It seems that only a new developer community can save a coin
I guess that's one way to save a coin. But is it the only way? For the last ten years or so I have been involved in software development projects, and one thing I have learned is that it's a mistake to become dependent on any single developer, or even dependent on a business sense on software developers in general. Software developers are awesome - they can spin gold from straw - but there is a lot more to the success of a software technology project than code.
In the case of Sparks, which doesn't seem to have any particular or special characteristics that DASH doesn't have, the only way this project will truly be successful is if people start using the coin to transact with each other, or if people, attracted to the ROI at about 400% (lot better than a fiat savings account, I would say!), start snapping up and running master nodes. Or both.
Do the masternodes work? According to the Discord channel, looks like they seem to, aside from the typical burps and hiccups and end-user issues (like this exchange:
Someone: "PRE_ENABLE. Nothing happens guide said after 30 min it would switch to ENABLE now EXPIRED"
Someone Else: "Okay I got it. I made a mistake with the config file. Now it works. @Someone check under config: external ip and if your masterkey is correct"
Someone: "@Someone Else Work nowwww thanks" )
Typical stuff, right? Far as I can tell the wallet works.
OK, folks, so the wallet works, the masternodes work, so how is it that the project itself is dead?
It seems to me that very often the measure of the success of a project is tied entirely to the price of the coin - or, even worse, to whether the person who is posting their opinion is making money with their participation in the project. If the price drops, if people start to sell, if the developer is silent on Discord for a week it's PANIC and SCAM and worse.
What is the reason to actually buy coins and invest in a project? Is the only reason to make money? I believe that if the only reason you are in the crypto space is to make money then you will sometimes -- maybe oftentimes - be disappointed.
Are there true scams? Plenty. Is SPARKS one of them? I have no idea. But in terms of the argument I'm making and the concept I'm discussing, it doesn't matter whether SPARKS is a scam or not - what I am saying applies to every single crypto currency asset, whether it's from the dead coin list or whether it's BitCoin.