[ANN] [VIA] ★ Viacoin ★ ~ the future of digital currency ~ ★

[masternode]

so masternode basically wants to
1. kill Via/ XCH and
2.  organize refund/ buyout.

1 is easy. Congratulations. Good job.
2 is ridiculous. There is no way to do this. No just way. Why to refund ICO investors? Some people bought at 60k sat levels in the open market. Some are buying now below ICO level. And what about XCH?

I never intended it as refunds to only ICO investors.  If it came off that way, it was a miscommunication.  It should just be a coin swap.  Simply BTC for ANY VIA turned over.  

The only real expense Drak has had in this project is Peter Todd at $4k per month.  Gryn San (I believe that's his name), was hired to repay a debt he had with Drak, and never really an expense.  Other costs are minimal, other than one or two trips I think, one where he went to london and met with the Dark Wallet guys and Amir Taaki and invested 20 BTC into their project.  It's debatable whether or not that should be a VIA expense.  Regardless, 600 coins at todays value is roughly $175k (which assumes he made the absurdly poor decision of keeping operating funds in BTC this entire time).  If he initially converted them to cash, which would be the sensible thing for any project to do with operating funds, then it's obviously much more BTC that he should be holding.  

I can't see any way that he has spent over $8k per month (for 8 months) keeping this operational.  A very fair number shows that at min. he should have around $110k in operating funds left which doesn't include the XCH raise, which should leave at very least around 390 BTC of the original 600 raised (and even more if he converted BTC to cash at the start).  Again, I don't think that should go to the ICO holders, rather distributed amongst all current VIA holders.  And obviously XCH holders should be able to redeem their XCH for VIA and then into BTC.

These are very acurate numbers.  Again, I'd like to hear if there are any additional figures that aren't included, which is why we should ask Drak to be totally transparent.  

[barabbas]

so masternode basically wants to
1. kill Via/ XCH and
2.  organize refund/ buyout.

1 is easy. Congratulations. Good job.
2 is ridiculous. There is no way to do this. No just way. Why to refund ICO investors? Some people bought at 60k sat levels in the open market. Some are buying now below ICO level. And what about XCH?

I never intended it as refunds to only ICO investors.  If it came off that way, it was a miscommunication.  It should just be a coin swap.  Simply BTC for ANY VIA turned over.  

The only real expense Drak has had in this project is Peter Todd at $4k per month.  Gryn San (I believe that's his name), was hired to repay a debt he had with Drak, and never really an expense.  Other costs are minimal, other than one or two trips I think, one where he went to london and met with the Dark Wallet guys and Amir Taaki and invested 20 BTC into their project.  It's debatable whether or not that should be a VIA expense.  Regardless, 600 coins at todays value is roughly $175k (which assumes he made the absurdly poor decision of keeping operating funds in BTC this entire time).  If he initially converted them to cash, which would be the sensible thing for any project to do with operating funds, then it's obviously much more BTC that he should be holding.  

I can't see any way that he has spent over $8k per month (for 8 months) keeping this operational.  A very fair number shows that at min. he should have around $110k in operating funds left which doesn't include the XCH raise, which should leave at very least around 390 BTC of the original 600 raised (and even more if he converted BTC to cash at the start).  Again, I don't think that should go to the ICO holders, rather distributed amongst all current VIA holders.  And obviously XCH holders should be able to redeem their XCH for VIA and then into BTC.

These are very acurate numbers.  Again, I'd like to hear if there are any additional figures that aren't included, which is why we should ask Drak to be totally transparent.  

So what you are suggesting is liquidating the project and shelve it altogether?

I don't think that is the best alternative in the current situation. I believe Drak should first of all get rid of Peter Todd immediately, since his hiring was simple and exercise in personal vanity... at the expense of VIA stakeholders and serves absolutely no purpose whatsoever in the current state of the project. And I also believe he should also return that money you mention to the community in the form of two funds, one for the purpose of enticing new talent in all areas, and the other one to outright support the coin price at these levels. This would have an immediate positive effect and VIA would rebound much higher almost immediately. I also believe he should be a generous leader and donate a big chunk of his stake AND request that the community do the same to generate even more funds for the enormous promotional deployment that this project requires right now if it is to reach any kind of success level. This will not only result in a much more fair distribution but also in concrete practical results via those direct investments. As I have suggested to Drak, I believe he should not be the leader of this project, at least not the visible leader and should hire, instead, a Project Manager fully dedicated to the constant promotion, at all levels, of the project while doing what apparently he likes and probably does best which is remain in the background and doing and supervising the new tech advancements and features.

