MetaCert Wants to Move Web Trust Scores onto the Blockchain

MetaCert, a company that already rates how trustworthy a website is, is planning to move that reputation data onto a blockchain. In a recent episode of the Ledger Cast podcast, CEO Paul Walsh walked hosts Brian Krogsgard and Derek Waltchack through the MetaCert Protocol, a planned decentralized registry for online trust and reputation. Walsh's core argument is that the information people use to judge a link should not sit in one company's database.

The company's current products are centralized. Its Cryptonite browser extension attaches reputation scores to website addresses as people browse. MetaCert also offers add-ons for chat platforms such as Slack and Telegram, designed to keep scam links out of communities. Walsh sees chat apps as the next major front in online security, and crypto communities, which have long dealt with phishing links and fake giveaways in group chats, already know that problem well.

The protocol would replace that central database with a shared registry and pay people to maintain it. Participants earn tokens for submitting web addresses and for validating how those addresses are categorized. The hosts described that incentive design as the heart of the system. The token is also meant to make it costly for bad actors to degrade the quality of the registry.

MetaCert is seeking to raise $40 million, including through a private sale. Walsh said the company has received a lot of interest so far. The private sale carries no discount or bonus, but it gives some buyers a larger share of the tokens. Walsh also said 75% of team tokens will be locked and vested over three years, and he said he is skeptical of the short lockup periods used in some other token sales. Cryptonite users will receive tokens, and once the network launches, they can pay for the extension with tokens or earn them by reporting sites and helping establish their reputations. The protocol will run on Ethereum. ConsenSys is helping with some of the blockchain components, MetaCert plans to bring its token into the Rocket Chat messaging platform, and Ocean Protocol is involved in building the decentralized database.

The hosts also pressed Walsh on the challenges a centralized company faces when it hands part of its product to a decentralized network. They closed the episode with their own impressions of the project, saying they were impressed by MetaCert's experience, since the company has operated since 2011, and by what it is building. The hosts stressed that the episode is educational and not investment advice, and that listeners should do their own research before buying any token.