There are a lot of signs that Cryptsy is bankrupt and I remember the first signs I believed to see were in 2014. I'm out there since Oct 14 or something like that. What I want to say with that: It could be that they lost a lot of money over a long time and became a fractional reserve system. I don't see any chance that they'll survive even if they try everything to "buy time".

Not a lie but not precise. In China it's about the stock-market. It crashed and after 30 minutes china halted trading. The german stock-market and other markets all over the world lost as well. That could be a reason that Bitcoin goes up and if the BTC-price rises, there is some pressure on other alts and projects.

But: I believe that Factom is one of a very few projects that would benefit from a rising Bitcoin. My logic is: A rising BTC-price is big PR for Bitcoin and Blockchain and all projects that are connected to Bitcoin - like Factom. So I won't sell because BTC goes up.

Not officially yet but... under the line you're most likely right.

Very good article:

Cryptsy: Mt. Gox Junior?
https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/cryptsy-mt-gox-junior/

m3ndi3 came over to "us" and she was very open about her own view on Neucoin and how it changed over time. And there was another one, but don't remember who it was. 2 months ago or something like that.

I believe there are "many" (hard to say "many", because they never really had many investors) who already know that it was a bad investment but they're silent because they don't want to damage it more.

Could be that Cryptsy is done:

Important System Notification
Trade engine and withdrawals paused while we investigate cause of lag. Your patience is appreciated. Thank you
https://www.cryptsy.com

Hard to say if that's the end but I'm pretty sure that they won't survive.


Edit: Interesting...https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1173703.msg13458966#msg13458966

That's the current total supply: 8,753,843

Visible if you click on the blocks: http://explorer.factom.org

The question how long Dan will build buywalls to slow down the crash depends on "who is dumping?". Reason is: If he just has to catch Neucoins that are dumped by real investors (not the team and without relations to the team) it's possible. He has enough BTC to buy it all back, especially at those prices. But if he should have lost control about team-members or former team-members or some angel-investors etc., he won't throw much more BTC into it.

We won't find out but I would really like to know how much Neucoin are not in control of the team - "real investors" plus unrestricted coins in the hands of people with relations to the team. In general it would be great if an "insider" would show up. I really would like to know what the hell they (team) believed. I mean, it's not surprising that there are some guys who believed in it, bought the dust, still supporting it and so on. But regarding the team it must be some kind of "self-hypnotizing" that they believed they could make money with that.

What I learned in 2015: Never underrate the combination of irrationality, naivety and greed. 

After the release of Milestone 3 inflation will set in. If I remember it right it will be 10% of the initial supply, about 73k per month.
But: Everytime the system is used, Factoids will be converted into Entry Credits (fixed in price at $0.001), so there is also a "deflation-dynamic".

If Factom should be really successful it can be expected that the price of Factoids will find a base where inflation and deflation are leveled out/equal. But before it will be speculative and maybe the number of new Factoids will be higher than the use of the system for some time. But I don't expect that the total supply will rise exceed 9 Mio or maybe 10 Mio.

But, like I've said above: At the moment there is no inflation but deflation until Milestone 3

If I'm right Factom started with 8,759,946 FCT's.
Now: 8,753,844

6,102 FCT's are already converted into Entry Credits.



******************
Milestone 3:

Release of the full Factom Peer to Peer Consensus Mechanism / Decentralized Election of Federated Servers Begins - 33%

A) Factom network's Federated servers go live with the consensus mechanism.

B) Entry Credit based election system begins operating for electing Federated servers.
https://koinify.com/blog/introducing-the-factom-software-sale/

I looked into the official Block-Explorer, and there is something interesting - maybe.

Distribution-Overview:

http://explorer.neucoin.org/overview


This is the address for Angel-Investors (restricted):
http://explorer.neucoin.org/address/NddwdSJ52ynU3knupStmjebfD67auQr4kp/

But since Dec. 28th there are out-transactions. Maybe that's the source for the dumping. I'm not sure about that, but I wondered who still holds that much to dump it. Doesn't seem as if there are many real/public Investors left with larger amounts.