If ALL of those measures are adopted, I am convinced there will be some life still in VIA, perhaps quite a bit. It will be hard, it will be difficults but if the ;leader and the community march in sync, anything and everything is possible for VIA still has much more, if all those resources are put to work, than many if not most of it's competitors.

And, sure enough, one of the things Drak has no concept of is time. Time in crypto, that is. Roughly the equivalent of 100 the factor of a single unit in real life time. The waiting is getting quite old Drak, yes even after such a sort period of time. The memo is long overdue now.

[CryptoTrout]

dump more pls
xch too

[btcdrak]

Masternode approached me right at the beginnings of viacoin. He was very personable and friendly, and explained he was a big gun behind Darkcoin (and others) and had lots of experience in the startup world and would like to help viacoin succeed. He said he had lots of powerful connections and could help spread adoption really quickly. Naturally, I took him as an advisor and accepted him into my confidence. He said “I don’t want to try to force you to do stuff, just let me give you advice as an experienced investor in startups”, so it seemed like the right and beneficial thing to do.

At this point, however, I believe he did this to position himself such he would be privy to sensitive tradeable information in advance. Of course, being involved in the deals meant that he would be privy to certain information first. I was completely clear with masternode that anything we discuss for viacoin must remain confidential until we agreed to make it public.

Alarm bells began to ring for me when he started sharing privileged information with me about other projects his associates were involved in. I became concerned he might actually be using his position with viacoin to his advantage and leaking to his group. I gradually pulled back and stopped sharing details with him or asking for advice. Ultimately, he resented me for this and we had a hard falling out because I was no longer being forthcoming. This culminated in strongarm threats that “things will get ugly” and that he would make sure I would “never work in this space again” if I didn’t cooperate.  I thought he wanted out of viacoin so I offered to contact him with an OTC buyer. He refused.

So now, masternode is misrepresenting and casually leaking sensitive things in the works, proving that he doesn't care about viacoin or anyone else. It is a personal vendetta disguised under the pretense of “informing the community”, even promoting darkcoin in this forum. He’s treating our decentralized community like a startup that he can shut down at whim. As someone recently pointed out in the thread, the bitcoin protocol was designed to be robust against centralization. Once you start the network, you can’t just turn it off like you turn off your phone. This is the beauty of decentralized systems - no single actor can take it down.

So moving forward, I have read the forum carefully and I take it as a positive sign that people still have passionate opinions on  viacoin’s future success. I believe we can have a good discussion about how to move forward constructively with the project.

I understand people are not happy with the price of viacoin - that’s not really under my control; even bitcoin has it’s ups and downs just like any market. I have yet to sell any viacoin. We could even agree Bitcoin has been bleeding for 15 months despite wide adoption and publicity. This is why I am not entirely convinced that price will be affected by promotion but I do agree adoption is the key to everything and have quietly been doing my part to get adoption, successfully and unsuccessfully.

I think we would all like to spend our time focusing on the future and how to make viacoin better. I’ve been allocating most of my time in development and working out various deals. I prefer to under promise and over deliver. But now, I’d like to concentrate on how to grow the community and encourage adoption because listening to everyone, it seems that is what the community wants. I understand that this bear market can be a tough time for many investors, so I will be spending more time on the forums to discuss your concerns.

Viacoin is a decentralised community, but the the core of viacoin is the network. A strong secure network is the keystone. That is why I have been concentrating on building the foundations and the viacoin network has been going from strength to strength. Viacoin is well maintained and up to date with all the new features and bug fixes from Bitcoin 0.10. We have had 5 software major releases of the viacoin in 8 months. The network runs at about ~700GH/s and is mined by some of the biggest bitcoin mining companies in the world! One of them is f2pool Discus Fish.

When choosing a blockchain, there are actually very few that could be considered remotely secure based on network hash. Viacoin is definitely one of those now.

I am also disappointed at the attempts to downplay Peter Todd’s achievements for viacoin or say that he gets paid for “doing nothing”. Peter’s hard work on viacoin is well documented and its unnecessary to attack him to leverage an issue with me.

