Mystery of the “👨‍🦲.eth” Wallet

The world of Ethereum Name Service (ENS) was abuzz with activity recently, when a large transaction was noticed from the 👨‍🦲.eth wallet. ENS influencers were in a frenzy, tweeting about the mysterious wallet that had suddenly come to light, and naming its owner a #GoldenBesos.

What made this wallet so special?

It turns out the owner of the wallet is one of the biggest whale ENS domain holders, and the #1 single and base single ethmoji owner.

The Case for Anonymity

Blockchain technology has a deep-rooted history of anonymity. Bitcoin was created by an anonymous person or group of people known as Satoshi Nakamoto in 2008.

The exact identity of Satoshi Nakamoto is unknown, and the reasons for their anonymity have not been made public.

Some speculate that the reason behind remaining anonymous is to avoid governmental regulation, to protect themselves from public scrutiny, or to avoid being targeted by cybercriminals.

Who is the Owner of the 👨‍🦲.eth Wallet?

Unfortunately, it is not possible to know for certain who owns a 👨‍🦲.eth wallet. Blockchain wallets are pseudonymous, meaning that the wallet address does not reveal the identity of the owner.

Typically, the only way to discover who owns a specific wallet is if the owner reveals their identity.

And yet every time the owner of the mystery wallet makes a purchase or sale, the ENS Twitter community is abuzz with speculation.

Why is this particular wallet a subject of so much speculation and what is its importance to the ENS ecosystem?

The Importance of Whales in the ENS Ecosystem

👨‍🦲.eth wallet is not like any other wallet. The owner of the wallet is an ENS Whale.

In the ENS ecosystem, whales are large holders of either ENS Tokens or ENS Domain Names. As such, they are powerful participants in the ENS ecosystem, as their holdings give them significant influence over the success or failure of the project.

Whales have the power to affect the price of ENS tokens in the market, as well as the liquidity of the system. They can also act as market makers and arbitrageurs, providing liquidity and price stability. Additionally, whales can directly influence the success of projects within the ENS system by investing in them and providing liquidity.

As such, ENS whales can have a great impact on the growth and development of the entire ENS ecosystem. By providing liquidity to the market and investing in promising projects, they can help to ensure the longevity and success of the ENS system and its projects.

The Most Likely Owner of the 👨‍🦲 Wallet

So who does the mystery wallet belong to?

There has been a lot of recent speculation that the 👨‍🦲.eth Wallet could be owned by Alexis Ohanian and his Venture Capital Firm, 776.

What makes Alexis the most likely candidate?

Alexis Ohanian, the co–founder of Reddit, a multi–billion–dollar social media company, has been a pioneer in combining social and community features. His most recent endeavor is the release of blockchain “digital collectibles” that have made a major impact in the Non–Fungible Token (NFT) world.

But that’s not all – he’s also introducing a new feature that allows users to tie their Ethereum Name Service (ENS) names to their “digital collectible” avatars. With this, Reddit has once again shown why it’s a leader in the tech world.

But what does this have to do with mysterious wallet addresses?

Let’s Follow the Evidence

Firstly, there are two main wallets known as “Golden Bezos” which are linked to a few large transactions, each of them worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. These two wallets are:

• 👨‍🦲.eth
• 0x5058352e527694a554966154397af9ab79d75461.

What’s interesting is that Alexis has been on record to be a believer in keycap emojis. He even named his VC firm 776 to make it “emojiable”. The interesting part is the 👨‍🦲.eth wallet is the second largest owner of keycap emojis.

Additionally, the other wallet belonging to 👨‍🦲 consists purely of keycap emojis except for one domain, 🇿🇦🇿🇦.eth. Clearly, both Alexis and Golden Bezos are big believers in the future of keycap emojis.

ENS 🧵 : 👨‍🦲.eth is very likely @alexisohanian/@sevensevensix.
Golden Bezos has been bidding and or purchasing very specific emojis such as 🚀🚀🚀, 🦕🦕🦕,🐣🐣🐣 etc. I was also able to find a wallet that bought ✨✨✨ and 🌙🌙🌙 only 8 days before Bezos started registering emojis pic.twitter.com/FZRSmKoVdp

— Evan15 | bowl.eth | 🏊‍♀️.eth (@Evan15_eth) November 4, 2022

Deeper Down the Rabbit Hole or And the Plot Thickens…

Are you familiar with Ethereum wallets and transactions? If so, then you know that all wallets and transactions are stored on a public ledger that anyone can access over the internet. Recently, I had the opportunity to explore the Ethereum blockchain and view ENS  transactions as they occur in real-time.

