Bitmark

[kjadB]

The good news is that Nathan knows this was wrong, is prepared to face the consequences and most importantly wants to put things right.  I really hope that can happen, and is not just another 'ill do it at the weekend'.  I hope it's taken seriously this time, and I think everyone wants to believe.

The track record you posted does not inspire confidence that he will actually "finally" do the right thing.  It also explains the large dump on Polo today.  I hope I'm wrong but you have painted him a serial liar and conman.

The dump was SuperNET.

https://nxtforum.org/nxtventures/shark-report-sharktales-and-other-musings/msg173045/#msg173045

I think Nathan will do the right thing now. Having your RL identity exposed on the internet is probably a good motivator to set things straight, but I think Nathan was moving in the right direction anyway.

[johndec2]

There are currently 933,380 BTM in existence. If they really own 10% of them then despite what they say, they haven't dumped them all.  Maybe 10-15% of their stash. If they dumped the lot the price would be in single figures.

[Este Nuno]

The good news is that Nathan knows this was wrong, is prepared to face the consequences and most importantly wants to put things right.  I really hope that can happen, and is not just another 'ill do it at the weekend'.  I hope it's taken seriously this time, and I think everyone wants to believe.

The track record you posted does not inspire confidence that he will actually "finally" do the right thing.  It also explains the large dump on Polo today.  I hope I'm wrong but you have painted him a serial liar and conman.

The dump was SuperNET.

https://nxtforum.org/nxtventures/shark-report-sharktales-and-other-musings/msg173045/#msg173045

I think Nathan will do the right thing now. Having your RL identity exposed on the internet is probably a good motivator to set things straight, but I think Nathan was moving in the right direction anyway.

Sharkfund isn't SuperNET. SuperNET probably owns some Sharkfund0, but they are separate entities. Just want to clarify that.

[melvster]

I really hope this can be turned around and made into a success, because the web needs a good reputation system.  

I admire your optimism. I had some email convos with “Mark Pfennig” during the period of time when he was researching for Bitmark (and on a different occasion with insanitycoin because of his interest in the blockchain-cum-RDF). We had a go at discussing the issues in a reputation system but I found that his naive and uninformed model rendered the attempt futile.

Question is: what makes you feel that someone who has demonstrated such questionable social judgement is capable of designing and building an effective reputation system?

Cheers

Graham

P.S. I owe you an email, I'm working on it

Im agreeing with you here.  

The mechanics of an effective reputation system have to be honed in with some skill.  Probably more skill that this project has at the moment, but there's room to grow.  Even if a relatively small effort is made, it's such a big space that even a small piece is worth a lot.  

I dont much mind who builds a web scale reputation system, so long as someone does it, and preferably loosely coupled the data and the data analysis.  If this is the project that does it id be happy, but opportunities dont last indefinitely and the clock is ticking.

A good reputation system should not have a single point of failure, so should be independent of the designers.  The person who invented chess rankings, shouldnt have an influence on who the best chess player is.

[kennyP]

The good news is that Nathan knows this was wrong, is prepared to face the consequences and most importantly wants to put things right.  I really hope that can happen, and is not just another 'ill do it at the weekend'.  I hope it's taken seriously this time, and I think everyone wants to believe.

The track record you posted does not inspire confidence that he will actually "finally" do the right thing.  It also explains the large dump on Polo today.  I hope I'm wrong but you have painted him a serial liar and conman.

I googled 'Nathan Rixham' and feel a lot better about the future. Nathan seems to have sufficient skills and experience to make BTM a success, and that's more than most coin communities can say. The history of alt coin development has usually involved anon devs with modest skills and experience at best. Many have bitten off more than they could accomplish skill wise, so they walk away into the shadows. Sadly many more have been calculated scams involving premines, IPO's, and pump & dumps etc etc

I think it's clear Nathan Rixham had the skills and experience to pull off a large 2014 styled scam with an IPO and/or premine etc with ease, but he didn't. He could have easily avoided involving people who could later identify him, but he didn't. He could have left without disclosing anything in slack or on this forum, but he didn't, he's confessed to everything.

I really don't see anything going on here other than someone with a great idea, and talent & experience enough to complete the work, but obviously lacking things like time management, organisational skills, and sufficient resources to work without pay for months at a time, especially as there wasn't a BTM premine he could sell along the way.

Nathan could have pulled off a monumental scam in 2014 if he wanted to, but he didn't. He certainly made mistakes, and it sounds like his intentions can overtake his abilities sometimes, like borrowing money from friends when you can't repay them. I've got mates like that, always short of money, but still decent people, just unorganized with their finances. They're not scammers, just a pain in the ass, but often they're the best guys to know, coz they don't judge you back.

