Our Thesis

Opportunities in solving for reputation

The growth of users and on-chain activity has created a burning need for an on-chain, verifiable and open reputation system. This is a huge opportunity to build a data and reputation infrastructure for developers. Just like how webpage indexing and ranking became the backbone of internet search and ads, web3 reputation will power key features (search, discovery, recommendations, trust and sybil resistance) for web3 marketplaces and consumer apps.

While the Identity layer helps in enabling attestations and provable credentials on chain, there is still a lack of social and peer-to-peer attestation layer. Reputation is usually subjective and relies on context. Users in web3 should not depend on a centralized application or solely off-chain sources to determine truth or reputation about peers in a community or a network.

Reputation systems are missing in many applications in web3:

• Which creators or artists to trust before minting or buying their NFTs?

• Which community member’s opinions to trust or weigh in within a DAO?

• Which contributor to select for a community grant or project?

• Who are the most loyal or long-term aligned community members?

• Is there a real or unique person behind a public key?

• If I like an NFT, artist or a social profile, which others should I follow?

We believe that the reputation and rankings layer will become an important public utility infrastructure for developers in their application stack, just like oracles, data indexers, decentralized storage and data stream protocols.