Some of you are going to see your credibility score go down. Not because you did something wrong. Not because Ethos made a mistake. But because the system just got a lot better at seeing something it was missing before. Here's what EIP-14 actually is, why it exists, and what it means for your score.

The Problem It's Solving

"Ethos is a circle jerk," some said. Okay, fine — let's fix it (again).

Credibility on Ethos is built from reviews. But if the people reviewing each other are all in the same group, scratching each other's backs in a circle, the scores look real but aren't. A reviews B. B reviews C. C reviews A. Everyone's score goes up — but nobody outside the group reviewed anyone. The signal looks like credibility, but it's a closed loop.

Ethos has always caught direct cycles (A reviews B, B reviews A — that was EIP-7). EIP-14 extends detection to cycles up to length 4 — triangles and rectangles, not just direct reciprocals.

How bad was the abuse? One group of 150 people reviewing each other in a cycle got to nearly 1600 credibility through reviews alone.

Why Your Score Might Drop Even If You Didn't Collude

You might not have colluded intentionally. But if your reputation comes primarily from a tight-knit local cluster — a Discord community, a friend group, a trading circle — it looks stronger than it is. Genuine credibility comes from many different people, in many different contexts, independently attesting to who you are.

If your score drops under EIP-14, it means your existing reviews contained detected cycles and were weighted down accordingly. It does NOT mean you're a bad person, that you did something deliberately wrong, or that your reputation is fake. It means the system got more precise.

If Your Score Doesn't Change, Here's Why

If your reputation comes from diverse, independent sources, EIP-14 barely touches you. And users who have more vouches than reviews will see their scores actually go UP — rewarded more for high economic security vouches than low economic security reviews.

Calibration, Not Punishment

Ethos scores are living measurements of trust signals, and they will always require tweaking — because humans respond to incentives and will always find new ways to game systems. EIP-14 is a recalibration of what the score actually measures.

The goal was never high numbers. The goal was accurate numbers. Every time Ethos tightens the score model, some scores go down — and the scores that remain mean more.

The Rollout: Community-Driven

The original plan was to roll the changes out over 60 days. After talking to the community, most people preferred seeing the score impact immediately rather than a "slow death" — so EIP-14 adjustments rolled out IN FULL right away.

What to Do If Your Score Dropped

• Don't panic - Read your score breakdown and look at where your reviews come from

• Diversify organically - Build relationships and reputation outside your cluster over time

• Add economic security - Vouches, diverse communities, and reputation markets all counter the adjustment

Reputation matters. That's why we keep making it harder to fake.

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