1. iOS basic release (50% fund release, or min 750 BTC)
The beta release of Gems will support instant messaging, push notifications, new user registration and login, contact directory and display the GEMZs wallet. Release server backend which supports both the cloud instant messaging and counterparty integration.
Holy. Fuck.
So the whole INTERESTING and MOST IMPORTANT aspect of Gemz (the airdrop algorithm, the trust score regulation and threshold levels, and how these will interact with Counterparty to distribute Gemz across the network) isn't even REQUIRED for the devs to cash 750 BTC?The app they are releasing will be a basic shell messaging app with some fancy Gemz designs and your own wallet that doesn't do anything. THIS is the most trivial part of the whole project and they get 750 BTC!?
And people say im trolling, lmao. Neuro, check SendChat and compare thats what ive been doing.
SMH.
This is beyond ridiculous. And I made an edit to the post you quoted that stated how this instantly discredits Koinify and their ability to create the most basic, reasonable checkpoints.
You allow a project team HALF their crowdfunded money for an arbitrary checkpoint that shows zero progress into the actual meat of the project? I would sue the shit out of Koinify in Gems dev team runs off with 750 BTC. Actually, I wouldn't even have invested in the first place.
But my god... this is the most irresponsible project crowdfunding management I've ever seen.
+1 it is very irresponsible.
If I was Koinify, I would be prepare for people taking legal action when Gems devs have zero incentive to work on Gems after they receive FUCKING 750 BTC FOR A SHELL iPHONE APP. And I'd be prepared for some pissed of VCs coming at you for such horrendous mismanagement of your first crowdfunded project.
Ultimately it's on the investors who saw the project timeline and still decided to back the project, but that doesn't mean their anger isn't going to be directed at Koinify for such stupidity in hindsight. 50% of the bitcoins for 5% of the work... yeah that's smart. We're talking about $250,000 minimum for a fucking iPhone app that sends messages and has literally NOTHING integrated with any Gemz infrastructure.
neuroMode, we can understand your initial reaction from your knowledge and experience from current state of the altcoin market (many scams etc).
Most ICO's have very low accountability towards the buyers and the buyers have very little ability to conduct a due diligence. We are taking the exact opposite route with Gems token sale. As an exmaple, Dario Mutabdzija (Koinify co-founder) visited Israel as part of Koinify's long due diligence on Gems.
Tom Ding (Koinify CEO) expressed "The problem is the signal-to-noise ratio is really high". "There are too many noises and it becomes really hard for people who want to invest or purchase good, high-quality projects, tokens, to differentiate a good from a bad one."
coindesk article:
http://www.coindesk.com/koinify-melotic-plan-bring-order-crypto-crowdsales/ describes well this problem that Koinify is trying to solve.
Koinify is raising the quality and accountability of crypto crowdfunding: (i) True Multi-Sig Wallet (ii) Milestone Based Fund Release (iii) project arbitrator (iv) exchange partners (v) Due Diligence.
We have been very transparent at every stage of the project: being public with our identities, having an unmoderated bitcointalk thread, the AMA on Reddit, podcast interviews, google hangout and more. We want to build a community around Gems and the only way to do that is to be as open and transparent with our users regarding Gems product and Gems short and long term vision.
Please let us know what other crypto crowdfund has taken the measures we have.
(p.s, kickstarter the most successful crowdfund platform with
$1,448,395,609 dollars pledged to Kickstarter projects provide much less accountability to buyers regarding project success than Koinify. Koinify does a more in-depth due diligence process and has control over significant amount of the funds)
(p.s.s, we agree that Koinify can potentially increase the limitation regarding the funds release by adding more development milestones, but this approach has disadvantages also, it effects the ability of the project founders to make longer term financial decisions (recruiting developers etc) and will slow down the development process. It will also add more ongoing work for Koinify regarding not only "new" project but maintaining the "old" ones. We think the current approach of 3-4 milestones is the right balance as long as you conduct a good due-diligence on the project founders (very similar to VC and startups) but in the end its Koinify business decision to make).