Edit: Don't understand that address. On dec. 13th there were a lot more out-transactions. All with the same amount: 2,200,000. Could be interesting to take a deeper look in those addresses.

The ICO was mainly self-buying of the team. That's at least my opinion but I also posted some evidence for it two months ago or something like that. Because it's not logically to say: Thousands bought into the ICO but the richlist shows all the coins in the top 100. And one look into their forum is enough to see: Maybe 3-5 guys are active, maybe 10-20 are interested, and that's it. This project is like a private meeting of a few people. I'm not even sure if there is still a team and development or if all what they do is to build some buy-walls to prevent a crash but letting it die slowly.


 

They can't mine Factoids. But what they can do is to pay Miners with FCT's. 

5.7 BTC left. Seems, as if the team don't want to buy more. One dump and the buy-wall is done. 7.3 BTC to 1 sat.

I'm not sure you're right with "hope they get more active soon" as if they wouldn't be active. We had two big news in the last two weeks and they don't come out of nothing. The chinese exchange was perfect for the price and Azure is even bigger. Azure could be very interesting also for some natural FCT-demand:

* Bitcoin data service of prices from different exchanges recorded on Factom's Blockchain - Q1 2016
https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/azure-baas-update-2/

It will need some Entrys to record the BTC-price.

And regarding development: It would be a mistake to rush things out like it's too often done in little projects. A project like Factom needs a stable base like a rock.  

There was no twist of the truth from Factoms-side. And the price-rise wasn't because of Honduras but because of:

1. Factom Price Soars after Integration with Microsoft's Azure Blockchain
https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/factom-price-soars-integration-microsofts-azure-blockchain/

2. Chinese Multi-Coin Exchange Yuanbao Adds Support for Factom Tokens
http://allcoinsnews.com/2015/12/21/chinese-crypto-exchange-yuanbao-adds-support-for-factoms-tokens/

Mostly I like Jdebunt's articles, but this one is bad journalism. There were already some discussions about Honduras and I've never found any source or evidence that Factom said anything else than that they are working with Honduras to build a prototype for landregistry.

Apparently it's not usual for Factom to give any infos before it's safe and Paul Snow explained exactly that in the chat and that it was not Factom who dropped the info, but it came out. But is the info wrong? No. And now he has to defend himself because he did not just say: "Yeah, we talk about what we are doing and why the hell not?" but explained that they did not want any info to be published? Kind of interesting that somebody has to defend himself because he was open and honest.


Buntix claims in his article:

Based on earlier reports – including this Reuters article – Factom had secured a deal with the local government to record land title registries on the blockchain, creating irrefutable and timestamped logs of events.

In his article he quotes Paul Snow out of the context but he doesn't quote the lines of the reuters article where is (supposedly) said that there is a secured deal? About the other source(s): "Based on earlier reports"? Why this lack of precision?


In the reuters article is the info I've mentioned above, that the Honduran-Government works with Factom on a prototype. And also:

Honduras would become only the second government to use blockchain (...)

If secured deal: "will become".


Or:

"Kirby said Factom started negotiations in January. The pilot project should be completed by the end of the year, with the goal of eventually putting all of the government's land titles on the blockchain, he added."


The question is, if Peter Kirby would say "started negotiations in January" if there would be a secured deal. Or if he would say "with the goal of eventually putting all of the government's land titles on the blockchain" if there would be a secured deal.

No wrong infos and nothing about a secured deal in the article. And it's not even an Announcement of Factom.



Jdebunt should read this:

Journalism ethics and standards
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journalism_ethics_and_standards


No evidence that Factom purposefully twisted the truth. A lot of evidence that Buntix does exactly that.

