Namiks
Sr. Member
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Activity: 292
Merit: 252
I miss when crypto was about decentralisation.
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March 05, 2015, 01:56:54 PM
Last edit: March 05, 2015, 02:10:56 PM by Namiks |
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Posting the pnd post from mani on the pndtalk forum here. For those that are lazy and aren't willing to click it to find out what it is.
"First a quick introduction, I'm a C++ programmer from South Africa with a huge amount of experience and decent qualifications, I work full time for a company that I co-own.
My wife over the last few years has been on dialysis and needed 3 transplants which has been quite financially draining so over the last few years I've also done some freelancing in my spare time.
With the exchange rate of 1 USD = ~11.5 ZAR I am able to meet a balance where work is worthwhile for me but still relatively affordable for my clients.
Mmany of you may have seen me around in IRC etc. and some of you have probably either figured it out already or been told via various channels, but most of you probably don't know.
I'm the 'dev' of the new pandabank client and the hybrid mode changes.
At my request my role was never made public as I'm not one for drama, having people suck up to me etc. etc. - I like mostly to just mind my own business and do my thing.
However under the circumstances I've decided to step forward and let everyone know what is going on, as I think everyone has a right to know and the current silence is not right.
I'm one of the few people who knows most of the "pieces of the puzzle" and the other people don't seem to be willing to talk.
Up until now I've remained silent as I don't like to breach confidentiality and I hoped that something would happen to make this unnecessary, but clearly thats not the case so here goes, note I am not going to go into complete specifics on many things as I do still want to try keep confidentiality for various people but I will at least give you the parts you need to know.
So now a bit of history, though I've followed crypto with a 'mild' interest for a long time I've never really been involved in it. This all changed one day when I was pulled in to bid on a freelance project.
The project was a rather ambitious client makeover with a rather ambitious high pressure deadline (30th August) that had already been announced to the public, for what you all know as the new PandaBank.
I don't know the full specifics of why but when I entered the project things were quite close to the deadline, and there were of course various other projects going on (browser miner etc. for the same deadline).
My contact person at this point was mostly bdanyo, and towards the final deadline I was introduced to Ozzke, and various others. Anyway, things were tight but under much pressure I managed to iron out most of the problems and deliver a mostly working first version.
bdanyo and Ozzke were clearly happy with my performance as they proceeded to negotiate an hourly rate for me to stay on and do further work for them, we agreed on a rate that was much lower than my normal rate,
I felt that as the people were pleasant to deal with, the projects interesting and above all else the project seemed something worthwhile to work on that this was okay, also I was given a once off amount in PND and purchased some of my own as well.
Though a bit of a gamble I felt that this alone could obviously make the work worthwhile if PND were to really take off.
From then on I quickly became integrated into the dev team, I was introduce to Linux_mint_pal, amDoge (who at that time seemed a rather silent/mysterious 'mastermind' in the background) and various others.
After much discussion about various ideas they wanted to go with and possibilities etc. we went forward on an incredibly ambitious 'hybrid' client, an idea I pitched to them when they said they wanted a light client.
It was agreed not to publically pre-announce as the 30th August deadline from before had put everyone in a very unhealthy situation and under an immense amount of pressure, I overshot the time estimate on this a fair amount proving this decision right as it would have been a nightmare if we pre-announced.
During the time this took to get out there was much 'moaning' from various people on btctalk that the devs should tell them what is being worked on etc. and not be silent.
As hybrid was ongoing there was also many more discussions on what to work on next, various ideas were pitched to me, along with the feasibility of a 'merchant idea' which has now become known to everyone as the '100000 merchants'.
Internally we developed a 'roadmap' for a very ambitious project of which the merchants project was only a portion, known to us as 'PandaX', for confidentiality reasons I don't feel it is my place to leak the full PandaX plan, I would only go into more detail on it if Ozzke gives his blessing, but it was very ambitious and if done right really could have been a game changer,
the '100000' merchants was a peice of it but not the whole thing, the marketing (that many people have been upset that there wasn't enough of) was also lined up for this - once all the pieces were in place etc. marketing early before there is something good for people to see is always a mistake.
bdanyo was really on top of things and managing everything well there was really every reason to be optimistic.
Hybrid was finally released, due to the pressure about the silence from the community, bdanyo made an error in judgement, he decided that instead of complete silence he would put out a 'teaser' on where things were headed,
so the hybrid announcement included the now infamous '100000 merchants', unfortunately this got way more attention than was expected (I think) and instead of getting us some slack to focus on PandaX as was expected, it caused a lot of extra pressure on us.
Anyway around this time, the first 'cracks' appeared to me, despite the build being ready we ended up being delayed multiple days waiting for amDoge to actually do the release - releasing was something only amDoge could do.
