Coin developer anonymity

[s1gs3gv]

This poll hopes to assess community attitude towards dev anonymity. Is it a hallowed tradition, good, bad or mixed bag . Anonymity is defined as a missing reliable association between a forum handle and a real identity. A rationale for your view would be useful.

[GermanGiant]

You should have made your vote visible for those who are not voting.

[s1gs3gv]

You should have made your vote visible for those who are not voting.

ok

[jmintuck]

I feel its not important for a coin developer to stay anonymous . But people blame the developers if the price fall and would resort to attacks in reputation openly in the public which might become a bad end result of the developer revealing his identity.

Remaining anonymous is fine as long as everything is transparent and not scams like the ICO ones.

[TPTB_need_war]

not scams like the ICO ones.

Why do you assume all ICOs are scams? Actually mining launches can be scams too.

We've been having a discussion about this over in another thread:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1151565.msg12136597#msg12136597


My opinion on developer anonymity is that it is very difficult to make a successful altcoin when the personalities of the core devs are unknown. However, jl777 has been quite successful at raising capital and talking very, very little. How did he do it? Apparently by delivering code fast.

I am not attesting to the quality of his code or designs. I will remain agnostic on that. I am just pointing out that anonymity can work if you are not a bullshitter and actually deliver the goods.

[sofu]

Josh Garza, Bryce Weiner, ICM (Joe Mozelesky), Cryptowest (David McEnery), Adam Guerbuez, BTC Architect (Edgar Soares), IconicExpert (Christopher Bouzy)... are not anonym. Would you buy their shitcoins and buy on their promises because they are not anonym???  

[smooth]

However, jl777 has been quite successful at raising capital and talking very, very little. How did he do it? Apparently by delivering code fast.

No, jl777 was one of the most prolific posters on this entire forum, with almost 5000 posts over a relatively short time period, to the point where it was quite common to speculate that there were multiple operators behind the account (I have no idea if true). It is my understanding he is well known in the Nxt community as well, thought that is a lot smaller than here and probably some of his rep here contributed to his success there. Maybe vice-versa, I don't know.

As I understand it he is less active here now, but has moved elsewhere (Slack?) where he may still be active. Again I don't know.

Still, much of his success owes to visibility, reputation and brand.

On the matter of anonymity I'm going to go with cuts both ways. You will get talent that wouldn't participate otherwise. I guess Jl777 is that. But you will also get scammers. Many, many scammers. I don't think when people point to a few well known non-anonymou scammers, fully appreciate the number of anonymous scammers (in fact of course many of these are likely the same people using different anonymous identities, which is very much the point). Of course, it goes without saying that both scammers and honest developers can be either.

[rnicoll]

Josh Garza, Bryce Weiner, ICM (Joe Mozelesky), Cryptowest (David McEnery), Adam Guerbuez, BTC Architect (Edgar Soares), IconicExpert (Christopher Bouzy)... are not anonym. Would you buy their shitcoins and buy on their promises because they are not anonym???  

Not to mention having a real name ("Alex Green") and even checking that a company is registered in that name isn't enough to be sure who you're dealing with (for those unaware, Ryan Kennedy managed to register Moopay, more widely known as Moolah, in the UK under a pseudonym).

Still, it helps, and most of the top-10 coins by market cap have highly visible developers (real names available, many of us attend conferences so you can actually meet us and confirm who we are, we have LinkedIn profiles, etc.)

[leipebarry]

If the developer or the creator of a coin is anonymous it is a big no go for me.
There is only one coin I buy where the creator is anonymous and that is Bitcoin.
All other anonymous devs/creators are 99.9% in it for the scam.

The only coins I buy are Guldencoin, Digibyte and Startcoin.
I know who the devs/creators are.

[Snail2]

Developer anonymity is double edged sword indeed. Anonymity encourages scammers but on the other hand it ensures that no retards going to torch their house or kidnap their loved ones after jumping into a coin on the top of a pump and losing a lot of money during the dump and then accusing the dev for their bad trades.

[gjhiggins]

it ensures that no retards going to torch their house or kidnap their loved ones after jumping into a coin on the top of a pump and losing a lot of money during the dump and then accusing the dev for their bad trades.

Citation required.


Cheers

Graham

[foxkyu]

for developer, i think it was a bad choice for anonymity.
investor need the real man behind their investment, and the real capable of the developer

[Snail2]

Citation required.

Cheers

Graham

Doxing or trying to do that and harassing devs or other high visibility coin promoters have been common practice here in the last few years. Of course my example is an extreme one, but for example in last year when Bluemeanie1 was running amok here, sometimes it seemed almost plausible :/.

Not the best example but also worth to take a look at some Havelock related topics in the Securities board after friedcat went missing.

[111magic]

If the developer or the creator of a coin is anonymous it is a big no go for me.