This is interesting:

Cointelegraph makes a "Weekly Altcoin Price Analysis", sometimes they call it even "daily...". And they talk about:

- LTC
- Doge
- ETH
- PPC
- DASH

All in the top-5.

......and Neucoin. First question: Why? Really: Why should Neucoin be mentioned?

But it's much funnier:

- they have an extra-chart for Neucoin.
- they have an extra-price(!) for Neucoin. They calculate it in 1000er-packages.
- And they always try to turn shit into something good.

All other projects they calculate how it should be: 1 LTC/ETH/DASH/DOGE/PPC = ***correct-price-per-1***

Some examples:

2015-12-13
The price of 1000 NeuCoin already passed the ceiling of $10, which means that one NeucoinCT r:  75 has risen to the value of 1 cent — an important psychological achievement. This sharp growth was due to Bitcoin’s rally, so today's Bitcoin corrections should lower Neu price to levels favorable to place buy orders - lower than $8 per 1000 Neucoin.
http://cointelegraph.com/news/115854/weekly-altcoin-price-analysis-cryptocurrencies-facing-storms-together-with-bitcoin


2015-12-15
In recent days NeuCoin gave us more than one opportunity to open the order for 1000 NeucoinCT r:  75 at 11$, and to close at $12. Now this cryptocurrency went to $10.50, and that can present opportunities for us to place buy orders soon. But be careful — total market capitalization doesn't exceed $1000 USD, and even a one hundred dollar buy order can make you the marketmaker, maybe even against your will.
http://cointelegraph.com/news/115879/daily-altcoin-price-analysis-the-moment-of-truth



2015-12-23
While the general Altcoin market background is quite depressive, NeuCoin happily pleases. Having good (for NeucoinCT r:  75) trading volumes, we can see price growth to $10.5. Neu temporarily fixing its positions over the level of $10 for 1000 Neucoin. For those who bought Neucoin at a price below $8 last night, this fact is especially pleasant.
http://cointelegraph.com/news/115942/daily-altcoin-price-analysis-losing-trust



It's so obvious that they desperately try to push people into buying it. I know it's not unusual to buy articles, but Cointelegraph is obviously totally without any integrity.


But anyway, it won't help. They can screenshot little sectors of the chart as if it would look good and hide the fact that it goes down, they can calculate it in thousands to give the impression we wouldn't talk about $ 0.008933. They can speak about it in between the top5-projects, as if there would be any reason to mention this Shit that wouldn't be even in the top100 if the team wouldn't buy the dumps, they can hide the fact that while they calculate it in 1000's the team produces millions of it like dust - every(!) single(!) day!


I have to admit: I liked Cointelegraph. But this is so weak. They sell their credibility for a project that can be called a scam.

 

In the AMA Paul Snow said:

"Milestone 2 will have a couple of major components. First will be the deployment of a Entry Credit store, where users can buy Entry Credits (basically access to the protocol) without touching any sort of tradable token. The second will be the release of the consensus algorithm, the software supporting distributed processing of the Factom protocol. We are working to have the first release candidate of the consensus algorithm by the end of the year. We fully expect to release a few release candidates prior to going into production with the consensus algorithm early in 2016."

And about Milestone 3:

"Milestone 3 is the last milestone. It will release the election protocol, which places the control of the federated servers in the hands of those purchasing Entry Credits. We intend to reach this milestone in the first half of 2016. In addition to implementation, it also relies on having enough diversity of use of the protocol to make the election process meaningful."

https://forum.bitcoin.com/ama-ask-me-anything/i-am-paul-snow-the-architect-of-factom-and-chair-of-the-texas-bitcoin-conference-ask-me-anything-t4026.html

The AMA is just one week ago, so my conclusion would be: at least it shows some confidence. If there should be a delay I don't expect a big one.

And in the github:

factomd
Milestone2 work
Updated 16 hours ago
https://github.com/FactomProject/

So, it seems they're hard-working on it.