Somewhere in all of this I was pulled into a secret 'inner' channel where more behind the scenes stuff took place, this channel had only amDoge, Ozzke, Bdanyo and myself in it, amDoge actually talked here sometimes so some of the mystery was evaporating.
Much planning and work began on PandaX - at the same time it appeared the Hybrid work had paid off, it attracted to us various new volunteer developers, some of whom had skills perfect for the '100k merchants', bdanyo began to interview them and select ones to work on it.
Things were looking good... At the same time Ozzke and I carried on with the planning and I put out a maintanence release of PandaBank - again some stuff happened here that made me a bit nervous - it ended up taking over a week
to get amDoge to do the builds, there were minor issues with her build system that made the build not work, she was rather reluctant to let me actually help her fix it, eventually the build came out but not for linux (I think it still isn't out for linux?) even though I implemented fixes for her to try help with this.
A week or so after this bdanyo didn't come online, he sometimes went to visit family for a few days so we didn't think much of it, but then it was a week and still no bdanyo, 2 weeks nothing.
We began trying to track him down, none of this numbers worked, we found other numbers, nothing. It became apparent that most of the names we had for him were pseudonyms.
At this point I know everyone is going to yell scam, but I don't believe it to be the case. Ozzke who knew him far longer than me vouches for him, from what I know of him I would also vouch for him,
also it makes no sense, all of his PND accounts are still full, he has not emptied them, about a week from dissapearance he stopped staking but other than that no activity. If he were a scammer or if he just decided he wanted out, surely he would have sold.
It is my belief (sadly) that something bad possibly fatal has happened to him - the pseudonym was not because he was a scammer but simply because he wanted to protect his personal life.
Anyway, reality was now staring us in the face, bdanyo wasn't coming back, he was the glue that held it all together and without him it was unlikely we could pull PandaX off, we also lost some of the devs working on it as they lost interest after he stopped talking to them.
At the same time the community started placing lots of pressure on Ozzke regardings advertising, and roadmaps etc. etc. With this staring him in the face and given all the money he had put into this (Ozzke personally paid much of the funds for people like me to work on PND - and also heavily invested in the coin), that his company whichh e had been neglecting was in danger etc.
Ozzke really had no choice but to face up to reality, he decided to leave his role at PND. Being the amazing guy that he is he didn't do this immediately but rather took it upon himself to finalise one of bdanyos ongonig developments 'pndproject'
he also asked me if I would finish one of the things I was working on - which I agreed - and I still will release it at some point however have not yet managed due to personal life constraints (and a bit of a loss of motivation).
He wanted both announced before he left, but in the end released just 'pndproject' and then announced his 'resignation' - it was agreed that he would hang around and I would still deliver my little project, which will still happen at some point.
And that is essentially where we find ourselves now. The dev team has essntially disintegrated:
Bdanyo: Missing (presumed dead or something)
Ozzke: Resigned, burnt out.
Linux_mint_pal: I've not seen since bdanyo stopped being active - he was putting a lot of personal time into this, so I presume he too has had to go back to reality
amDoge: Still around, but from what I can tell rather apathetic towards it all, I'm not sure what if anything she is planning to do, but going on what I've seen so far I wouldn't hold my breathe, basically she is just waiting for somebody else to take charge again I guess?
Myself: Well I'm still around, but as you know I'm a mercenary and I don't work for free.
So this is what has happened, I know everyone is looking for another "mintgox" or "josh garza" or whatever to point at and blame, but really what I see here is a bunch of people who gave it their all and due to unfortunate circumstances simply didn't make it.
And really I can't blame them, its not fair for so much to be put on a few people who aren't getting paid while everyone does nothing.
So where to from here?
Well there are really two routes to go:
1) Everyone can panic and blame one another and tear it all apart and PND can die.
2) We can look at what is left and rebuild.
You still have one of the best wallets.
You still have one of the best communities.
Ozzke has left you the best possible parting gift, pndproject an equitable platform on which people can actually be paid for their work, where a proper economy ecosystem can sprout.
If everyone pools together and starts using it, a new strong PND could emerge, where everything is open and where development is spread out among the whole community, with no unfair pressure on single people working for free.
If everyone puts the effort in and gets behind it there is no need for everyones investments and effort to go to waste, who knows perhaps over time people like Ozzke may even be able to come back, that would be truly nice.
Though as a mercenary I won't work for free, if I see a future for the coin I would still love to be involved, so soon I myself will be putting some of my ideas (many of them parts of PandaX) onto pndproject, if you the community want to fund them I will be happy to implement them.
The ball is in your hands now, show everyone that you want to build and there is no reason we can't."
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