Good to see there is a new thread for Sprouts, as indeed the old one was full of old information.
In terms of clarity I have a few questions as a Sprouts holder, in line with questions asked by others from the Sprouts community.
I am asking as a Sprouts holder, not an Auxilium team member, who has some questions that popped up within the community the past weeks.
And I am addressing these questions here, because there seem to be no other official transparant channels where I can contact actual people (i.e. no groupchats or people acting under an alias) behind the project.
1. "For this reason, we are considering hard fork and swap to new currencies in parallel." - could you please elaborate what is meant by this, as it can be interpreted that you will be offering some kind of swap to a different currency, or even multiple different currencies (i.e. not Sprouts).
A. Follow-up question 1: not long ago there were messages that the Sprouts development was taken over by the Japanese community, and that the team who opened up this new thread, was no longer actively developing Sprouts. After months of work it could be said this is true, as the goals (altering total supply and PoS), which are very doable with this excisting code, have not been reached. Who are active on the development of Sprouts? One team, or multiple teams?
B. Follow-up question 2: Sprouts community members have read about a possible swap to for instance Trinity coin, which is a dead/inactive coin that might be used for a swap. Is this one of the currencies you are aiming at 'point 1'?
C. Follow-up question 3: If you are performing a swap from Sprouts to a different cryptocurrency, isn't that a bit hypocrite as to date this team always have said a swap to a different cryptocurrency (for instance Auxilium) is a scam? Why should people trust a swap of your development team, but not another development team?
2. The main problem seems to be the total supply of Sprouts. The total supply makes it impossible to compete within the Bitcoin market, and it already struggles to compete within the Dogecoin market. Lowering the PoS rate will indeed slow down hyperinflation, but the damage is already done. Sprouts is hyperinflated. How is the hard fork, without lowering the total supply, going to solve this issue?
3. After all the years that Sprouts has been online it never has seen a whitepaper, team introduction (and not only people behind their computer screens), good working website, etc. Is there going to be a change in this?
4. Maybe even the most important question: "we will carry out the hard fork" - who is we? I think the community would like to know who is planning an hard fork influencing peoples cryptocurrency/money. What is the background of these people, what is their experience, have they ever had successful projects in the past or maybe even non-successful project (i.e. what is their trackrecord)?
5. If there is a swap, what will the swapratio be, and how will this affect the value of peoples holdings? How will the team (try and) maintain and/or improve the value of the holdings of those holding Sprouts? If you consider burning Sprouts you will have to have a solid plan with analysis to back this action. Because if the swap has a negative outcome for the value there is no way back; the Sprouts holdings will be burnt.
6. Also mentioned by yourself: is it even legal to perform an hard fork on a cryptocurrency? Do you have consent of the owner, do you have consent of the majority community (as this is a community based coin)?
Thanks for answering these questions. A lot of community members will find this very helpful as there is hardly any core information available on easy to reach sources.
Kind regards,
Thank you for good questions. I am sorry that the answer was delayed.
In countries excluding Japan, our announcement was not enough. we think it should be improved.
Since last month, we are releasing the official announcements in English/Japanese at the same time, but it is true that there was a lack of explanation in English. (like you asked us a question.)
To some of the questions you asked us, we already have concrete answers but not published yet.
We are planning to announce them by May 13.
The answers are based on the contents announced mainly on the official announcement and the official Community on Discord(JP)
Question1 : Are you considering hard fork and swap to new currency in parallel?
Within the official announcement on March 13, 2018, we have expressed the following view:
1, we will carry out the Sprouts hard fork
2, There is a possibility of swapping to the new currency.
Currently, we are developing HF. It is clear if you look at announcements we released after March.
Swap to new currency is NOT our aim, our aim is to realize the concept.
We should choose if we run it on Sprouts or in a new currency(swap).
If Sprouts can be revived, we will execute with Sprouts. If it becomes difficult to revive Sprouts, we will consider shifting to the new currency.
A. Follow-up question 1
The Japanese team is developing Sprouts. However, we do not emphasize the development of the currency itself.
We value emphasis on actual use such as event and function development on other Discord, or events linked with other currencies etc. (This is a very different part from Auxilium pursuing currency functions such as Smart Contract.)
The Japanese management team is one team. about 20 to 30 people are enrolled in the management team.
Actually, 80% are playing a role of actual use other than currency function, and development of Sprouts currency is carried out with about 5 people.
B. Follow-up question 2
As mentioned above. We aim to realize the concept that we think.
It is not decided whether to use Sprouts or new currency(swap) as means.
Priority, we aim to revive Sprouts first.
C. Follow-up question 3:
As mentioned above, new currency is not under development yet.
Regarding the confidence of the development team, we think that we are confident in the current situation for the Japanese community through development of various functions on Discord, alpha version testing of exchanges with other currencies, and so on.
The appeal to overseas may be insufficient, but we will be exposing in various ways in the future and getting confidence.
Question 2 Sprouts Main Problems and Solution
We will present our opinion within the WhitePaper scheduled for release by May 13.
Although some have already been decided, please wait for the release of White Paper.
Question 3 About the website
We have been focusing on Discord so far, and did not think the website is important.
In the future, we plan to go using the Web site for distributing WhitePaper , new Wallet and announcing to non-holders.
Question 4 Who is leading HF
Japan's management team is leading.
Each of the developers have their own full-time jobs. we are volunteers.
Since most of the members work at companies, we cannot clarify details because of confidentiality agreement, but developers with various backgrounds are leading HF
Question 5 About Swap
As mentioned above.
Question 6 Consent of the majority community
We will also mention about the confidence of the community within the WhitePaper scheduled to be released by May 13.
Naturally the confidence of the community is necessary, we propose the revitalization of Sprouts in the way we think it is best.
Whether to be trusted or not depends on the community.
If this best practice is not credible, We will start developing the new currency.
There will be a possibility that Sprouts' Swap.
Finally
We do not intend to confront Auxilium and I rather hope to coexist with Auxilium.
The directions the currencies aim for differ, so we believe that the community participants themselves can choose Sprouts or Auxilium.
For the current Sprouts community, it seems very good to have multiple choices.