Avoiding Brand Identity Abuse
Held Brand is your bridge to trust and authenticity for brands and celebs on Nostr, the decentralized social protocol. By pre-creating profiles for top brands, we help ensure users can confidently follow legitimate placeholders, preventing confusion and counterfeit accounts.
Give me the gist.
Held Brand identifies leading brands, celebrities, and organizations and reserves their presence on Nostr before anyone else can claim or impersonate them. Each placeholder profile is:
- [Live on Nostr Relays[/link], allowing users to pre-follow.
- Clearly marked as a placeholder and ready for the official brand to adopt.
- Designed to provide a seamless transition when the brand is ready to join the protocol.
How does this work?
1. We pre-create profiles for well-known brands and link them to @heldbrand.com NIP-05 Nostr verification, ensuring legitimacy from the very start. The profile isn't tied to the brand, but at least you know it's tied to someone that is who they say they are, and not an imposter.
2. Users can safely follow these placeholders and engage without risk of counterfeits. It won't be all of the activity of the brand, unless we start echoing their feeds, but when the brand comes to Nostr you'll be following the right profile. Or, if they choose not to adopt our reserved profile, you can see a note in your feed from Held Brand pointing you to the brand's NIP-05 verified profile.
3. Brands discovering their placeholder profiles can claim their profile[/link] directly from us to take full ownership of the account, complete with any followers that have chosen to follow it.
4. My AI helpers and I have done our best to get the profiles correct for official brands and celebs, but if you spot errors or see that we need to make updates. Feel free to let me know [link]. Both users and brands can submit corrections [/link] to ensure accuracy across profiles. Also, if there's a NIP-05 verified profile out there that we have a brand up for, please let me know and I'll clean it out.
Why Does Nostr Need Held Brand?
Nostr is a young and rapidly growing protocol that allows anyone to create profiles and publish freely. While this decentralization offers immense freedom, it also means:
New users that show up to the protocol have brands they are interested in following and supporting socially. But it can be hard to find brands in a new space like Nostr.
There is no central authority verifying user or brand identities and as a new company establishing their account on the Nostr platform it can be hard to make sure you get the tech just right to ensure a great launch.
Counterfeit accounts can easily be created with branded content and convincing images. This can offer false credibility and gather even more followers. Once a profile has a high follower count it could do brand harm or swap profile details to deliver malicious information to unsuspecting followers.
How Brands Can Properly Set Up Their Nostr Profile
Claim Your Held Brand
Begin by claiming your pre-created profile through the secure handoff process. This ensures that your placeholder profile is handed over to your team, complete with a pre-established follower base. Once claimed, you will have full ownership and control of the account and its private key for secure management.
Username Verification
Add credibility by setting up NIP-05 verification[/link] using your official domain (e.g., `you@yourbrand.com`). NIP-05 links your Nostr username to your domain, helping users verify your authenticity directly. Our team provides step-by-step guidance to integrate this into your existing infrastructure.
Cross-Platform Confirmation
Reinforce your profile’s legitimacy by cross-posting your Nostr public key (npub) and/or NIP-05 verified username on your other social media profiles. By adding your Nostr details to platforms like X, Instagram, or LinkedIn, you give your followers an easy way to confirm ownership and connect with you on Nostr.
Profile Launch
Make your official arrival on Nostr clear by publishing a well-crafted introduction note. Use this first post to announce that your profile is now official. A clear introduction helps establish immediate trust and credibility. Then, just be yourself and engage with your customers, supporters, and fans in a new open and decentralized social frontier.
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