UPDATE: There is a somewhat more refined version of this article here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/ByteBall/comments/7zvigt/dear_fellow_byteballers/A Call for Calm, Rationality & Honest Reflection by All ByteballersWith a goal of building a Strong & Vibrant Community in Spite of this recent PR setback.
I Invite all of you to put aside past issues and try to see things with a fresh perspective.
Let's have a Reset...
Dear Fellow Byteballers, my apologies this post is so long but there is a lot I'd like to cover.
Most Importantly this:
We, the Community must find a way to get on the same page about some core issues
if we are ever to see a long term future for ByteBall. Which surely is what we all want.
Long term survival is the Supreme Mission ...
We Simply Must stop Fighting Among Ourselves about Issues of No Real Importance. "A house divided against itself cannot stand"
ByteBall cannot succeed without Community. End of Story. Does EVERYONE get it?
If you really care about this project please join me in trying to chart a course toward a Community
where Tony will come to embrace a partnership with us, Something he has been unwilling to do so far
- I think maybe with some good reason.
- But ultimately this has to happen if Tonych wants ByteBall to achieve it's true potential.
To begin this new chapter of ByteBall history, We Must try to see things more from Tonych's perspective as well.
He is the founder, the driving force. He knows the code - knows how changes affect other
components and the difficulty of doing things with the resources available.
He obviously has his particular vision of ByteBall as well.
It is his baby and the baby is still very young - it still requires a lot of nurturing and protection.
For example, if you had created this amazing thing called ByteBall, would you give control of parts of
your baby to a wild bunch like as us? Always fighting amongst ourselves, grudges held, politics played,
many lazy and expectant ... more complainers than helpers? etc. etc. I think not.
We need to change all that if ByteBall is to succeed.
ByteBall cannot succeed without Community. Does everyone truly get that? It's just not going to happen without us!
But, If we rise to the occasion, and speak with a coherant voice I believe Tonych would begin to trust us more and more and take us
much more seriously, incorporating as many new ideas and concepts as make sense.
He must realize this is a partnership of sorts and being an honorable and ethical man, He would want to
do right by us, his partners - his supporters - without whom none of this would be possible. Many were
not so lucky to get free Bytes and have paid for them out of pocket. These folks have made an
investment that needs to be respected and protected to the fullest extent possible, otherwise it could
appear as if they are the suckers in all this. Let us all understand that a rising price is not evil - it
is a sign of success. It is something we should all value - it will help to drive growth and adoption marvelously.
But Tonych cannot do everything himself. There is an army of volunteers that keep the machinery going -
how will this be accomplished 3 years from now? or 6? can ByteBall continue to always rely on volunteers?
Is that a good idea long term? What if it's not?
We need to solve challenges like this and others if ByteBall is to have a long term future.
I believe Tonych would welcome a mature responsible, resourceful & resilient Community looking out for
his Brainchild's long term interests.
A Strong & Passionate Community is also Vital for the Best Roadmap to Emerge and Evolve.
A Roadmap is essential if we are to attract serious long term players. But we need to be much stronger and less divided for that to happen. In My Opinion, We should work towards a kind
of "Constitution" for the ByteBall Platform. If we can begin to agree on a few things we can move
forward quickly and begin to add Essential Elements into our Roadmap and help Tonych build a great map of the future.
As a Community, we have a Vital Role - we must consider points of view outside of our own and be
willing to switch our support to a better argument when key choices and decisions need to be made.
I'm confident that when we as a Community are able to show that kind of maturity, we will truly be in a
position to conquer the world of Crypto with our Bytes.
Let's Begin this new chapter together by Resolving Two Key Issues as a Community Right Now. Today!Allow me to explain...with a little story...
At a high level, beyond ByteBalls DAG technology, Distribution Strategy & Governance are the Ultimate Keys to the future.
If we accept the premise of centralization and the nature of the distributions as being key, a lot of
things begin to make sense. Especially Price Action.
Obviously the price has not done what most have been confidently predicting, and the poor price
performance versus some others has in turn prompted many to wonder why?
Quite a lot of selling was done from rivals and others of course, who just wanted to cash in,
but through the agonizing months of shocking declines, which never seemed to end, some began to wonder ...
Is it the dirty filthy sounding name that people don't like?
while others demand the Denomination be changed (to sucker in people who can't do math
)
A lot seemed to want both.
Change Something! . . . they demand, in truth, because the price was not going up as they would have liked.
And when other Digital Assets of far lesser worth were doing so much better they knew exactly why...
It's the Name Dumbass. . . it's the Denomination Stoopid.
(So easy & fun to mock something isn't it)
Now I really don't mean to offend anyone, I know some of us have argued furiously for one side or the
other in the past, because on the surface, that's what it looks like. Had me fooled for a time.
But . . .
