The @0xhazels mint was cancelled on September 30, five hours after it opened. The founder, @Rosaaa, had a public record on Ethos the whole time the project’s whitelist (WL) giveaways were running.

That raises two questions. What did the founder’s Ethos score say about her? And could it have helped anyone avoid this? Here’s what was sitting on Rosaaa’s Ethos profile.

A review-for-review offer in March

In March, Rosaaa posted an open offer on X: review me and I’ll review you back. The response was fast:

• 17 positive reviews arrived within 48 hours
• 16 of them got a review in return

Reviews on Ethos are meant to reflect what people actually think of each other. Trading positive reviews in bulk inflates a reputation without saying anything about whether the person can be trusted.

Retaliation against people who called it out

When two people called out the review swap, Rosaaa responded by leaving them negative reviews. Using reviews to punish critics turns a reputation tool into a weapon, and it made the original behavior harder to defend.

The community’s verdict

The case went to a slash, filed as abuse of the Ethos system and hostile conduct. The outcome was one-sided:

• 458 votes to 0 in favor of the slash
• 200 points docked from Rosaaa’s score
• 19 of the reviewers who took part in the swap were also penalized

The reviewers who went along with the offer were held responsible too. Joining a review swap isn’t a neutral act on Ethos; it puts your own credibility on the line.

A record that was there the whole time

None of this was hidden. The slash and the score penalty were on Rosaaa’s public profile months before the Hazels mint, including throughout the WL giveaways. Anyone deciding whether to chase a whitelist spot could have looked up the founder and seen a unanimous community judgment about how she had treated the system and the people around her.

That’s the point of an onchain reputation record: past behavior stays attached to the account, so people can check it before they commit time or money to a project.

Who was promoting the project

Ethos also shared a page showing who was posting about Hazels, for anyone who wants to see which accounts were talking up the project before the mint was cancelled.

This thread first appeared on X.