Once upon a time I thought about writing a book about a crowd-sourced serial killer.
It was probably in the late 20-aughts, as crypto was part of how I thought it would work. It was in no small part inspired by Dexter and one of my all-time favorite films Frailty. The killer was going the be called "Neverman" for the way all of the victims would have "Never Again" written in their own blood on the wall of the murder scene.
Since all the targets were to be deserving, it was something that the 'crowd' would support/donate to. Though at the time the technical limits of a kill-this-guy-gofundme were hard for me to think my way through. Having discovered steemit, that now seems less of a hurdle.
At present, the the notions of target selection feel most like a rip-off of Hated in the Nation. Just link to a report of some child-abuse or the early prison-release and tag it with #neverman.
It seems workable though. In the novel-idea, the weakest link was always getting the Neverman the funding. The character responsible for organizing the crowd-sourced income and getting it to the Neverman was always the weakest link, and how the anti-vigilante folks would be able to track him and bring him down. It seems like steemit might serve as a functional solution.
When the 'job' was completed, a post of the obituary with a back-link to the targeting could be upvoted by the "fans". With steemit still relatively obscure as far as the mainstream is concerned, I reckon such a thing could play out for a least a good 6 to 9 months before some crack crime-stopping team even caught wind of it.
Of course, for such a novel to be done properly you'd have to alternate omniscience between the Neverman and the team that brought an end to the operation - and that caveat about "write what you know" prevents me from properly writing about serial killer or crime-stoppers.