CHECKLOCKTIMEVERIFY http://blog.viacoin.org/2014/10/01/petertodd-dev-update.html

http://blog.viacoin.org/2014/11/13/petertodd-dev-update.html

Discourage NOPs reserved for soft-fork upgrades https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/pull/5000#issuecomment-58889473

Accept any sequence of PUSHDATAs in OP_RETURN outputs https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/pull/5079
SCRIPT_VERIFY_MINIMALDATA unittests https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/commit/cd9114e5136ecc1f60baa43fffeeb632782f2353 (also see my comments https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/pull/5065#issuecomment-59100744 on the pull-req)

Check against MANDATORY flags prior to accepting to mempool https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/pull/5253 and Fixed a DoS attack! Also see related post http://www.mail-archive.com/bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net/msg06466.html on the bitcoin-dev mailing list.

BIP62/STRICTENC review and tests https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/pull/5247

Discourage fee sniping with nLockTime

https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/pull/2340#issuecomment-58617533


http://blog.viacoin.org/2014/12/25/petertodd-dev-update.html

micropayment channel demo https://github.com/petertodd/checklocktimeverify-demos/blob/master/micropayment-channel.py

Near-zero fee transactions with hub-and-spoke micropayments http://www.mail-archive.com/bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net/msg06576.html

Setting the record straight on Proof-of-Publication http://www.mail-archive.com/bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net/msg06570.html

The relationship between Proof-of-Publication and Anti-Replay Oracles http://www.mail-archive.com/bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net/msg06617.html

I know some of that stuff is not very sexy. It’s not fancy anon or dubious instant confirmations. But they are essential improvements and bug fixes that contribute to the robustness of the network, which is the core of the project.

So regarding CHECKLOCKTIMEVERIFY. I am sure most people dont understand how important this new opcode is. It might seems like an obscure technical feature. But that is exactly how P2SH (multisig) started out. It was added to bitcoin with great urgency because the developers thought it was essential for bitcoin. Well they were right, but no-one even care for 2-3 years. Then multig started to be talked about in early 2014, and now in 2015, it have been implemented in just about every major wallet for bitcoin. Adoption of technology can take time.

Who has been involved with viacoin and clearinghouse? Well Grynn San helped a lot pre-release of viacoin and for a few months afterwards. He is unfortunately a diabetic and had severe complications which mean he has been unable to work much. Grynn was paid (what masternode said about debt is completely false). Maran also worked on ClearingHouse to implement the Blockchain Notary as a paid developer. Reorder from 1GH has been instrumental to the project and works as an unpaid volunteer. We discussed this and he did not want remuneration. Peter of course is chief scientist and gives advice as a paid consultant. Esotericizm was involved in making a mobile wallet for viacoin on Android.

I’ve worked very hard doing what I set out to do. It’s involved lots of long hours and sleepless nights. Maintaining this sort of thing requires a lot of thought, care and discussions because consensus systems are hard and one needs to be careful about the effects on the network.

I have always just quietly worked on things without much fanfare. I prefer to under promise and over deliver. I have evangelised viacoin a lot in the background. For example, I got adoption at woodwallets; coinpayments.net, the altcoin version of bitpay; and giffoff (was pock.io) which allows purchase of 1500 variety of giftcards payable with viacoin. A friend of mine got viacoin added to Litepay, a fiat gateway in Europe for viacoin. I just went ahead and did these things. I frankly don’t understand why the community isn’t doing the same. If everyone made an effort to get one merchant each to adopt viacoin… our collective voice would be deafening.

So overall, just like bitcoin, it really is up to the community to band together to evangelize viacoin. A few people have contacted me with ideas on how to kick start this a bit more which I am keen on exploring. So let’s discuss the nuances.

I am going to be more active on the forums, especially to facilitate the future plans. I had always envisioned crowdsourcing evangelism from the community instead of relying on a single whale early adopter and I believe that together we can make that happen.

So while I would prefer to focus on the technical stuff (stick to what I’m good at), I acknowledge that that people would appreciate discussing future positive plans for viacoin during the difficult times of the bear markets.

[creuz]

Supply and demand... this is what make the price, not core developpers. It's up to the community to create demand.

Thanks for this professional and mature answer btcdrak, you are beautifully doing your job.

[barabbas]

Thank you drak for the "memo"

Unfortunately, it is too technical and quite convoluted, but most supporters will appreciate the information contained.

The part and motivations of "masternode" are self evident and you would do well just ignoring further exchanges. He will do what he will do and, at this point, he is "part of the team" by necessity. Otherwise, if he bails, he will get nothing while hanging in could results in quite something, so, regardless how unethical, his support for the benefit of VIA is all by forced/guaranteed, I believe. Likewise, he will indeed be looking for an as quick as possible exit. That is something is already fully aware of... and should not be of any further concern. Will happen when will happen.

