The following is my personal opinion on recent events and is not to be intentionally or otherwise misrepresented as being an official statement. A link to the official statement is provided below.
Synth recently posted a voice message that expressed some frustration by making a caricature of a team member and telegram room he is admin of. He was amused by the message, which is fair enough, given the harrowing experiences he and his wife had been recently subjected to.
How does what amounts to an ironic observation on the current state of the crypto market get twisted into such strident accusations against the Skycoin team and its community? Is it because the Skycoin team does not hold to a traditional professional decorum? What even is the purpose of a traditional organization's professional decorum these days but to serve as a thin veneer of propriety covering the festering mass within?
It has been spoken of in recent years, that we live in a "post truth" world. The very language used to describe this is in itself a suggestion that there is no accountability for falsehood, that objective reality is now irrelevant. Examination of this phenomenon ought to provoke a feeling of dread in the sane observer. The very survival of organisms through the process of natural selection relies on objective truth. The inability of a species to cope with this has historically led to extinction.
This "post truth" acceptance paradigm is a symptom of the advanced stages of the disease that has taken hold of human society. The same disease that cryptocurrency, a manifestation of human hope and ingenuity, makes an attempt to heal.
Bitcoin is but one exploration into alternatives to the primitive systems of human organization that have come to dominate this world. Our old systems rely on centralized power to exert influence on human actors by carrot and stick. Thus establishing a consensus. Over time such centralized organizations became progressively corrupt because the consensus mechanism has no power to influence those who control the carrot and the stick.
The Skycoin project has and will always embody the ethos that brought Bitcoin into this world. However, it is understandable that Skycoin is misunderstood by many. The majority of those involved in cryptocurrency are absorbed with their desperate bid for financial gains. Their thinking is necessarily framed by the world they know and they are inundated with lies.
A few facts about the situation:
A large amount of SKY was stolen from the foundation.
It was embezzled by rogue members of the Chinese marketing team.
They were dumping the coins during the Binance trading competition.
The remainder of their coins were frozen.
They retaliated by kidnapping, beating, and threatening Synth and his wife.
Additional security measures have been taken in response to the violence.
The team remains focused on preventing Skycoin development and operations from being delayed.
Official statement:
https://www.skycoin.net/blog/statement/skycoin-team-status-update/
Synth recently posted a voice message that expressed some frustration by making a caricature of a team member and telegram room he is admin of. He was amused by the message, which is fair enough, given the harrowing experiences he and his wife had been recently subjected to.
How does what amounts to an ironic observation on the current state of the crypto market get twisted into such strident accusations against the Skycoin team and its community? Is it because the Skycoin team does not hold to a traditional professional decorum? What even is the purpose of a traditional organization's professional decorum these days but to serve as a thin veneer of propriety covering the festering mass within?
It has been spoken of in recent years, that we live in a "post truth" world. The very language used to describe this is in itself a suggestion that there is no accountability for falsehood, that objective reality is now irrelevant. Examination of this phenomenon ought to provoke a feeling of dread in the sane observer. The very survival of organisms through the process of natural selection relies on objective truth. The inability of a species to cope with this has historically led to extinction.
This "post truth" acceptance paradigm is a symptom of the advanced stages of the disease that has taken hold of human society. The same disease that cryptocurrency, a manifestation of human hope and ingenuity, makes an attempt to heal.
Bitcoin is but one exploration into alternatives to the primitive systems of human organization that have come to dominate this world. Our old systems rely on centralized power to exert influence on human actors by carrot and stick. Thus establishing a consensus. Over time such centralized organizations became progressively corrupt because the consensus mechanism has no power to influence those who control the carrot and the stick.
The Skycoin project has and will always embody the ethos that brought Bitcoin into this world. However, it is understandable that Skycoin is misunderstood by many. The majority of those involved in cryptocurrency are absorbed with their desperate bid for financial gains. Their thinking is necessarily framed by the world they know and they are inundated with lies.
A few facts about the situation:
A large amount of SKY was stolen from the foundation.
It was embezzled by rogue members of the Chinese marketing team.
They were dumping the coins during the Binance trading competition.
The remainder of their coins were frozen.
