Dear Citizen of the Metaverse,

I regret to inform you that you are surrounded by a crowd of low effort, low quality, and fake users.

Human impersonation is not a new problem; message spam and bots in gaming have been with us for decades. But as it gets even cheaper to produce social signals that mimic real accounts, a growing flood of AI agents is poised to completely drown out high quality users in a sea of fake identities and false representation. Real humans cannot compete with infinite digital clones acting day and night.

Businesses and blockchain projects seek paying and legitimate customers. Using KYC processes reliant on real world identity or social media "grinding" to find an audience, are costly, unreliable, and unpalatable for many quality users. We must find better ways to show our value.

One underused technique is to use the public trail left by blockchain users. Everybody in blockchain knows that this data exists, but thus far few entities have emerged to score and evaluate wallet behavior qualitatively. We assert that in the near future, your wallet history will be a key component of proving your citizenship within the Metaverse.

We have identified key characteristics of NFT-related activities and a methodology for valuing the sunk opportunity cost a user has invested in their wallet during their lifespan and propose using this as a first class signal for targeting users. This signal is not only useful for weeding out Sybil attacks, but also suitable for recognizing VIP users and rewarding loyalty.

Your wallet history will be a key component of proving your citizenship within the Metaverse.

But why is NFT ownership an ideal signal for user reputation? While in some cases NFT ownership is a profitable venture, in most cases it is a sacrifice of value in exchange for affiliation or reputation. The same occurs off-chain when people buy collectible figures, art, or other status symbols. The sacrifice of value is costly and forms a natural barrier to entry for low quality profiles created at scale.

Further, the NFTs themselves are a rich source of data that can be used to infer a user's behavior and interests. Behavioral data is a powerful tool for targeting specific users above and beyond the ability to exclude low quality users. And NFT holders DO want to be targeted according to their interests. The public data associated with NFTs remains superior to conventional collectibles in terms of advertising a user's affiliations and interests.

Somewhere along the way, the Metaverse lost the plot with respect to NFTs. For a brief period of time (like other historical collectible crazes), NFTs were about chasing gains. But aside from that, NFTs are about finding like-minded humans and expressing your interests. We believe that the continued necessity of creating quality-gated enclaves will remind people of the inherent utility in NFTs and reward the humans who have sacrificed and invested in their long-term Metaverse reputation.

...the continued necessity of creating quality-gated enclaves will remind people of the inherent utility in NFTs

We recommend that all Ethereum wallet holders, nay all humans, take stock of your Metaverse reputation and ensure that you are well-positioned to distinguish yourself.