[3][4] BitClout ran on a custom proof of work blockchain, and was a prototype of what can be built on DeSo (short for "Decentralized Social").

[2] In July 2024, al-Naji was arrested by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and charged with fraud involving BitClout.

[8] However, in the fall of 2020, al-Naji pitched BitClout's own investors under his real name and began posting job listings for a "new operation".

[9] Although BitClout was not originally intended to launch until mid-2021, its development was sped up due to "zeitgeist about decentralized social media" in January 2021.

[11] In early March 2021, about fifty investors received links to a password-protected website with the BitClout white paper.

[3] During its initial launch, BitClout's currency could be bought with bitcoin, but not sold except on Discord servers or Twitter threads.

[9][15][16] Curtis also tweeted, "Adopting Bitcoin's aesthetic to raise VC funding to carry out unethical and blatantly illegal schemes like BitClout: not cool".

[15] (However, Curtis's coin, despite not being listed on the official website, can still be bought by users searching for the original username.

[16]) Additionally, in April 2021, Lee Hsien Loong asked for his name and photograph to be removed from the site, stating that he has "nothing to do with the platform" and that "it is misleading and done without [his] permission".

[23][better source needed] At launch time, BitClout scraped 15,000 profiles of celebrities from Twitter to create "reserved" accounts in their names.