Via Wing's telegram:

Đomi, [Apr 8, 2017, 7:11 PM]:
security audits finished but some of the code needs to be changed
so they need to change it and re-audit
coin release probably end of next week...

Besides, the Hawk protocol also has mechanisms to make private smart contracts less cumbersome than they would be in ETH.

The Byzantine Generals' Problem

A number of Byzantine Generals each have a computer and want to attack the King's wi-fi by brute forcing the password, which they've learned is a certain number of characters in length. Once they stimulate the network to generate a packet, they must crack the password within a limited time to break in and erase the logs, lest they be discovered. They only have enough CPU power to crack it fast enough if a majority of them attack at the same time.

They don't particularly care when the attack will be, just that they agree. It has been decided that anyone who feels like it will announce an attack time, which we'll call the "plan", and whatever plan is heard first will be the official plan. The problem is that the network is not instantaneous, and if two generals announce different plans at close to the same time, some may hear one first and others hear the other first.

They use a proof-of-work chain to solve the problem. Once each general receives whatever plan he hears first, he sets his computer to solve a difficult hash-based proof-of-work problem that includes the plan in its hash. The proof-of-work is difficult enough that with all of them working at once, it's expected to take 10 minutes before one of them finds a solution and broadcasts it to the network. Once received, everyone adjusts the hash in their proof-of-work computation to include the first solution, so that when they find the next proof-of-work, it chains after the first one. If anyone was working on a different plan, they switch to this one, because its proof-of-work chain is now longer.

After about two hours, the plan should be hashed by a chain of 12 proofs-of-work. Every general, just by verifying the difficulty of the proof-of-work chain, can estimate how much parallel CPU power per hour was expended on it and see that it must have required the majority of the computers to produce in the allotted time. At the least, most of them had to have seen the plan, since the proof-of-work is proof that they worked on it. If the CPU power exhibited by the proof-of-work is sufficient to crack the password, they can safely attack at the agreed time.

Response to the Recent Attacks Against The Qtum Project:
via Slack - qtum-brett:
 
Many people following this thread may have noticed there have been attempts to discredit the Qtum project.  One needs only to look at the tactics being employed. There is a term used commonly on this forum called: “FUD”, which Wikipedia.org describes as:

“Fear, uncertainty and doubt (often shortened to FUD) is a disinformation strategy used in sales, marketing,public relations,talk radio, politics, religious organizations, and propaganda. FUD is generally a strategy to influence perception by disseminating negative and dubious or false information and a manifestation of the appeal to fear.”

What we are seeing right now is exactly this, an attempt to undermine, call into question, create evidence, and in essence: “Fud the project”. Most veteran readers of this forum are familiar with this.  The issue that legitimate projects face is by simply responding, the bar is lowered and it drags the project into the depths of internet trolling. By remaining anonymous, an accuser can simply post whatever they want as bait, regardless of of whether it’s false ortaken completely out of context. This does not mean we are hiding or afraid to post on our own channels, it means that we will not fuel attacks by giving them attention.

The Qtum project is a vast undertaking.  Over the next 2 weeks as we lead up to the token sale, there will be a lot of content released that shows how we were able to raise $1 million in Angel backing and gather so much positive attention in the press.  Please note that as source code starts to be released, and other content is presented, the attacks will persist.  Please also remember that this is not the only big project that has experienced this and went onto become very successful.

These attacks have fallen completely flat on the Chinese community, as they recognize “Fud” for what it is, and they pay little attention to western channels like Bitcointalk. Qtum’s amazing team of Angel Backers have all experienced this type of behavior in the blockchain space, and none of these attacks affect their view of the project. Note that attempts to call into question their mere existence failed, and tactics were changed to attack the actual team members individually.

Our partnership with PwC remains firm, and legitimate concerns about the project (like how the funds will be handled,exchanges, token distribution, when the test network is released, etc) will be addressed.  Right now the focus is on building the community, releasing content, press articles, and of course, the source code.

Very soon there will be a great opportunity to judge the project based on its accomplishments, above and beyond raising money and press attention.  We ask that anyone affected by these attacks to take a sober second look at the project, and make their own informed decisions.Sincerely,The Qtum TeamMarch 3rd, 2017

don't forget there's two more after this one. if the winklevoss one gets a no, maybe the other applications will learn something and add it to theirs.

the gbtc one is based on something that's successfully existed for a few years. that's a strong possibility too.

WINGS
‏@wingsplatform

WINGS Foundation Adds Angel Investor Chandler Guo to Board of Advisors  #throwback #Ethereum https:/[Suspicious link removed]/BKDPOyZNre
12:00 AM - 27 Feb 2017

An idea popped into my mind.

What if ICO coin buyers vote on each release of the budget. They only get to vote up to the value of the tokens they own. They can vote any fraction of their tokens on any budget release. Once they've voted all their tokens, they can't vote any more.

The approved releases are taken from the pool of BTC. Any of the pool not released after a certain period of time, is returned back to all ICO investors proportionally.

What do you think? See any flaws in it?

One flaw is that it means some ICO owners can hold the other owners hostage, by refusing to fully fund what the developer thought had been raised already. But I am not sure that is really a flaw. It means the devs have an ongoing incentive to perform. I am very sleepy so I might have a major flaw in this idea.