I do agree with this.
New technology opens new markets, and throughout history, every growing, innovative market must respond to the nuisance of scammers, opportunists, and other dishonest actors.
The vision of digital currency is different among people.
The time of quick money is over. New technology will make the difference.
If a developer really wants to achieve something more than it is for the trust better to not be anonymous.
I understand that a little privacy may be necessary.
There are a number of agencies that provide authentication.
Look for instance at http://www.coinssource.com/trust-index-verification/

but that's just my opinion!
 

[TPTB_need_war]

Mt. Gox had retail offices. Everybody knew his name. They even confronted him in front of his offices, all to no avail.

MtGox

That's kind of a silly argument TPTB.

No one on either side of these debates ever claims there are no counterexamples.

Likewise someone else citing BTC-E as an example later in the thread also proves nothing.

As does whether one is anonymous or not proves nothing too.

Btw, you and the Monero devs are anonymous, and I am not.

Let's see if the law returns 100% of everyone's Mt.Gox stolen wallets (impossible since he was spending on expenses since BTC = $10).

Let's see if the Feds get caught stealing again from what they confiscated.

The world is upside down. Get used to it.

[TPTB_need_war]

Let me help you.

Let me teach you a lesson the hard way.

Anonymity or not doesn't seem to correlate with performance.

There are many, many examples of non-anon who have defrauded the community.

If someone refuses to invest in the greatest investment of a lifetime because they don't like anonymous devs, they deserve to lose.

I'm very tempted to go anonymous just so I can make those fools lose.

[gjhiggins]

sometimes it seemed almost plausible

I can’t say I share that perception.

A lot of the smoke surrounding altcoins has cleared and it's now obvious that a number of devs, subscribers to this board, are using the board’s pseudonym facility in order to facilitate the repeated perpetration of swindles.

Caveat emptor but arguments from devs claiming to protect a real-life professional identity are self-serving hyperbole and have no place in a nascent alternate fintech domain. The excuse serves mainly to expose everyone else to the risk that they themselves are creating. The only person that benefits from dev pseudonymity is ... the dev.

If a dev conceals disapproved-of altcoin activities from an employer, it's not just their lookout ... there will be a lot of problematic fallout from a dev being found out and told to cease and desist by their employer (Hello, Mr Spread?). The dev owes it to the community to make the communication of that risk explicit and up front.

Identifiable devs aren't a problem, if unmasked as crooks, they can no longer operate under their real life identity. The total of launched alts is nearing 2500 now and it's pretty clear to see that it's the unidentifiable swindlers that are the most numerous.

Fortunately, a response is trivially easy to formulate - just don't buy into coins launched by pseudonymous devs.

If this wasn't lalalaland, players could reasonably look to the facilitating organisations such as bitcointalk to adopt a more community-supportive policy about crookery but the studied lack of response suggests that they prefer to leave it until the authorities become convinced that the community is unable to regulate or police itself and requires the benefit of “proactive assistance”.

I'm currently pondering a question: Does launching an altcoin on bitcointalk inherently guarantee its failure? I'm beginning to suspect that 99 times out of 100 (2500 launched thus far, remember) it does in fact spell the death knell of the coin. Especially if it was launched by a pseudonymous dev.

Cheers

Graham

[Nxtblg]

but for example in last year when Bluemeanie1 was running amok here, sometimes it seemed almost plausible :/.

That reminds me of a family story. When I was a tyke, my dad & mom went away on vacation and asked my uncle (my dad's youngest brother) to house-sit. When my parents came back, and my uncle had gone back to his own digs, my dad found the tomato plants he had planted had been stripped of the ripe tomatoes.

Common-sensically, he had assumed that my uncle had been responsible. My uncle denied it. So, my dad "escalated" over the phone.

But as he found out later, my uncle was not the tomato-heister. Someone else did it. (No, it wasn't me: I was too young, and I prolly wouldn't have heisted had I been older.) When my dad found out, he called my uncle again to set things right.

But one thing my uncle said in that second conversation stayed stuck in my dad's mind: "By the time you were finished with me, I thought I had done it!"

This little family vignette gives the reason behind at least one of the rights of the accused. It also reveals the wisdom behind certain checkrein-maxims, such as: "The louder the voice, the weaker the case."  

[leipebarry]

Let me help you.

Let me teach you a lesson the hard way.

Anonymity or not does seem to correlate with performance.

There are many, many examples of non-anon who have defrauded the community.

If someone refuses to invest in the greatest investment of a lifetime because they don't like anonymous devs, they deserve to lose.

I'm very tempted to go anonymous just so I can make those fools lose.

I have no idea what you mean with this post.
Are you threatening me in some sort of way?
If that is not the case please explain what you mean with teaching me a lesson.

[smooth]

Let me help you.

Let me teach you a lesson the hard way.

Anonymity or not does seem to correlate with performance.

There are many, many examples of non-anon who have defrauded the community.

If someone refuses to invest in the greatest investment of a lifetime because they don't like anonymous devs, they deserve to lose.

I'm very tempted to go anonymous just so I can make those fools lose.

I have no idea what you mean with this post.
Are you threatening me in some sort of way?
If that is not the case please explain what you mean with teaching me a lesson.

He's not threatening you. He's just talking about launching a really good coin anonymously to prove his point.