Just like that. When people dared to ask whether they would deliver Breeze, Masternodes and Tumblebit in time, by the end of Q2, the cheer leaders where out in droves.
Until like 3 days before the end of the quarter, when it turned out they had nothing, not even a working alpha version.
Then a delay of 2-3 weeks was traded, and it still sounded like it would be the whole thing, until it turned out it was only a very basic testnet alpha and just the wallet, no Tumblebit, no Masternodes.
And there still isn't anything like a beta six weeks later.
Stop taking the piss.
When they started, Masternodes and anon was a big thing, which it isn't anymore. It may even become a felony to use stuff like that, under rising regulation. Vendors could be obliged to provide backdoors for law enforcement. This might not fit in with the delusional points of view of most of your team members and cheer leaders, but its the truth, and you better face it, since you were starting as a strictly commercial project. Bad decisions, kind of a failure, but Chris probably has no choice without losing his main poster boys.
In the meantime, scaling, contracts and side chains would be the burner, but hardly any news about that comes out.
You still try to push the fish story with the same bullshit tweets, but nobody seems to be interested.
And your academy. Academy for what? You ain't got nothing so far, but a QT wallet.
And then Microsoft. You were halfway pushing the narrative that MS could pick Stratis as their blockchain solution, with the C# conference and the proximity to MS MVPs, which in the meantime do not want to be brought into connection with your project anymore, as it seems.
They picked a far better way, sticking to their own architecture, enabling privacy on a completely new level. What Microsoft does is exactly what enterprise customers want. Keeping their shit on their own trusted infrastructure, not out in the great wide open, employing blockchains where it makes sense, with full control over encrypted data.
I was initially skeptical of Stratis (and received plenty of "FUD" and "troll" comments at the time), but eventually bought some - and have made some profit from it rising.
However, I have sold and I'm reluctant to get back in for the reasons you state, and more.
I was once a member of the slack - and many people would state things like "Everything has been delivered on time so far" etc., and I didn't understand it. This was well before the Breeze alpha, by the way. There was nothing delivered, as far as I could tell.
When progress was being made, I messaged a team member, basically apologising for thinking it was a "scam" etc. - said I was a fool to have not bought sooner (which is still true - I'd have made a lot more money!)
Now... I'm looking back. Stratis has just been a staking QT wallet, for most of this time. Like holding Blackcoin, but without all the hype/marketing. It seems like Chris just jumps on whatever bandwagon is fashionable, and claims Stratis will have that too.
The Breeze wallet is looking good - don't get me wrong. But the only value it gives to Strat is the fact you need Strat for masternodes - a function which seemed to be tagged on during the masternode craze started by PivX. And now Chris is saying there'll be an identity function to rival Civic's... it all seems a bit too bold, but not in a good way.
I get a sense that things are just being made up as they go along, and the value is driven by pure hype and promises.
The fish thing... I'm undecided on. I guess it's a bit 'boring', and certainly doesn't align with the "we have all these great partnerships coming up!" hype. But it's better than nothing, I guess.
One other thing... I honestly don't believe the claim that Ledger added Strat out of the goodness of their hearts (which was claimed at the time). I believe the integration was paid for, and passed off as "we're just so good that Ledger added us for free!" ... in case you're not aware, many wallets can be coded to function with a Ledger Nano S - but you can also pay Ledger to do this for you - and they include a bunch of branded Nanos in the package. This is probably what happened with Stratis, so I'm a bit concerned about the lack of honesty there too.
I understand my perspective is going to be met with disagreement... some reasonable, and some just angry fanboy vitriol. That's fine. I'm not expecting to convince people, or for everyone to agree with me. I'm just sharing my own views.
I think it's amazing that Strat went from like 6 cents, to the price it is now... but I can't shake all of these doubts. I wish the rest of you luck and fortune, though.
(Even as I typed this, Khilone has been flooding the thread with hype posts, to drown out any negative comments
)
