“Doxed” or “doxing” is an informal term that has been used more and more recently, especially in the crypto world. The meaning refers to the idea of “revealing” identity or making information public. A bit like if we had found the identity of Satoshi Nakamoto and we would then say that he had been “doxed”.
In French, the way of writing it may differ but the idea is always the same in being "doxed": that of revealing the identity or the past of an individual without this approach coming from him.
The first major case of doxing occurred in early 2022, when the anonymous treasurer called "0xSifu" of the protocol Wonderland was revealed to be Michael Patryn. The latter is a criminal convicted of money laundering and is also the co-founder of the platform QuadrigaCX (which would have closed its doors with millions of dollars in BTC to make it short). To learn more about this shady and exciting story, read our article on "Alice in Crookland".
However, recently another doxing is making even more noise. This is the revelation of the identity of two founding individuals of the famous depressed monkeys Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) were “unmasked by the journalist Notopoulos from BuzzFeed.
The title of the article couldn't be clearer: We Found The Real Names Of Bored Ape Yacht Club's.
As a reminder, we are talking about the largest collection of NFTs currently with the cheapest NFT costing around $300,000 (at the current ETH price).
The two founders (out of the 4) are said to be known by their pseudonyms Gordon Goner and Gargamel, or respectively their real names Greg Solano, a 32-year-old aspiring writer and editor, and Wylie Aronow, who lives in Florida. That's all Notopoulos "revealed."
The identities of the project's two other co-founders, computer engineers known as “Emperor Tomato Ketchup” and “No Sass,” have remained anonymous.
In fact, the journalist had no particular difficulty in tracing the identities; She simply browsed the publicly available materials on the website of Yuga Labs, the company behind the collection. Yuga Labs is registered in Delaware with the names of the principals who head Solano and Aronow.
At the time of the BuzzFeeds reveal, Depressed Monkeys NFT collection BAYC was in talks to receive funding to develop the project in the future. With such a community, such visibility, it would indeed be a shame not to further develop the usefulness of these NFTs.
And that's where the debate broke out. Right now on the Twittersphere, it's all anyone's talking about. Crypto podcaster Colbie, known for her big antics, called the article journalistic "trash" created solely to generate clicks. One might wonder if he actually read the article...
(Between us, this obviously generated some traffic for BuzzFeed but very seriously, this is also part of their editorial lines, it goes without saying. They don't need this article to generate traffic either. We can we sincerely think that the newspaper carried out this investigation in good faith, out of curiosity perhaps or to question us?).
Because yes, very clearly, the article forcefully reopened the debate onanonymity in cryptos. A heated and divisive debate.
Because doxing is actually (like many things in the cryptosphere) a philosophical question. By the way, if you browse the blog of Vitalik Buterin, the founder of Ethereum and you will see a section called "Philosophy"...
Are journalists going too far or are they just doing their job?
Even more than the word doxed, it is above all the moral question surrounding this forced revelation which challenges the crypto community.
We can say that very clearly, doxxing a (shady) individual can prove to be saving. This helps clean up the place and reassures the customers that we are, in the end.
On the other hand, we can also be outraged that identities are revealed when we are precisely on the blockchain, a technology invented by a person (or a group) who is still anonymous today!
It was even the beauty of the thing and of this technology which fades in the face of the narcissism and egotrip of the inventors.
Satoshi even showed the quality and superiority of his genius by having preserved his anonymity. How many people would have bragged about it and shouted to the world that they are the originator of Bitcoin? Many people, you will agree.
We're getting off topic, forgive me.
The crucial question is whether journalists are not going too far in revealing these identities...Because it can also be a form of violation of individual freedoms to reveal an identity that wishes to remain anonymous.
I mean...Imagine for a second that a person displays the identity of Daft Punk (the globally successful electro music duo has never revealed the identity of their members without it having any impact on their success. ) However, it's not really comparable.
So...What to think in the end...?
Should anonymity in crypto remain an inviolable fundamental freedom?
Having studied a minimum of philosophy at university, the first thing we can say is that it would be far too pretentious to claim to answer the question in a few lines. The debate is divisive and there are coherent arguments on both sides.
This would require a more in-depth and rigorous analysis of all the elements that go into the question. Let's proceed with caution on a few things, however. Anonymity remains a right and fundamentally remains an essential element of blockchain and 3 web. Certainly.
However, in the real world full of scammers, anonymity also remains a formidable cover which can protect criminals from any conviction.
Let's imagine for a moment the scenario where anonymity would always be preserved. A good thought experiment to analyze the consequences of the thing.
With anonymity, we would allow thugs to grow who would not be worried and we would all be more or less subjected to rackets on a constant basis. Decentralized finance would become (and is already becoming) a huge trappings for scum and former white-collar criminals…
We would then become more and more suspicious (because more and more of them are stolen) and in the end, we would gradually abandon the world of cryptos.
We would even end up saying, as with the current detractors of Bitcoin, that all this is nothing but a vast world of crooks created by and for crooks….
Likewise, as many tweets have pointed out (including a certain Ed Zitron, author of an excellent article on the hypocrisy of NFT creators), anonymity would be sought in particular by the founders of projects who want to protect their amassed wealth... BAYC NFTs provide their founders with perpetual fortunes and commissions... Revealing their identities would subject them to prosecution (tax, physical, etc.).
Revealing identities can “prevent” and deter criminals from taking action
In fact, it would be difficult if not impossible to imagine this in traditional finance. The journalist behind the doxing declared this to the newspaper CoinTelegraph : “There are reasons why in traditional business the CEO or founder of a company uses their real name and not a pseudonym. How do you hold them accountable if you don't know who they are? ".
It must be admitted that she is right to draw the parallel. Should we remember that we are talking about business. We talk about business, services, products and customers ultimately and that must not be forgotten. We're not talking about small JPEG images as novices on the issue of NFTs like to think.
She added: "Executives associated with publicly traded companies in the United States are required by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to complete several formal documents and reports while smaller companies are subject to strict banking regulations requiring all executives to use their real names."
When there is a mistake committed or theft, the justice system can investigate and arrest the culprits. It's as simple as that….
So, we can choose to split the pear in two: doxing should be carried out on a case-by-case basis only? Yes, but, we often have no doubt before the scam is made...And once the scam is made, the rug pull is proven and the managers break with the cash...In general, they erase all trace...It would then be too late to dox the thieves...
Final and zetetic word
Please note that many relevant players in the crypto world are currently looking into the issue. Some welcome BuzzFeed's work while others are outraged by such a practice.
In short, it's a delicate question, we grant you that and we are going to suspend our judgment as a good Zetetician which we are not always, unfortunately...
We would simply end up recalling the old, all too true expression of Hobbes, “homo hominus Lupus”…
Anonymity is certainly a good thing in absolute terms, but it remains an ideal that cannot "work" in a world of wolves....
There are rumors that to create an NFT, now on Opensea, you will have to declare your identity...We will talk to you about this in a future article.
To go further on the questionn, here are some articles to quench your big wolf curiosity:
- Read the original article about BAYC's identity on BuzzFeed.
- Discover the article which offers an interesting summary on CoinTelegraph
- The article “Why Does Pseudonymity Matter So Much About the Crypto World?”: https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/segments/why-does-crypto-world-care-so-much-about-pseudonyms-on-the-media
- See Ed Zitron's excellent article onHypocrisy and the money laundering of NFTs.
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