Put Wall Street, blockchain Twitter, and Gary Vaynerchuck into a jar. Shake it thoroughly, you’ve got BitClout: The new social network that’s making headlines where content creators and major influences get there own coin that you can buy and sell.

If this is the first time you’re hearing about BitClout, here’s a clearer explanation by Bobby Burch on Indie Hackers:

BitClout is a crypto-focused social media platform that monetizes influencers’ reputations into customized coins that users can buy and sell.

It basically allows users to speculate on people’s success, from Elon Musk to Kanye West.

Every profile gets its own unique creator coin. Users can convert Bitcoins into BitClout’s coins. These can be used to buy a creator’s coin. The same way you buy shares of a company. When people buy the coin of a creator, the price for that coin goes up. Vice versa, when people sell, the price goes down.

If you want to know more about the basics of BitClout, this Indie Hackers post is quite interesting.

Is there an opportunity? Well, being an early adopter can be risky, but it has its upside.

This piece from the Brainstorms newsletter puts forth an option:

• Since it’s a new platform, positioning yourself as an expert shouldn’t be hard.
• Think off-platform: Build a community of BitClout enthusiasts.
• Once you have a community, identify their pain points and build a product that solves them.

That’s certainly a good plan to become a BitClout guru. If you really know your stuff, then why not spread the knowledge!

But it’s not all fun and games. Here are some of the biggest criticisms:

• It’s unregulated: there isn’t any oversight body regulating it.
• You can’t convert BitClout coins into money or Bitcoins.
• While some influencers joined the hype, the platform doesn’t have any consent from celebrities to trade their reputation. They will likely face many legal battles.
• The founder of BitClout is anonymous.

There are other signals that put BitClout under a bad light, and Coffeezilla shared some in this thread.

Despite these downsides, the platform is attracting big investors: Coinbase Ventures, Social Capital, Winklevoss Capital, and the Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian.

BitClout could be the next big thing. Or, it could be the next big flop.