Romance and investment scams: the relationship before the transfer
Learn how scams work and study their methods, so you can move through life armed with knowledge instead of blind trust!
Research & analysis3 min
Read the publication
MASTR · 2024–2026
All publications · 5
Original investigations, critical essays and the conversations behind them. Read by subject, follow a thread, or find a person or project in the source texts.
694 · Selected publications · 5/29
Paid promotion · 22 Jul 2026
I am genuinely stunned by how much some casinos and Web3 companies are willing to pay KOLs whose credibility is roughly equal to a pile of shit.
Commentary & rants1 min
The intermediary returned with a referral link
Web3 records every transaction forever, except the transaction where accountability quietly disappears.
Commentary & rants2 min
What crypto users reward: questions for the audience
You love when a convicted liar becomes a respected founder again because he sponsored the correct event, don’t you?
Building & independence6 min
The case for onchain markets, with execution still to improve
The case for onchain markets, with execution still to improve. Dated original source, with context and links.
Commentary & rants1 min
Onchain and exchange volume: what can actually be compared
However, the claim that DEXs already represent more than 35% of all crypto trading volume is misleading, or depends heavily on the selected dates, provider and measurement method.
Research & analysis3 min
Tate-linked token promotions and legal allegations: July 2026 archive
Here is the full list of charges against the Tate brothers, along with some of the crypto scams they promoted.
Research & analysis5 min
Malware distributed through Steam: the July 2026 report
The FBI has arrested 21-year-old Zyaire Wilkins over an alleged operation that distributed malware through video games.
Research & analysis1 min
What personal accountability would change in Web3
What would Web3 look like if founders and KOLs were personally accountable for the promises they make and the millions that disappear behind them?
Commentary & rants2 min
BitShine: the reported Taiwan sentencing
Taiwan’s Shilin District Court has sentenced the man behind the BitShine crypto exchange, identified by the surname Shih, to 22 years in prison for running a large-scale fraud and money-laundering operation disguised as a legitimate…
Research & analysis2 min
A dedicated iPhone and a hardware wallet have different trust boundaries
Calling every hardware wallet “garbage” because Ledger Live has poor UX confuses the frontend with the security boundary.
Research & analysis3 min
What Bubblemaps and token scanners cannot establish
The problem is that many traders treat a colourful cluster or a green security score as the result of an investigation, when it is merely the starting point.
Research & analysis4 min
The isolation of independent crypto research
After 2.5 years in Web3, I increasingly feel that very few people still care about the same things I do.
Commentary & rants4 min
From decentralisation to attention capture
How financial incentives, manufactured attention and platform design shape participation in crypto, with the original evidence and source list.
Original articles23 min
Robinhood Chain: MASTR’s critique of volume and liquidity
Robinhood Chain: MASTR’s critique of volume and liquidity. Dated original source, with context and links.
Commentary & rants1 min
Crypto Is Still Swimming in Stablecoins.
People keep talking about the next bull run, bullish catalysts and whatever narrative is supposed to send everything higher.
Commentary & rants2 min
Paid promotion · 13 Jul 2026
The thing is, posts like this often take me hours to research, verify and explain properly, while 99% of the timeline is effortless slop that is easier to consume and usually performs better.
Commentary & rants1 min
Tracing stolen funds is different from recovering them
The strongest opportunity often appears when an on-chain flow reaches a centralised exchange, casino, payment processor or another custodial service.
Research & analysis3 min
Robinhood Chain: looking beneath the headline transaction count
To be honest, Robinhood Chain is not a serious financial network at the moment. Right now it is mostly a fresh liquidity venue being stress-tested by memecoins, bots, volatile pools and speculative volume.
Research & analysis5 min
From decentralisation to attention capture: the published abstract
Yet the public communication surrounding many blockchain ecosystems increasingly reproduces the same structures of influence these systems claimed to challenge.
Commentary & rants4 min
Growing an audience without paid shills
Honestly, I am still surprised I managed to grow to 31K followers while refusing to play most of these games.
Commentary & rants3 min
Paid promotion · 10 Jul 2026
I understand that attention has value, that reach takes work, and that not everyone can spend years online without getting anything back.
Commentary & rants1 min
Decentralisation and control · 10 Jul 2026
How the fuck are so many of you bullish on a broker-owned finance chain just because they slapped “onchain” on it? Lmao
Commentary & rants1 min
Capital for useful software instead of disposable tokens
Imagine this money going into real projects and startups in Web3 that are actually building something useful, shipping something, solving something, or doing anything good for this space.
Commentary & rants3 min