In Cambria’s presale, wallets with an Ethos score committed 66% more on average than wallets without one. Of 960 total participants, 568 had Ethos scores on file.
For any team running a token sale, that result speaks to a basic question: who are the wallets showing up, and which of them are the community members worth prioritizing? Cambria, a gaming project on Abstract, had already been using Ethos Human Verification for priority access. The presale data shows what happened when it weighted allocation by reputation.
The allocation problem
Every team running a token sale faces the same dilemma. Without any signal about who is behind each wallet, teams either over-allocate to bad actors or under-allocate to their best community members.
Cambria’s approach was to add that signal using Ethos credibility scores, without building anything new.
How Cambria used Ethos scores
Cambria pulled Ethos credibility scores through the free Ethos API and used them as a multiplier for allocation priority. Human Verified users received an additional bonus on top. According to the case study, no new infrastructure was needed: one API call per wallet gave an instant signal, and integration took minutes.
The process came down to three steps:
- Score: Cambria queried the Ethos API for each participating wallet’s credibility score. 568 of 960 participants had scores on file.
- Weight: credibility scores were used as a multiplier on allocation, with an additional bonus for Human Verified users. No manual review was needed.
- Result: wallets with Ethos scores committed 66% more on average.
The data
Ethos describes the presale results as the first concrete proof that reputation data correlates directly with capital commitment. The participants split into two groups:
- With an Ethos score: 568 wallets (59% of participants), with average commitment 66% above baseline
- Without an Ethos score: 392 wallets (41% of participants), used as the baseline
The case study sums up the finding this way:
“When you filter by reputation, you’re filtering for conviction.”
In other words, the wallets that had built a reputation on Ethos were also the ones that put more behind the project when the sale opened.
How it compares with whitelists and KYC
The case study compares three ways of deciding who gets an allocation:
- Whitelist: low sybil resistance, no conviction signal, privacy preserving, manual to run, days to set up, medium friction for users
- KYC gate: medium sybil resistance, no conviction signal, not privacy preserving, a cost per user, weeks to set up, high friction for users
- Ethos score: high sybil resistance, a conviction signal of +66% in Cambria’s presale, privacy preserving, a free API, minutes to set up, no added friction for users
Other ways teams could use the same signal
The case study lists several other places where credibility scores could inform who gets access or priority:
- Airdrop distribution: weight allocations toward users with established reputation
- Trading competitions: gate leaderboards to verified, reputable participants
- Exclusive access: offer perks, early access or reduced collateral to high-credibility users
- Community curation: identify the most trusted supporters for ambassador and governance roles
- DeFi lending: use credibility scores as a trust primitive for undercollateralized lending
Cambria at a glance
- Category: gaming
- Chain: Abstract
- Participants: 960, of whom 568 had Ethos scores
- Score used as: an allocation multiplier
- Human Verified bonus: yes
- API cost: free
- Integration time: minutes
This article is adapted from the Ethos case study.