One particular wallet that caught my eye was owned by none other than Alexis Ohanian, founder of the venture capital firm 776. Not only did he own the domains sevensevensix.eth and 776.eth, but he also registered olympiaohanian.eth – his daughter’s name.

This proves that Alexis is aware of the importance of ENS domains and took the necessary steps to secure the intellectual property of his VC firm. It’s clear that Alexis Ohanian understands the value of ENS domains, and this is further demonstrated by the fact that he registered 776.eth over a year before the “.eth digit craze” began.

Although this wallet has been active on Ethereum for a couple of years, in ENS terms 👨‍🦲.eth started acquiring domains on 7/23/22. Where things get interesting is that this wallet has only bid on 28 non-face triple emoji domains (ex. 🚀🚀🚀) ever.

There are over 1,500 normalized emojis, of which over 1000 are non-face emojis. It seems interesting that only 28/1000 emojis were bid on specifically. Of these 28 triple emojis, 5 triple emojis were identified as the portfolio company emojis of Alexis’ VC Firm 776.

Not only were those 5 portfolio company emojis specifically bid on, out of 1000 emoji possibilities, but also certain triples variations were bid on stand-alone. For example, 🌼🌼🌼 had a bid for 1 WETH, with no other triples being bid on at the time. Clearly, the owner of this wallet is choosing specific emojis.

The 👨‍🦲 wallet also owns 🧙🏻, 🧗🏿‍♀️, and 🦸🏻‍♂️🦸🏻‍♂️, all three of which are the company emojis of 776.

Coincidence? You decide.

Another suspicious correlation I found is a wallet that bought 🌙🌙🌙 and ✨✨✨ only 8 days before the Bezos wallet started registering and buying emoji ENS domains. The reason I find this interesting is that both of those emoji sets are used as branding for Alexis-owned companies.

What I predict happened was Alexis started testing the water and acquiring IP for his own companies. Once he felt confident in his buys, he then instructs his team to do the same for all of the 776 investment companies. The fact that both wallets started acquiring emojis related to Alexis-related IP only 8 days apart seems very coordinated and noncoincidental.

Also, there is a correlation between the emojis Alexis tweets about and emojis being bought/registered in the same wallet. On 7/15/22 Alexis tweeted 🏄‍♂️ and only 5 days later the 🌙🌙🌙 owned wallet registered 🌊🏄‍♀️🌊, 🌊🌊🏄‍♀️🌊🌊 and 🌊🌊🏄‍♂️🌊🌊.

🏄‍♂️ pic.twitter.com/dB0RhI8m4H

— AlexisOhanian7️⃣7️⃣6️⃣ (@alexisohanian) July 15, 2022

On 7/16/22 Alexis made a tweet including the 🤷‍♂️ emoji and 7 days later that emoji was bought for 7.5 ETH, which is a lot for a base emoji at the time.

Blame Prime Video 🤷‍♂️
Hell of a job with this ⁦@steveyeun⁩ (my guy is one of the best in Hollywood) pic.twitter.com/n4qdWFbG7n

— AlexisOhanian7️⃣7️⃣6️⃣ (@alexisohanian) July 16, 2022

To conclude, of course this is one of many theories on who owns the 👨‍🦲.eth.

As you can see Alexis claims that Golden Bezos is not him, the evidence points otherwise.

😆 I'm not Golden Bezos https://t.co/8StvOx1aJC

— AlexisOhanian7️⃣7️⃣6️⃣ (@alexisohanian) December 1, 2022

Technically he’s saying that *he* is not Golden Bezos, he never clarifies if his VC firm has any ties to the mystery wallet. It would make a lot of sense to dismiss this narrative since it could make acquiring more of 776 portfolio company emojis potentially more costly.

As always, do your own research and come up with your own conclusions. ENS is still in its infancy, gold will be struck by those who keep their heads down!