Rubboli ha iniziato a raccogliere con Viviani senza che io sapessi niente di preciso.
E pure tutto il resto del team era all'oscuro?
quale team? a parte Rubboli (e Mazzanti come avvocato per la stesura del SAFT) c'ero solo io e Aleksandras Gaska. Sito, lightpaper altra documentazione (al di là di wp e consensus che sono solo miei) l'abbiamo fatta sostanzialmente io e Gaska nel 2020. Gaska seguiva tutto, era di gran lunga la figura più operativa e tuttofare, mentre io riuscivo a lavorarci più che altro di notte. Daniele Magiera ci ha aiutato come web developer e Fabio Caccioola come designer, ma come potete immaginare webmaster e designer sono figure marginali che non sapevano niente di preciso. Lavoravano come volontari con la promessa di avere un ruolo post raccolta fondi. Gaska aveva un progetto parallelo (
https://blockwallet.io/) che stava per lanciare a inizio 2021 e Rubboli lo ha cacciato perché secondo lui era incompatibile (ha detto a me che Gaska se ne voleva andare, ma era un'altra stronzata che abbiamo scoperto ex post).
Non nomino mai Viviani perché pur essendo formalmente nel team, non ha mai lavorato. Cosa di cui mi sono sempre lamentato, come ti dicevo sopra.
Insomma, non c'era un team. Il team si è allargato ad Andreas (e Georgi, portato da Andreas) in occasione della seed sale dove han raccolto quei 5 milioni. Georgi era lì per la struttura legale: cacciato però da Rubboli/Mazzanti finita la sale. Andreas ha mandato giù il boccone, vuoi per inesperienza (è classe 1995), vuoi per ingenuità, o anche perché quando hai un commitment di quel tipo, hai probabilmente incentivi psicologici a negare a te stesso la realtà che ti si para davanti: aveva già raccolto 5 milioni tramite suoi contatti, uscire e gridare all'exit scam non è proprio la prima cosa che ti viene in mente. Quando gli è stato chiesto di commentare in merito, ha riportato quanto segue:
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The world of “crypto” is full of charismatic liars who take advantage of the technical illiteracy of investors (retail and institutional alike) with impossible and unscrupulous promises. One of the most typical of such dishonest promises perpetrated in this industry is that of one day being able to outcompete and eventually replace Bitcoin with another blockchain, due to perceived limitations of the Bitcoin blockchain, which invariably ignores the technical fundamentals of Bitcoin and blockchain technology in general, specifically the hidden but insurmountable security sacrifices that one would have to make to create a blockchain which is “faster” or more “efficient” than Bitcoin, and the capability of Bitcoin to solve all of its limitations through “layer 2” technologies built on top of it.
That is why the community of so-called “Bitcoin Maximalists” is generally much more in tune with reality, treats the word “crypto” as blasphemy and those who associate with it with great suspicion, and is able to spot and call out scams in this industry much faster than even the majority of supposedly professional FinTech investors.
Ironically, this is why, when I was presented with the opportunity to work on Mintlayer, and fully understood the technical principles of the project, firmly grounded as a Bitcoin layer 2 project, my guard, as that of many other investors and collaborators in the project, was almost completely let down.
But Rubboli was fully aware of and counted on this effect; by appealing to some of our ideological affinities and our passion for Bitcoin, he knew he could get us to compromise and turn a blind eye to many inconsistencies for at least long enough to get to where he is today. The first such inconsistency was the legal structure of the project in the first place; the development of FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) is at its core a charitable, public domain endeavour whose ultimate beneficiary is always supposed to be the entirety of society at large, rather than shareholders or company directors.
Records show my repeated insistence to legally restructure the project to reflect the above since some of the first days of my joining, which was always met with either deaf ears, rejection, or reluctant and vague promises to explore the possibility, as well as other measures to increase transparency and accountability in the management of the project at an indeterminate future point.
[...] I was the person who personally collected the vast majority of all the funds for the Mintlayer project, and that a sizeable portion of investors only knew and referred to me, incorrectly assuming me to be the de facto “leader” of the project and therefore one of the custodians of their funds. It is from this enormous burden of trust on my person that my sense of fiduciary duty, and concern for Rubboli’s management of the funds as well as the project overall, grew large enough for the blindfold to fall off my eyes and to see all the evidence that was lying plainly before me.
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