Can Ethos solve the bot problem? With founder Serpin Taxt
Speakers
Tim Copeland — Head of Growth, The Block
— The Block head of growth
Summary
- The "Dead Internet Theory" is accelerating: The guest estimates 60-70% of replies on social platforms (specifically X) are now "slop" or bot-generated.
- The barrier to entry for bot creation has collapsed. Tools like Claude and OpenAI allow anyone to spin up thousands of agents, leading to a scenario where humans are numerically outnumbered online.
- Identity verification is bifurcating into three tiers: Government KYC (Coinbase), Biometrics (Worldcoin), and Social Consensus (Ethos).
- User behavior is shifting due to AI fatigue; users are "switching off" when they detect AI syntax, potentially threatening engagement metrics for ad-based social platforms.
Trade Ideas
"Anyone with a little bit of prompting to Claude can go write their own bot... the number of agents... can basically scale way more than humans could scale." The "slop super cycle" described by the guest implies an exponential increase in API calls and inference compute. Every one of the millions of bots spamming social media requires processing power from the underlying LLM providers. Microsoft (OpenAI), Amazon (Anthropic/Claude), and Google (Gemini) are the "arms dealers" selling the compute required to flood the internet with agents. Long the Hyperscalers/AI Model providers. Regulatory intervention on AI agents or platforms blocking API access (e.g., X blocking scrapers).
"The moment I can see this was written by AI, my brain almost switches off... It's probably just wasted my time to read this." This highlights a critical degradation in User Experience (UX) for social platforms. If users begin to subconsciously devalue content on Instagram/Threads/Facebook because they assume it is AI-generated "slop," engagement metrics (time on site) will deteriorate. This threatens the ad-revenue model of platforms relying on user-generated content. Watch for declining engagement metrics or "ad blindness" on Meta platforms due to AI fatigue. Meta successfully integrates AI in a way that enhances rather than detracts from UX.
"How does a business solve it like Coinbase? They KYC, right? They they have to know their customer... You have to give them government documents... scan your face." As the open internet becomes flooded with indistinguishable AI agents and "slop," the value of "walled gardens" where human identity is cryptographically and legally verified increases. Coinbase's strict KYC compliance—often seen as a friction point—is flipping into a competitive moat. It creates a high-trust environment for transactions and interactions that social platforms cannot match. Long COIN as a "Trust Infrastructure" play. Regulatory crackdowns or high compliance costs slowing user growth.
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This The Block video, published February 27, 2026, features Trevor Thompson, Tim Copeland discussing MSFT, AMZN, GOOGL, META, COIN. 3 trade ideas extracted by AI with direction and confidence scoring.
Speakers: Trevor Thompson, Tim Copeland · Tickers: MSFT, AMZN, GOOGL, META, COIN