I don't think there's a single supporter of VIA that doesn't agree the network is solid and the overall tech aspects of the project are up to date. Those are NOT the problems of VIA. The lack of constant presence by you communication what is going on beyond snippets of tech activity, is one big part of the problems. Lack of incentives to get anything done, is another one. I have told you in many more details what's needed via PM. I see you are not willing to do the efforts, seemingly. So while this is nice and positive, it is so minimal that it won't work. Really. The community already supported you buying your ICO even though you kept 2.5 million coins for yourself creating a distribution problem of enormous proportions. It remains. And your lack of generosity -and, frankly, financial practicality- will both block the progress towards adoption of this project and your ability to, in the end, make any profit whatsoever from it. As I have repeatedly pointed out to you, 2.5 million of ZERO is much less than 1 million of something. Any child understand that. You prefer to ignore it and, instead, try to burden the community with the task of "evangelizing" a task the community is neither capable not willing to take. You really don't want to progress in that are. Because only you can. And you simply wont.
Perhaps you need a visual, because you don't get it: A community member approaching a business to get it to adopt VIA, is perceived as nothing but an attempt by a looser smuck to scam that business. An approach by a professional representative from VIA, especially a principal, with the proper materials and examples of transactions at hand, on a previously scheduled appointment, is quite something else. You choose to blind yourself to that no subtle at all difference. The support of the community is both desirable and needed, but in the areas where it shines: Social media, events, distribution at the consumer levels, bringing up ideas volunteering resources (money). The rest is just a way of your to try to take the burden off your shoulders and  on to those of the community, an exercise in absurdity.

Like I told you privately, a necessary 180 is needed on your part. What you say you pretend to do, represents a positive try, but a 90% degrees at best, probably much less. Once again, it is up to you to lead and change the fate of VIA or let it die slowly while pretending to put up a fight but really not putting up one. To rally the troops, you will need to take the former and, to be quite frank, to put the money where your mouth now is.

[Thomas-s]

Awesome answer, exactly what this coin needs.

[Ted Unite]

Thanks for your reaction Drak. Some additional questions though:

 -  Is Peter Todd still active as Chief Scientist?
 -  What is the status of treechains?

Thanks for your reply

[btcdrak]

Thanks for your reaction Drak. Some additional questions though:

 -  Is Peter Todd still active as Chief Scientist?
 -  What is the status of treechains?

Thanks for your reply

Yes, Peter is still with us of course.

Treechain's is Peter's research project for blockchain scalability using a kind of sharding method. There is no update on this although he mentioned it again recently at the MITBITCOIN2015 talk. He has always said the idea is very experimental, complex and he's not even sure if it will work or come to fruition. Something he says a lot is "consensus systems are hard" and that there is a lot to consider with any proposal, including how something might get broken or exploited.

[Ted Unite]

Is it still a goal (with the challenges ahead, no doubt about it) for you and Peter Todd to get treechains implemented for viacoin?

[btcdrak]

Is it still a goal (with the challenges ahead, no doubt about it) for you and Peter Todd to get treechains implemented for viacoin?

Absolutely. But remember what I said at the beginning. Treechains is an idea and research project. Assuming it is turns out to be viable, then of course we'd want to bring it into viacoin, but there is always the possibility it wouldnt be feasible for technical reasons - additionally it would be up to miners to accept the changes of course. In theory, treechains would be a soft forking change, so it seems entirely possible to add to viacoin and that certainly would be the intention. So to answer your question, I would love it, but cant promise anything. 

[Ted Unite]

Thanks Drak, I understand the risks and possible failure of course. For me it is important to know that research is ongoing on treechains and that you and Peter strive to implement treechains for viacoin.

[GooseNL]

Is it still a goal (with the challenges ahead, no doubt about it) for you and Peter Todd to get treechains implemented for viacoin?

Video Peter Todd about Treechains
https://www.youtube.com/embed/bit4Y6I38jM.

[masternode]

Masternode approached me right at the beginnings of viacoin. He was very personable and friendly, and explained he was a big gun behind Darkcoin (and others) and had lots of experience in the startup world and would like to help viacoin succeed. He said he had lots of powerful connections and could help spread adoption really quickly. Naturally, I took him as an advisor and accepted him into my confidence. He said “I don’t want to try to force you to do stuff, just let me give you advice as an experienced investor in startups”, so it seemed like the right and beneficial thing to do.

