MMarketing Against The Grain
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Innovation

Wallet-Based Dynamic Profile Model

Turn portable activity records into a live, verifiable user profile

Difficulty
Advanced
Time to result
~months to results
Steps
6
Confidence
94%

The model treats a wallet as both a reusable login and a portable container for activity, assets, and credentials. Participating applications write or recognize evidence of what a person has done, learned, purchased, or verified. A profile layer interprets those records into an experience level, reputation signal, or set of qualifications that updates as new activity occurs. Businesses can then personalize education, access, offers, communities, or hiring decisions using demonstrated behavior rather than a static self-description. The mechanism requires transparent scoring, user consent, context-sensitive interpretation, and resistance to manipulation. Its output is a live profile that can travel across compatible services while remaining more verifiable than a conventional résumé or manually maintained account biography.

Origin

Extracted from Marketing Against The Grain through Kieran Flanagan's explanation of Degen Score, universal wallet login, dynamic Web3 experience profiles, and their emerging use in hiring.

Core principles

  • 01A portable identity can connect activity across applications
  • 02Observed and credentialed experience is stronger than self-reported claims
  • 03Profiles should update as users act and learn
  • 04Users can carry reputation between participating services
  • 05Personalization improves when experience is represented dynamically

How to run it

  1. 1

    Define meaningful experience

    Identify the actions, achievements, or credentials that genuinely indicate competence or engagement in the target context. Exclude activity that is easy to generate but weakly related to the intended conclusion.

    Pro tip Interview domain experts before assigning importance to an activity.

    Watch out Transaction volume alone can reward wealth or speculation rather than expertise.

  2. 2

    Create portable records

    Represent qualifying activity through wallet-linked records or verifiable credentials that participating services can recognize. Preserve enough context to interpret what each record means.

    Pro tip Use standards that avoid locking the profile to one application.

    Watch out Portability can amplify inaccurate or inappropriate data across services.

  3. 3

    Verify and normalize evidence

    Check record authenticity and translate different activity types into comparable signals. Detect duplicated, purchased, fraudulent, or mechanically generated activity.

    Pro tip Retain the original evidence alongside any normalized score.

    Watch out A single opaque score can conceal important distinctions between kinds of experience.

  4. 4

    Build the dynamic profile

    Calculate levels, capabilities, or reputation indicators from the verified records. Update the profile when relevant new evidence appears or old evidence loses relevance.

    Pro tip Show the factors contributing to each profile conclusion.

    Watch out Do not imply precision that the underlying evidence cannot support.

  5. 5

    Apply it to a bounded use case

    Use the profile for a specific purpose such as tailored education, community access, product guidance, or candidate discovery. Test whether it improves that outcome over a static profile.

    Pro tip Begin with low-risk recommendations before high-stakes decisions.

    Watch out Do not automatically transfer a score into unrelated contexts.

  6. 6

    Give users agency

    Let people inspect their records, correct errors, control disclosure, and understand how decisions are made. Establish expiration, revocation, and appeal mechanisms.

    Pro tip Offer selective disclosure rather than forcing users to expose an entire wallet history.

    Watch out Universal identity can become invasive surveillance without privacy boundaries.

In the wild

Degen Score experience levels

A service reviews a wallet's coin trading, NFT activity, and other Web3 behavior to produce an experience score with levels ranging from novice to Degen. The resulting profile reflects observed ecosystem activity rather than only what the person claims to know.

Applications can recognize different experience levels and adapt access, education, or opportunities.

Verifiable candidate profile

A financial institution reviewing candidates for Web3 roles checks portable evidence of relevant activity and credentials. Recruiters use the evidence as one input alongside interviews rather than relying exclusively on a manually written LinkedIn résumé.

Hiring incorporates verifiable domain experience while retaining human assessment.

Common mistakes

Treating the score as objective truth

Every profile reflects chosen inputs, weights, and omissions. Keep the evidence visible and the interpretation contestable.

Using one identity across every context

Portability does not mean every activity should be disclosed or interpreted in every social, commercial, or professional setting.

Rewarding activity instead of competence

High transaction counts can reflect speculation, automation, or wealth rather than meaningful skill or experience.

Is it for you?

Best for

It is best for ecosystems where verified experience can improve personalization, access, reputation, education, or hiring.

Not ideal for

It is not ideal for sensitive profiling without meaningful consent, transparent interpretation, and strong privacy safeguards.

From the transcript

One of the big things about Web3, I think that's going to really change the way that we interact with things is your wallet is…

Kieran Flanagan · 09:30

So you can start to build a dynamic profile for people based upon real experience, right?

Kieran Flanagan · 10:30

Whereas in web 3, because your wallet is the interface to everything, you can actually start to build a real dynamic profile of how experienced…

Kieran Flanagan · 11:00

From the episode

How Web 3 Will Impact Your Marketing