our investigations as to who founded this controversial project, the same names kept cropping up. However, nobody was willing to go on the record or provide us with proof to back up these accusations. We asked @nadertheory why everyone believes he is the founder of Bitclout, but he didn’t reply. Lawsuits are already being filed against Nader Al-Naji, regarding issues which the VCs should have seen coming. This is not the first time the founder has been associated with failed or disreputable projects."*

### Funding

* From Decrypt (20-3-2021):

*"One early investor is Chris McCann, a tousled Silicon Valley investor who caught wind of the project from friends. McCann [is] a general partner at Race Capital. “Once you kind of get sucked in and start making some early bets on people and they get verified, it's fun—you actually want to want to use it,” said McCann, who gained access to almost $34,000 in unredeemable BitClout tokens when he tweeted about the project to verify his account.*

*Michael Arrington, a well-known Silicon Valley investor and media figure, received the equivalent of $290,000 in creator tokens. He did not respond to Decrypt’s request for comment.*

from (19-3-2021) Michael Arrington's own twitter: *"The #bitclout FUD is just that, FUD. @arringtonXRPcap are coin-holders, other holders are tier 1 investors/people too. The service is fully launching very soon. The founders are choosing to remain pseudonymous for now. But we and other holders are DIAMOND HANDS on this one."*

* From CoinDesk (23-3-2021):

*"Diamondhands sent CoinDesk a list of investors via email, which included: Sequoia, Andreessen Horowitz, Social Capital, TQ Ventures, Coinbase Ventures, Winklevoss Capital, Arrington Capital, Polychain, Pantera, Digital Currency Group (CoinDesk’s parent company), Huobi, Variant and others."*

### Partners

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