To many crypto evangelists, Web3 is the “next big thing” whose massive potential shouldn’t be ignored. Still, every crypto bro with a cartoon ape profile pic waxing lyrical about decentralization and financial freedom is an expert advising caution right now. Rug pulls, pump-and-dumps, and outright theft aren’t bugs in the system—they’re features. Ethos is one of the industry leaders turning things around in this space.

“Fraud is everywhere in web3, and we’re still in the Wild West,” opines Trevor Thompson, Ethos’ CEO. As a trader in the trenches, Thompson has witnessed how corrupt people and organizations can be. Most notably, “they would say one thing and do something completely different for their own personal financial gain.” Thompson notes that blockchain’s vaunted pseudonymity is a blessing but can still be a gift to grifters who can rinse and repeat their scams under new identities.

“There’s no accountability in the space, and those grifters continued to drain money out of the space running new scams under new guises,” Thompson remarks. News headlines in the past few years confirm that.

Why? Because there’s zero accountability. Launch a shady project, hype it to the moon, drain the liquidity pool, and vanish into the ether. Then do it all over again with a new Twitter handle and a fresh batch of suckers. It’s a con artist’s wet dream. This is the problem Ethos aims to solve with a Credibility Score for participants.

“The most powerful signal we have when evaluating products, people, or services is what other people say about them,” remarks Ben Walther, Ethos’ CTO. “This instrumentation is missing on-chain, and reviewing in Ethos is one of the primitive foundations to help us better observe this peer-to-peer behavior. Reviews, vouches, slashes, and invites are the primitives of Ethos. Together, they enable us to create a measurable, on-chain credibility score to benefit all crypto participants and drive ethical and trustworthy actions across web3.”

Thompson, who brings 10+ years of building B2B SaaS as a product person to Ethos, is a successful on-chain crypto trader who yearns for more transparency in the industry. Together with Walther, an antifraud cybersecurity expert with 18+ years of experience, they’re taking a crypto-first approach to solving this problem—where reputation could be earned and credibility more easily understood.

“We want to solve this problem of grift and fraud and evolve crypto out of the Wild West into a more modern state of nature,” the team asserts. It’s a bold plan, but it is audacious enough to work in a space where trust is in short supply—no more guesswork when investing your hard-earned dollars. The team’s Chrome extension will allow all users to access Ethos credibility scores and more info directly from Twitter.

“Next time you ask yourself, “Should I trust what this person is saying?” or “Can I count on this person for an OTC deal?” you won’t go in with blind trust,” the team promises.

Ultimately, Ethos seeks to create checks and balances similar to what you’d find in traditional finance while retaining the pseudonyms. This way, it’s easier for potential investors to separate the wheat from the chaff in a world where anonymity often shields terrible actors.