Rudy Kadoch, the CEO and founder of the web3 platform Mass, defended the company’s decision to temporarily block users from five countries, including the Philippines, from completing know-your-customer (KYC) verification, which is part of its incentive program.
He doubled down on earlier comments referring to airdrop exploiters as “vampires of web3,” citing internal data as justification.
Mass CEO Provides Proof
In an X post, Kadoch claimed that thousands of users from Nigeria, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and the Philippines had flooded the Mass platform during a two-day window, participating in a “free money” quest that rewarded users with 5 $MASS, the project’s native token, upon KYC completion.
According to the CEO, these users contributed little to no value, instead targeting the reward system without engaging with the app’s core features.
“It’s time to pull back the curtain on web3 and unmask all the projects bragging about their ‘hundreds of thousands’ of users… Last week, we were hit by a massive wave of ‘farmers’ downloading the app mostly from the countries below, and the stats are terrifying… We left the faucet running for two days, imagine if we’d left it on for six? We could’ve claimed 500K users!”
Rudy Kadoch, Chief Executive Officer and Founder, Mass
He then published user acquisition data from the affected countries during the campaign:
- Nigeria: 1,658 users but only under $1 total volume
- Indonesia: 6,151 users but only $489 total volume
- Bangladesh: 3,831 users but $0 volume
- Pakistan: 1,515 users but only $10 volume
- Philippines: 1,271 users but only $278 volume
Kadoch emphasized that the issue is not nationality but behavior. According to him, the users were there not to participate in DeFi services but to farm tokens for profit without any intent to engage further.
“They were not here to use the app, they were just there to extract value… If they are forced to actually spend, they will move on. I would rather have 1,000 real users than 100,000 fake ones.”
Rudy Kadoch, Chief Executive Officer and Founder, Mass
To immediately stop what he described as financial “bleeding,” Kadoch implemented two major changes:
- Geo-blocked KYC Access: Users from the flagged countries can no longer complete the identity verification process, which costs the company approximately $3 per user.
- Increased Participation Threshold: The original quest requiring KYC was replaced with a new requirement—users must trade at least $500 in stocks to qualify for rewards.
Critic on “Fake Metrics”
Kadoch also criticized web3 projects that inflate user metrics to attract investors and boost short-term statistics. He argued that projects boasting “hundreds of thousands” of users are often presenting a distorted reality.
He warned venture capitalists and the broader crypto community to scrutinize claims of large user bases.
“We do this industry a disservice when we pretend a fake reality is real.”
Rudy Kadoch, Chief Executive Officer and Founder, Mass
Kadoch also reminded that the misuse of airdrops has led to short-term artificial boosts in social metrics, trading volume, and Total Value Locked, but ultimately harms real users and gives venture capitalists a misleading picture of project health.
He also claimed that there are “probably no more than 30,000 real, active on-chain traders today.”
While he acknowledged that projects like OpenSea, Uniswap, and Pump may have seen 100,000+ unique users at their peaks, he doubts the legitimacy of similar user claims from newer platforms.
Background on Mass and “Vampires of Web3” Remark
Mass is a mobile-first decentralized finance platform that aims to democratize access to real-world financial markets through blockchain. It is offering tokenized stock trading and other financial tools through a single, user-friendly app.
The platform recently gained attention when Kadoch temporarily banned users from the Philippines, Nigeria, Indonesia, Pakistan, and Bangladesh from completing KYC, citing widespread airdrop farming and calling them “vampires of web3.”
BitPinas reached out to the CEO and received a response, explaining the reason of the project’s decision.
Mass has since confirmed that users from the affected countries can still access non-KYC features, and the company plans to revise its systems to reintroduce equitable access without compromising platform integrity.
This article is published on BitPinas: Project Founder Says Most Web3 ‘Users’ Are Just Here for Free Coins
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