Sad that I have to post this HERE... of all places... but it got deleted from the other thread:
Uhh yeah, this still stinks.
I still am a huge bull on the success of a broad-spectrum decentralized marketplace as being the best application for crypto-currency in general. But blind trust can only go so far - and that ship has sailed.
You say you'll buy back coins, you say you'll restore value - but if there's one thing that's clear from the logs that just David posted (don't really trust anything from Bob under any circumstances)... it's that
you (the
current team) weren't willing to risk
anything yourselves from the beginning. You hedged your bets (and then some actually)... at the expense of the investors themselves.
To put any more faith in the team - regardless of their optimism and apparent goodwill, should require (at a minimum):
100% transparency for all current parties All held BTC, all held BAY, and all distributed BAY/BTC. We know Bob & co walked with ~691BTC, and dumped some/all of their BAY - but what about Lin/Steven/David? Distribution is critical, and the numbers are very fishy, but we have no proof that Lin isn't still involved, and (to me at least) if he 'cooked the books' for the ICO, upfront... that's every bit as bad if not
worse than what Bob & Co. did. It's certainly worse than what David and Steven did - and I'm
far from absolving them of blame (but they do seem to be more on the side of 'stupid' rather than 'crooked' in all this).
100% transparency of communicationThe cat's already out of the bag... so let's have the un-edited logs from all parties in one pastebin. Since at least Steven and David are still involved (and I presume Lin is as well)... should be simple enough to have 2/3 party confirmation on their validity. Not that I think it will help the price any... but better to go to 1 sat now - and get all the time-bombs out at once - than get further down this rabbit-hole only to find another 3 waiting to trash everything again! (Naturally the timeline for this is NOW... if it can't be done in the next hour, then it's likely to be every bit as doctored as Bob's are.
Proof of backing - preferably 3rd party escrow/trustSince the value of the coins themselves is currently garbage, and a big chuck of the BTC was either stolen/extorted (call it whatever you want, it's
gone) - how much of the funds remain, and under what circumstances can they be used? The investors' BTC was exchanged for 'hope-tokens' on the belief that our BTC was being used to fund development of the coin, establish hedging, marketing costs, and later on perhaps pegging. So where are you getting the requisite funds to do that now?!? I'm sure I speak for most (even those rabidly supportive still) when I say that it would probably
not be the best thing to still have
you guys in charge of the 'money side' of this operation... I could see a homeless man convincing you he was the CEO of Citibank at this point possibly.
There's a hundred more likely questions - and to be honest, I'm out and not likely to be investing so much as a dime in this again - even after the markets are here. Not to say I won't use those markets if the actually do occur - but I'm definitely not holding my breath or doubling down on a team that made this many critical mistakes in judgement before even getting to the starting line.
Are Bobsurplus/Gekko & Co. a bunch of criminals? Certainly. Is Lin guilty of fraud, money laundering, and theft if he used so much as a single 'phantom-
satoshi' let alone multiple BTC to falsify volume/sales and accumulate free BAY? Completely. However, there is such a thing as guilt by association - and even if there was absolutely nothing else criminal on the David/Steven side... that's enough for me to write off my losses and walk.
Sad day guys... in reality the damage you all have helped perpetrate against cryptocurrency in general by your actions, is more disgusting than the petty crimes involved in this directly.