Decentralized reputation is a necessary component for truly decentralized social institutions. It allows us to programmatically negotiate social trust and reduce transaction costs in the economy. Below is my attempt to define 10 principles of the digital trust system.

1. Subjective. Any reputation is a reflection of social weight and the degree of trust from the verifier to the owner. That is, by definition, subjective for the verifier (a person, a group of people or an algorithm).

2. Reflexive. The issuer reputation is just as important as your own. The fact that you give a credential to someone is just as important as the fact that you get issued one.

3. Domain-specific. There is no “universal” reputation. There is a reputation of a taxi driver in Uber, a taxi driver in Lyft and a truck driver in the traffic police system.

4. Decentralized. There is no single agent that would have sole control and influence over reputation scoring rules or algorithms.

5. Gameable. Reputation, like security, has no final point. It is an ongoing process in which attackers find new attack vectors and maintainers keep the system stable.

6. Private. Nobody but you has access to your reputation data by default. You can share this data with your employer/app/partner/government. You may not share all, but only part of this data (selective disclosure). You can share no data — just a cryptographic proof that your reputation is above the X threshold (zero-knowledge).

7. Portable. You can build reputation in the same domain through different applications and systems that follow a common standard (think verifiable credentials, DIDs, soulbound tokens). This also implies a shared and publicly edited taxonomy.

8. Pseudonymous. Can accumulate value over time, but does not require instant doxxing. Sybil resistant.

9. Time-dependent. Reputation is constantly evolving over time. Recent actions are more valuable. Lack of activity leads to reduction of the score over time.

10. Ultimately, it is an economic mechanism. Social capital and financial capital are two tools available to economic systems for programming incentive-compatible mechanisms.

Decentralized reputation is a necessary component for truly decentralized social institutions. It allows us to programmatically negotiate social trust and reduce transaction costs in the economy. Below is my attempt to define 10 principles of the digital trust system.

1. Subjective. Any reputation is a reflection of social weight and the degree of trust from the verifier to the owner. That is, by definition, subjective for the verifier (a person, a group of people or an algorithm).

2. Reflexive. The issuer reputation is just as important as your own. The fact that you give a credential to someone is just as important as the fact that you get issued one.

3. Domain-specific. There is no “universal” reputation. There is a reputation of a taxi driver in Uber, a taxi driver in Lyft and a truck driver in the traffic police system.

4. Decentralized. There is no single agent that would have sole control and influence over reputation scoring rules or algorithms.

5. Gameable. Reputation, like security, has no final point. It is an ongoing process in which attackers find new attack vectors and maintainers keep the system stable.

6. Private. Nobody but you has access to your reputation data by default. You can share this data with your employer/app/partner/government. You may not share all, but only part of this data (selective disclosure). You can share no data — just a cryptographic proof that your reputation is above the X threshold (zero-knowledge).

7. Portable. You can build reputation in the same domain through different applications and systems that follow a common standard (think verifiable credentials, DIDs, soulbound tokens). This also implies a shared and publicly edited taxonomy.

8. Pseudonymous. Can accumulate value over time, but does not require instant doxxing. Sybil resistant.

9. Time-dependent. Reputation is constantly evolving over time. Recent actions are more valuable. Lack of activity leads to reduction of the score over time.

10. Ultimately, it is an economic mechanism. Social capital and financial capital are two tools available to economic systems for programming incentive-compatible mechanisms.