Key Takeaways
- Celebrity coin trading platform BitClout went offline last week. It briefly returned to the web on Wednesday.
- The platform allows cryptocurrency investors to trade tokens connected to celebrities and crypto leaders.
- BitClout’s origins are unknown, and most celebrities have not endosed it, making its tokens a questionable investment.
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Social marketplace BitClout has come back online following an outage that lasted approximately one week.
What Is BitClout?
BitClout allows content creators, celebrities, and famous crypto personalities to mint a “creator coin” that can be exchanged using the platform’s native currency.
The platform presents itself as a decentralized social network that allows for the tokenization of social clout. Each Twitter profile gets one BitClout account, whether they decide to participate or not.
Currently, BitClout’s listings are headed by Elon Musk, whose coins have achieved a $29 million market cap. Apart from mainstream celebrities like Katy Perry and Kim Kardashian, top-ranking crypto figures like Ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin and Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao also top the list.
However, those profiles have not necessarily been created or claimed by the celebrities themselves. One notable exception is FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, who has claimed his BitClout identity.
All trades on the platform must be made using the platform’s native digital currency. To purchase that currency, users must send Bitcoin to BitClout, which is then transformed to a BitClout balance.
BitClout’s Mysterious Origins
The operators of BitClout are unknown. The project’s whitepaper claims that it is a fully open-source project with no specific company bankrolling it. Billboard has reported that several big-name venture capital firms are rumored to be behind BitClout, but the project itself has said nothing on the matter.
While BitClout was closed, industry insiders and influencers were able to pre-mine some of the most valuable coins. This prompted others to accuse the project of unfair distribution of its tokens.
Those select few are now able to sell the social coins bought during last week’s closed beta period for a hefty profit. That also caused the price of certain coins to skyrocket.
BitClout’s Brief Outage
BitClout went offline last week and returned on Mar. 17 Despite the site’s brief return, it appears to be offline again: visitors who have a password to the site are told that the site is under maintenance.
A public frontend for the site, BitClout Pulse, also reports that the BitClout blockchain is experiencing backup.
The fact that the platform is selling coins linked to the identity of celebrities is legally questionable, meaning that the site could run into other availability issues in the future.
Disclaimer: The author held Bitcoin and a number of other cryptocurrencies at the time of writing.
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