Bitcoin Forum

If the blockchain a currency or token is on is only as strong as it's developers, then what is the best way to really find out how to trust it before investing? Especially if the developers are anonymous?

The quality and usefulness of the protocol is not dependent on the developer's name or popularity. Its dependent on the function of the protocol. No one knows who satoshi nakamoto is, yet there is real usefulness in the bitcoin protocol. Don't trust the developers, look at the code. If you cant look at the code, look at the features of the protocol, judge if there is intrinsic use for them in society and then trust the community that peer reviews the code.

If there is no peer reviewing of the code, you are dealing with a closed organization... good luck to you.

A currency/token where 40% of the supply is held by the developer is only as 'strong' as these developers are.
But a platform/currency/.. without developers who own such a big stake there is no influence (assuming open source).
If its closed source, it requires trust.




Get as much information as possible. Basic information like who they actually are, their degree, .. .
See how they behave, their statements. How they react to negative criticism.




If the developers hold a significant % of all circulating coins and stay anonymous. Then you are out of luck. Trust them or don't.
If the developers do not hold a significant % of all circulating coins, it doesn't matter whether they are anonymous or not because they don't have any influence.

The very best solution to that is don't trust the developers if the project created is a first timer and the names of the developers are first known to investors, good developers have real followers the popular and trusted of the developer of the project for sure the more investors there are and then you can join within, the more the supporters and investors a token/coin is solid.

Anonymity can be a good sign too, because some cryptocurrencies can be very anti-establishment, like those with strong privacy features, so it makes sense that their creators would prefer to remain in shadows, both for their own and their project's good. What you should really be cautious of is fake identities - a lot of ICO projects have fake team members, and this is a huge red flag that signals that a project is most likely a scam.

I think we should not only focus to developers, sometimes it is better to look at their source code. As of now, we do not know the real identity of Satoshi Nakamoto but his/their project solves a lot of problem in transferring money. Sometimes they remain anonymous for the betterment of the project.

The advantage of open source projects is exactly this, you do not have to trust a person, you can read and trust the code. But it has an additional. Satoshi Nakamoto was a nickname. You can and should check what he did throughout the project and distinguish him from the other contributors.

Anonymous is when it is difficult to distinguish participants from the project. I think in those situations, a 100% anonymous project would be very complicated. Discussions and consensus are almost unlikely. But hiding your persona offline from your persona online can be an advantage in projects like that. It allows the public to focus more on the project than to transform the leader and idealist of that project into a God. Allows the project to survive after its exit.

That's why Bitcoin is getting bigger, even with Satoshi choosing to get away. What is worth is the code that was planted and the consensus of the majority.

There should always be reputable developers that are not anonymous, that would be involved in the Peer review process. People will not trust the code, if there are not some reputable people in the Open Source community that are putting their reputation on the line to vouch for the integrity and security of the code, during this Peer review process.

I will not trust any code, when anonymous developers were the only people involved with the Peer review process. Satoshi's protocol was vouched for by people like Gavin and Nick and Finney, who were willing to put their reputation on the line to vouch for that code.  ;)

In my opinion if developers are anonymus you should check their source code available on github or opinions of other people. What is more, in team section in the whitepaper there should be a link to developer`s linkedin.com profile with their porfolio.
Moreover, you can get a confirmation of the technology the developer is working in from other people.

There is a margin of risk when dealing with developers that are anonymous so make sure to check the source code and try to find information on the developer whether it be by Linkedin or past projects from the names listed. Do not trust anyone with fake followers or automated messages because that is a red flag. You can also try to reach them and contact other investors. Good luck!

It doesn't matter if the developer is anonymous, your own mother or an alien gas bag from Tau Ceti. The only thing you need to judge is the code. Everything you need is inside it waiting to be looked at. Judge what is placed in front of you. If it doesn't pass muster then drop it and move on.

Are you not familiar with the oldest phrase in the crypto book? - don't trust, verify. Still as relevant today as when it was coined.

The problem with this is that most people are clueless about programming and the intricate nature of Crypto currencies. This is why we need reputable experts like Nick Szabo and Hal Finney and the rest of the guys to scrutinize the code for us and to validate that there are not any exploits or backdoors.  ;)


Please stop "Copy & Pasting" other people's comments and making it your own. You are almost exactly using my words posted in my post.  >:(

i don't see reason to trust someone Unknown.it is Risky.

You need to have some knowledge about blockchain programming and start to dig into their GitHub repository. Anon or not are not really important if you can review the code. Even when the devs are popular, you shouldn't blindly trust them. If you have serious amount of money to be invested, maybe it's better to hire programmers to review the code for you if you cannot do it yourself.

This is a critical point to cosider before investing in projects. Whereas I like projects whose developers are known, we should not also forget that some projects are against the institutions and prone ro attacks; in such cases, the anonymity of the developers becomes a necessity. Nevertheless, what should guide ones judgement is the stake the developers apportion to themselves in the project, if too high, then am afriad something is not right.

I think that everyone from the crypto-community should take some time and learn at least basic programming starting with C/C++ for crypto projects or at least take some time to get a basic understanding about the workings of the tech.


This depends on the scale of the project and the market capitalization. But nevertheless, there should be at least a hand of developers that are publicy known within the crypto-community and others that are contributing to the open source codebase.

Note that every piece of software is prone to bugs and backdoors, intentionally created or not. Even hardware has fundamental flaws as seen in recent times.

- don't trust, verify. Still as relevant today as when it was coined.
I absolute agree on that one.
verify the the source code and use a self setup node to verify transactions....voila. you dont need to believe in other words.

Amen!
that's the beauty of it: we really need no trust source here but everybody can verify how this whole thing works.
I think that's the reason that got me here in the first place ;)

Topic should be locked after this answer.