They retaliated by kidnapping, beating, and threatening Synth and his wife.
Additional security measures have been taken in response to the violence.
The team remains focused on preventing Skycoin development and operations from being delayed.
Official statement:
https://www.skycoin.net/blog/statement/skycoin-team-status-update/
I do wonder however, how are they able to freeze specific wallets when its decentralized? Their explenation was that they did a hardfork, but shouldn't this affect the entire chain? Not specific wallets of their choosing. However you want to explain it, they admitted to have control over other people's funds, so it is arguably not decentralized. I can't make a claim that what happened recently didn't happen and that it's all made up. But from what Synth and Sudo (telegram admin) say in Telegram, it doesn't add up. The story is contradicting. They also make harrowing claims of pump and dumping their own coin*. Maybe they are not the conventional team and sure its great when you can have an informal relationship, but I don't see anything funny about their jokes. The way the admins behave in Telegram public channels and their interaction with newbies is also very concerning. Their behaviour in my opinion is hard to rationalize and justify.
*P.S. And the voice recording of Synth or Brandon is not the only piece of evidence for this. Also I think it's just weird in general to say something like this. Whether you're in a professional or informal relationship with community members.
Skycoin is designed to have much better decentralization than other coins out there. The Obelisk consensus algorithm will be a big part of this, but as has been stated many times in the past, Obelisk is not yet running on mainnet. I will link a series of recent posts in this very thread that better explains the status of Obelisk.
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.34548627
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.34571467
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.34582440
I would like to also remind you that practical decentralization is not an absolute. It is not understood how to achieve absolute decentralization as long as human beings rely on human development teams to engineer a project.
According to the official statement, blacklisting was utilized instead of a hardfork. Although a non-contentious hardfork would "affect the entire chain" while at the same time going unnoticed by regular users. Funds on exchanges are believed to have been frozen as well, but that is entirely under the purview of said exchanges. Once Obelisk mainnet is active, it will not be possible to use this blacklisting method, and hardforks will depend on each individual node signalling consent.
The world is full of people you may dislike, not agree with, or fail to share a sense of humor with. It is advised, rather than to seek control over the personalities of others, you excercise control over yourself. Newbies are not all created equal. The first thing one should learn to do when investing is to dyor. This does not mean to ask questions or read the opinions of others, it means to research on your own and experience the environment. The entire telegram chat history can be queried with the search function. Some are able to do this, some are not. Since every cryptocurrency in existence is at a very early stage of development, not much can be done on the noob friendliness front. It is much more effective to focus on development in a structured manner. Try to be the guy who makes their first post responding to a question with an accurate answer. That will earn you the respect of the admins and you will have a positive influence on the community.
The voice message of Synth was posted in the very telegram room being referred to. It was formerly a public room where price discussion was allowed and was later made private to avoid it being overrun by newcomers. The subject of discussions in there were mostly just banter and memes with some price discussion. You can comb through the telegram and cherry pick all the "evidence" you wish and twist them into whatever story you want to make up. That is the norm these days. Skycoin is used to all the coordinated fud. Looking forward to whatever you guys come up with next.
This is the irrational response I expected. I'm familiar with the conduct in the Telegram as I have been holding this coin for a good 8 months. This isn't cherrypicking, and this isn't just about disrespect towards newbies, I got banned aswell for asking questions and I've spoken to some people who experienced the same these past days. This isn't even FUD, a word of political correctness aimed to cover-up any criticism towards a project. To be quite frank, you're right I just read their official statement and it doesn't say anything of a hardfork, its now a ''temporary blacklist function''. This doesn't take away that Synth's story is complete contradiction from what he wrote in telegram also stating that that is an official statement. See my point? He constantly contradicts himself, same as his wife/girlfriend. One time its his wife, then his girlfriend and then he doesn't know because ''the papers are in Chinese and he can't read it''. So now I absolutely agree, I don't share his sense of humor, but when is he not joking and when is he joking, is there any telling or am I supposed to assume that everything is sarcasm? And if he keeps making these jokes and the price dumps, ''really funny man!?'' Is that something you want to deal with? Not to mention the fact that this could be strategic on his side to pump and dump the price for his own benefit. Do you even know who this man is? Are you aware of the image he has among the community of investors? He's unquestionable, it reeks.