I'm still optimistic for bitmark, as long as Nathan & co re-group and get back to work asap.

[melvster]

Nathan and many others maintain that an IPO would have been easy to pull off.

But I have my doubts because

- there was and is nothing special about the coin compared with coingen, like there is with monero or any other number of coins, which have features

- there was no website, and still is no website, when this coin was in the top 100 it was the *only* coin without a website

- there was no evidence of any marking code at all, and still isnt, compared with say supernet which has tons of code

There was an extremely interested article on marking.  Yes, for sure.  But how much is an article worth?  How much is a blog post worth?  

The marking implemention poloniex did in 1-2 days has value, and so is being listed on the exchange, and the constant altruistic mining.  

But if polo pull the plug on things, it's pretty much over, isnt it?

[melvster]

The good news is that Nathan knows this was wrong, is prepared to face the consequences and most importantly wants to put things right.  I really hope that can happen, and is not just another 'ill do it at the weekend'.  I hope it's taken seriously this time, and I think everyone wants to believe.

The track record you posted does not inspire confidence that he will actually "finally" do the right thing.  It also explains the large dump on Polo today.  I hope I'm wrong but you have painted him a serial liar and conman.

Nathan seems to have sufficient skills and experience to make BTM a success, and that's more than most coin communities can say. The history of alt coin development has usually involved anon devs with modest skills and experience at best.

Agree on this part.  No doubt in my mind he's a capable developer.  This could be a great project if he decides to put his mind to it, while the opportunity is still there.  

[Este Nuno]

Nathan and many others maintain that an IPO would have been easy to pull off.

But I have my doubts because

- there was and is nothing special about the coin compared with coingen, like there is with monero or any other number of coins, which have features

- there was no website, and still is no website, when this coin was in the top 100 it was the *only* coin without a website

- there was no evidence of any marking code at all, and still isnt, compared with say supernet which has tons of code

There was an extremely interested article on marking.  Yes, for sure.  But how much is an article worth?  How much is a blog post worth?  

The marking implemention poloniex did in 1-2 days has value, and so is being listed on the exchange, and the constant altruistic mining.  

But if polo pull the plug on things, it's pretty much over, isnt it?

We definitely could have done an IPO back then which would have raised significant funds. It probably should have been done.

VIA did a 600+ BTC IPO right at the same time with exactly the same starting point as BTM, an scrypt client updated to the latest Bitcoin release. Even raising 1/6th of what VIA raised and it would have been a completely different situation. Multiple people were requesting an IPO and pledging BTC.

Syscoin did a 1500 BTC IPO and they couldn't get a blockchain working for weeks. It was a much different time and people were more than willing to invest upfront in projects that they felt had potential.

Mark wasn't interested in any sort of IPO or other coins at all. I even suggested that we launch a pfennig fork as a side project that we can use to develop new technologies on which could eventually be folded back in to BTM after they proved stable(this was probably in July or early Aug). But Mark didn't think it was fair to create any thing other than Bitmark as he thought people would lose money on it in the long run, and he didn't want to be involved in anything like that.

[melvster]

Maybe there were certainly people throwing money at some projects.

But it's easier said than done.  Just saying with no remarkable features, no website and no track record, it would have been hard in a competitive space.

Let's be clear.  Funding wasnt the problem.  Didnt Nathan say he had enough money to fund this project for one whole year at the start? 

There was a ton of funding on top of that, from dozens of people, $1000s (perhaps $10000s) or more, in personal donations, developer loans, donations to the foundation, resources donated to the project, mining, investors in BTM, or just was simply went missing when no one was looking.   

There's no evidence that an ICO would have done anything other than increase the losses.

[coinsolidation]

Melvster, it's a bad enough situation already, without you constantly try to make it appear even worse still and inferring that's it's just the tip of the iceberg.  Este, kenny, thank you.

[emdje]

Melvster, it's a bad enough situation already, without you constantly try to make it appear even worse still and inferring that's it's just the tip of the iceberg.  Este, kenny, thank you.

He just wants to tank the price so he can buy cheap

[melvster]

Melvster, it's a bad enough situation already, without you constantly try to make it appear even worse still and inferring that's it's just the tip of the iceberg.  Este, kenny, thank you.

Give us some good news and we'll all cheer about it. 

[melvster]

Melvster, it's a bad enough situation already, without you constantly try to make it appear even worse still and inferring that's it's just the tip of the iceberg.  Este, kenny, thank you.

