Soul_eater_123: Sorry I didn't mean to come off as being coy. My point is that the price is just supply and demand. It isn't what people pay for the good in the first place that matters.
Clearly giving away a bunch of lumens increases the supply but the hope is that it also increases awareness and the number of people interested in the project which will increase demand.
As far as mtgox, I sold it to mark who proceeded to screw it up. I definitely regret not finding someone more competent to take it over.
As far as ripple, I announced my intention to sell *before* I sold. This seemed like the most honorable thing to do. I could have sold without telling anyone and made way more money. Not sure what people would have preferred I did?
> The timing is the main problem it is now 2 years since launch.
Yeah ideally we would have been giving out the lumens at a steady rate since we launched. We started doing that when we launched 2 years ago, but unfortunately the ripple codebase wasn't up to handling the scale so we had to pause the giveaway while we rewrote everything. Now that that is done and the code is solid we can start the giveaway again.
Thanks for your responses. Also sorry if it seems like I was being mean about your past projects I was trying to reflect the way these things are perceived in the crypto community which tends to view most things as a scam and anyone involved with anything they don't like as a scammer.
I actually like what you are trying to do with STR/Lumens particularly in terms of getting to the unbanked masses and the developing world. I believe these markets will grow immensely in the next 50 years.
Indeed I think Africa in particular will begin to take over from places like China due to the huge mineral and human potential that is still very much untapped there. Those that get in there early (as China is already doing) could potentially future proof themselves against the gradual decline of the current world economic powerhouses.
Also I am not 100% against the Bitcoin giveaway or greater distribution. I think it would have been better to do this early on but it is too late to change that now.
I will hold on to my Lumens for the long term and ignore the price for the time being. I'm also happy to contribute to the project as and when I can.
Hopefully the giveaway will really help to promote the system and create some volume - which I suppose is really more important than price. It will also give others the opportunity to get in at a lower price so I suppose that is another positive.