So either he's lying, or the CEO himself is a liablity towards the project because his ''jokes'' can cause heavy price dumps. Now if I put my money into this project and buy a skyminer, is this the type of behaviour I'm supposed to expect? I think your response is very strange, talking about doing my research and not being able to get along with everyone? If I have done my research correctly I'd say Synth is delusional and suffers from megalomania. The Skycoin telegram also affirms this with people cheering on everything he says and does, anyone who dares to ask a question or disagree gets banned. And as I said, it's not just the voice recording. After that ''joke'' he kept talking about dumping the price and pumping it back up, see pics from my first post. Shows total disregard and a lack of respect of the people who put their money into this project. He sees the consequences of his actions and refuses to change his conducts and then starts blaming it on Reddit calling them all types of names. I don't think you can label everything you don't agree with as FUD. I don't need to control Synths personality at all, but anyone who looks at this should recognize behaviour and thats simply what I'm doing. I see his behaviour and his statements and I can't fit this into a rational picture.
Idk how long you've been in Skycoin but I dare to say that I've been with the project for quite a while now and am pretty familar with the manner of behaviour on Telegram. And if I can give you advice instead, I'd say you better be carefull, cause it reeks of Pump and dump.
''We will bounce it back up again''
Another thing, for someone who's just been kidnapped he's awefully jolly, sorry but I find this all very weird.
You are correct about Synth getting that detail wrong, assuming that the freezing was done with a hardfork. Normally, that is the method you would use under these circumstances. There apparently are advantages to using a temporary blacklisting function instead. Although it will be impossible to activate this function under a decentralized Obelisk consensus algorithm, such functionality is vital on Sky Fiber projects that are designed for permissioned blockchains. You are misrepresenting that small inaccuracy as being "Synth's story" in a spurious attempt to cast doubt on the actual story of his and his wife's kidnapping. Your comment about him being "awfully jolly" is uncalled for.
Synth is also often difficult to understand, he seems to say whatever comes to mind. This personality quirk of his is admittedly inconvenient for Skycoin at times. But you are being incredibly obtuse to ignore the experiences Synth and his wife have gone through over the past week. I can tell you that his wife is hysterical over being kidnapped and beaten. I also suspect that Synth is a bit shaken up by the experience as well.
It is normal for people to fixate on price and Skycoin has suffered an incredible price dip recently. You insist that Synth is personally responsible for this price dip, while willfully ignoring all the evidence at hand. This includes the dates of price action, getting listed on Binance, Binance competition effect on volatility, discovery of the dumping of embezzled SKY, and the proven observation that short term price action is caused by external factors while long term price action is the result of hard fundamentals.
It is only natural that those who have been conducting their coordinated FUD campaign will take advantage of this opportunity to reinvigorate their efforts. It has been proven that Skycoin is the subject of a long term coordinated FUD campaign. This is likely being paid for by projects that see themselves as competitors though lacking in fundamentals. Many crypto projects these days are so starving for developers that they take investor funds and spend the majority of it on marketing and FUD. The project becomes only about short term price action, and this is what reeks of pump and dump.
Please think again about my "strange" comment about the Skycoin community. You claim to have been a member of the Skycoin community for a long time but you talk like a stranger.
You talk about projects or people getting paid to FUD Skycoin, you must be oblivious to the attacks Synth orchestrates against other projects like HOLO and Substratum? And excuse me, but so far no evidence has been produced, it's just words and they are all contradicting.
All of the screenshots I've shown so far are from june 18th. I really don't want to debate this any further though, I don't think this much of a debate anyway, you're just the average crypto-investor, screaming FUD at everything. So far you also haven't produced any evidence, telling me I'm ignoring it. Meanwhile I got tons of screenshots from statements made directly by Synth that should leave anyone questioning his integrity.
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/skycoin-scavenger-hunt-win-up-to-1000-sky-2621786 << here you go a thread that I made on Bitcointalk about Skycoin on December 20th last year. Maybe you should reflect back on what you wrote, cause if I sound like a stranger, then you probably haven't heard anyone's opinion outside of that telegram.