I dont mean to infer that it's the tip of the iceberg, sorry if that comes across or you see it that way. 

This project has been dogged with a lack of transparency.  You've been more transparent recently, and that's a good thing.

Do I think it's the tip of the iceberg.  Maybe, maybe not.  What we have found out I would have considered out of character previously, in fact, I would not have believed it.  But new things come out every day. 

The latest I heard is that you bought over 20 million GMC at 1 satoshi and pumped it up to over 1000, then executed a massive dump.  All the while telling the BTM community you were working full time on marking.  We do have a right to know about this, after all, you used our money to do this.  People are also saying that you only went anonymous because you uncovered some XRP scandal. 

What I'd advise going forward is just be 100% open and transparent, write and check in code ASAP, and make marking a reality.  If bitmark reaches its full potential, all the other problems will solve themselves.

[tdokta]

am hoping that the continued negative comment towards Mark/Nathan isn't impacting on his motivation to work on the BTM core and marking code.

transparency in the foundation may be what is lacking, but seriously, i am thinking the lack of discretion is what hurts the most.

[bitcoinbboyce]

Melvster, it's a bad enough situation already, without you constantly try to make it appear even worse still and inferring that's it's just the tip of the iceberg.  Este, kenny, thank you.

I dont mean to infer that it's the tip of the iceberg, sorry if that comes across or you see it that way. 

This project has been dogged with a lack of transparency.  You've been more transparent recently, and that's a good thing.

Do I think it's the tip of the iceberg.  Maybe, maybe not.  What we have found out I would have considered out of character previously, in fact, I would not have believed it.  But new things come out every day. 

The latest I heard is that you bought over 20 million GMC at 1 satoshi and pumped it up to over 1000, then executed a massive dump.  All the while telling the BTM community you were working full time on marking.  We do have a right to know about this, after all, you used our money to do this.  People are also saying that you only went anonymous because you uncovered some XRP scandal. 

What I'd advise going forward is just be 100% open and transparent, write and check in code ASAP, and make marking a reality.  If bitmark reaches its full potential, all the other problems will solve themselves.

It would be good to have Mark comment on this.

[kjadB]

am hoping that the continued negative comment towards Mark/Nathan isn't impacting on his motivation to work on the BTM core and marking code.

transparency in the foundation may be what is lacking, but seriously, i am thinking the lack of discretion is what hurts the most.

i agree, is there any benefit to BTM holders from kicking coinsolidation so hard in PUBLIC he comes to the conclusion that all is lost, and completely leaves the project? There is obviously personal issues here for some people who feel 'betrayed' on a friendship level, but any notions of 'revenge' and outing further indescretions is 100% counter productive to everyone who invested in the idea, and not Nathan as a person.

If you believe Mark/Nathan is working on bitmark still, support him. If you don't, do you have any evidence of that, other than speculation based on past behaviour?

Private matters should stay private IMO. Everyone has enough information now to probably judge Nathan's character for themselves, more dirty laundry being aired in this thread isn't going to help get BTM moving forward if Mark throws in the towel.

[emdje]

am hoping that the continued negative comment towards Mark/Nathan isn't impacting on his motivation to work on the BTM core and marking code.

transparency in the foundation may be what is lacking, but seriously, i am thinking the lack of discretion is what hurts the most.

i agree, is there any benefit to BTM holders from kicking coinsolidation so hard in PUBLIC he comes to the conclusion that all is lost, and completely leaves the project? There is obviously personal issues here for some people who feel 'betrayed' on a friendship level, but any notions of 'revenge' and outing further indescretions is 100% counter productive to everyone who invested in the idea, and not Nathan as a person.

If you believe Mark/Nathan is working on bitmark still, support him. If you don't, do you have any evidence of that, other than speculation based on past behaviour?

Private matters should stay private IMO. Everyone has enough information now to probably judge Nathan's character for themselves, more dirty laundry being aired in this thread isn't going to help get BTM moving forward if Mark throws in the towel.

Totally agree with this.

[coinsolidation]

Marking and the Multi User Wallet API will both be completed and released.  Bitmark and Pfennig will be updated to 0.10 codebase.  I do not need help, guidance, discussion, speculation, technical or social input to do them.

[pabloangello]

Marking and the Multi User Wallet API will both be completed and released.  Bitmark and Pfennig will be updated to 0.10 codebase.  I do not need help, guidance, discussion, speculation, technical or social input to do them.

This is great news. I'm still with this project if needed any help in future with Android apps.

[batesresearch]

Bitmark will be one of our launch coins on our new giveaway site, see https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1025843 for more information.