In fact, when you really think about it, the name is not bad at all - I definitely love that we own
Bytes, KBytes, MBytes & GBytes, and a "Ball of Bytes" called ByteBall is actually pretty cool also.
Sure, maybe we could come up with a better one, I like "Quirky" or "Quirk" myself,
- but frankly it's the least productive thing we could possibly do right now.
Same for changing the Denomination. (I prefer Bytes, But who cares? its fairly basic math)
The Real reason Byteball is heavily sold on every rally is because of the nature of the ByteBall
distributions & centralization. It is has been a "centralization" issue for a long time now and the
markets don't like the uncertainty - simple as that. Little or Nothing to do with the name or denomination.
ByteBall can and must build a Roadmap - What large ICO is going to want to join our party when some
fundamentally important elements are not yet in place?
Would you stake the next 5 - 10 years on a Platform that could not state what it's plans are for the
next six months, let alone the next year or two. Let alone the Next Decade? Ha.
Be under no illusion, Undistributed Bytes are an extremely powerful asset when coupled with a Roadmap
that is well thought out, fair, workable and delivers on its promises. Get it right and Bytes will
dominate with widespread viral adoption and use - get it wrong and we slowly, and then quickly die.
Under no circumstances should the Bytes be quickly distributed - we are not nearly strong enough for
that yet. The current path while inadequate, is a good beginning and addresses some very important areas,
and Tonych has stated that they are on the lookout for more. Let's help him find some - but there is no immediate urgency.
Those undistributed Bytes are key to Byteballs future. They are the most powerful asset ByteBall has.
It's fantastic that so many are still to be distributed. In truth Tonych has done the right thing by
deciding to switch gears - the way it was done however was not well thought out. We'll have to do better next time.
Distributions should actually stretch out for a long time into the future - chasing the broadest
possible user base, with room to evolve as circumstances change. Couple that with a Strong Roadmap,
which outside of core protocols, is ultimately more and more Community driven,
and we will have an unstoppably viral crypto growing in every direction.
A large portion of remaining Bytes should be used to incentivize Byteballers to help grow the Platform
by Inviting others to participate and getting a bounty for doing so.
Those who are arguing for ultra ultra conservative distribution methods only,
are putting ByteBall at risk of missing the boat by being too conservative.
We should trial lots of different methods - see what works and what doesn't.
Most businesses are able to factor in a "cost of doing business" ByteBall must also be mature enough to do so.
We do not have endless time to get things right
Competitors are well entrenched in the race already. Look at what Dash is doing on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Augu01Z9tw - even sponsoring "truthy" journalists:
https://youtu.be/VWbuNd64qoU?t=52sIt's working...
One of the reasons I first got involved in ByteBall is because I see Tonych as a decent honorable man
who tried and is still trying to do what he considers the right thing for his briliant invention.
I have no doubt that Tonych would absolutely love if we stopped bugging him about the Name and Denomination stuff,
and started to organize something he could embrace and work with - something that puts no demands on the protocol,
but allows for user input into certain aspects of ByteBall - like for example, a vote on exchange listings.
If Tonych cannot get on board with common sense things like this, then maybe we are actually in the wrong
investment. A world class Crypto must have liquidity!
(Sidenote: Can someone with some real knowledge tell me if its possible to vote from within the wallet - I'd love to know,
step by step how if possible. I'm sure it would cost a few Bytes to vote, but beyond that, I don't know.)
How about Cryptopia? We should have flown someone down there to fix things with a SSD already - It's
that important! A system needs to be in place to do everything possible to prevent bad things from
happening - these are some of the things a good Roadmap will address.
So Lets try to develop a consensus around these Two issues that have been dogging us for far too long.The Name & Denomination have little to nothing to do with the price of the Asset.
Let's put these two issues firmly behing us. We'll do just fine with the name ByteBall.
If we can simply agree on these two things, we can move forward nicely and begin to work out the
details on other things.
Let's set about rebuilding trust and making it happen. Objective: A Strong & Vibrant Community, capable of
building and maintaining a non protocol level Governance, Maintenance & Marketing Structure to lead us
into the next decade and beyond. I for one, still have high hopes for the ByteBall project. It is still early days.
(But no time to waste!)
My credentials: I am Pinstripe on Bitcointalk and CryptoBest on Reddit.
I can't earn brownie points by pointing to some amazing code I wrote, but that doesn't mean I don't
have something to offer, if you consider +35 years of old school marketing and 20 years of Internet
Marketing of some value - I would hear me out if I were you.
Final thoughts:I still believe that variations on the themes I presented here:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1608859.msg28085267#msg28085267especially new merchant invitations, are some of the most powerful ways to grow the byteball platform,
and drive Marketing efforts going forward - as well as Rebuild the Community to world class levels.
Let's Find creative ways to Engage the Community to do the work, to the ByteBall Platforms extreme benefit.
