Hi there, my name is Daniel Tenner. My pronouns are he/him.

You can read more about why this post exists here.

That’s my actual real name. I’m not hiding under a pseudonym, though I like the username “swombat” and use it everywhere. I believe in transparency and in standing behind your statements. I understand there are many people in crypto and web3 who prefer to remain pseudonymous, and I respect their choice, but that’s just not me.

A name by itself is not much. I could claim to be called Gerald Bumquist, and you would have no way of knowing that it’s a real person’s name. So for more completeness, here are other profiles that I’ve had on the web over the years, that are also linked to me, and also state “Daniel Tenner” or “swombat” as my name. Their long existence, which can be verified via sites like archive.org, can confirm that if “Daniel Tenner” is an invented identity, it’d have to be a very long game I’ve been playing for over a decade.

First of all, my twitter account - since 2007: @swombat

My Eth account profile: swombat.eth

My swombat.com blog, no longer active: swombat.com

My main (?) blog, maybe sometimes active: danieltenner.com

My DJ blog - not currently active: dantenner.com

My instagram, full of miniature paintings: swombat

One of the businesses I founded: GrantTree

My Hacker News profile, with rather too many comments posted: swombat

My LinkedIn account. Don’t bother contacting me here, just DM me: Daniel Tenner

Photos of me are visible on several of those links, from a decade ago, and more recent ones, confirming the links between “me” as an entity and these various sites.

Why…

I share all this to clarify what I mean by “doxxed”. It is not knowing about someone’s home address so you can go and harass them. Being doxxed is about clearly linking your personal reputation to whatever it is you’re trying to achieve online. It means not having the possibility of just deleting your twitter account and pretending none of this ever happened. Think of it as an early form of “proof of stake” algorithm: I stake my reputation behind everything that I do online. If I turn out to be a crook, everything that I’ve ever done online and offline is at risk.

When I express a desire for founders of NFT projects to be doxxed, this is the standard that I would like them to follow. Not just state their name (which may be made up), but actually link their new project to their existing profile online. Stake their reputation.

Not all project founders have a reputation to stake. That’s ok. The NFT and crypto space is incredibly lenient towards lack of credentials. But at the very least it seems to me that people should be staking their legal name when asking people to give them millions of dollars (the typical revenue of an NFT project mint).

So…

So here I am. My name is Daniel Tenner. I was born in 1980. I’m a serial entrepreneur whose third business, GrantTree, is still running and employing 40+ people, though I’ve retired from running it. Some time ago I worked for Accenture, and even before that I did a degree in Physics in Oxford University. I’ve been a geek since I picked up a BASIC manual that came with my C64 when I was 9 years old. My latest passion, shared in this website and my recent twitter activity, is web3 and how it can change the world, and particularly NFT projects.

Now you know more, you may wish to read more of what I’ve written.