At this point, however, I believe he did this to position himself such he would be privy to sensitive tradeable information in advance. Of course, being involved in the deals meant that he would be privy to certain information first. I was completely clear with masternode that anything we discuss for viacoin must remain confidential until we agreed to make it public.

Alarm bells began to ring for me when he started sharing privileged information with me about other projects his associates were involved in. I became concerned he might actually be using his position with viacoin to his advantage and leaking to his group. I gradually pulled back and stopped sharing details with him or asking for advice. Ultimately, he resented me for this and we had a hard falling out because I was no longer being forthcoming. This culminated in strongarm threats that “things will get ugly” and that he would make sure I would “never work in this space again” if I didn’t cooperate.  I thought he wanted out of viacoin so I offered to contact him with an OTC buyer. He refused.

So now, masternode is misrepresenting and casually leaking sensitive things in the works, proving that he doesn't care about viacoin or anyone else. It is a personal vendetta disguised under the pretense of “informing the community”, even promoting darkcoin in this forum. He’s treating our decentralized community like a startup that he can shut down at whim. As someone recently pointed out in the thread, the bitcoin protocol was designed to be robust against centralization. Once you start the network, you can’t just turn it off like you turn off your phone. This is the beauty of decentralized systems - no single actor can take it down.

So moving forward, I have read the forum carefully and I take it as a positive sign that people still have passionate opinions on  viacoin’s future success. I believe we can have a good discussion about how to move forward constructively with the project.

I understand people are not happy with the price of viacoin - that’s not really under my control; even bitcoin has it’s ups and downs just like any market. I have yet to sell any viacoin. We could even agree Bitcoin has been bleeding for 15 months despite wide adoption and publicity. This is why I am not entirely convinced that price will be affected by promotion but I do agree adoption is the key to everything and have quietly been doing my part to get adoption, successfully and unsuccessfully.

I think we would all like to spend our time focusing on the future and how to make viacoin better. I’ve been allocating most of my time in development and working out various deals. I prefer to under promise and over deliver. But now, I’d like to concentrate on how to grow the community and encourage adoption because listening to everyone, it seems that is what the community wants. I understand that this bear market can be a tough time for many investors, so I will be spending more time on the forums to discuss your concerns.

Viacoin is a decentralised community, but the the core of viacoin is the network. A strong secure network is the keystone. That is why I have been concentrating on building the foundations and the viacoin network has been going from strength to strength. Viacoin is well maintained and up to date with all the new features and bug fixes from Bitcoin 0.10. We have had 5 software major releases of the viacoin in 8 months. The network runs at about ~700GH/s and is mined by some of the biggest bitcoin mining companies in the world! One of them is f2pool Discus Fish.

When choosing a blockchain, there are actually very few that could be considered remotely secure based on network hash. Viacoin is definitely one of those now.

I am also disappointed at the attempts to downplay Peter Todd’s achievements for viacoin or say that he gets paid for “doing nothing”. Peter’s hard work on viacoin is well documented and its unnecessary to attack him to leverage an issue with me.

CHECKLOCKTIMEVERIFY http://blog.viacoin.org/2014/10/01/petertodd-dev-update.html

http://blog.viacoin.org/2014/11/13/petertodd-dev-update.html

Discourage NOPs reserved for soft-fork upgrades https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/pull/5000#issuecomment-58889473

Accept any sequence of PUSHDATAs in OP_RETURN outputs https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/pull/5079
SCRIPT_VERIFY_MINIMALDATA unittests https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/commit/cd9114e5136ecc1f60baa43fffeeb632782f2353 (also see my comments https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/pull/5065#issuecomment-59100744 on the pull-req)

Check against MANDATORY flags prior to accepting to mempool https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/pull/5253 and Fixed a DoS attack! Also see related post http://www.mail-archive.com/bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net/msg06466.html on the bitcoin-dev mailing list.

BIP62/STRICTENC review and tests https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/pull/5247

Discourage fee sniping with nLockTime

https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/pull/2340#issuecomment-58617533


http://blog.viacoin.org/2014/12/25/petertodd-dev-update.html

micropayment channel demo https://github.com/petertodd/checklocktimeverify-demos/blob/master/micropayment-channel.py

Near-zero fee transactions with hub-and-spoke micropayments http://www.mail-archive.com/bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net/msg06576.html

Setting the record straight on Proof-of-Publication http://www.mail-archive.com/bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net/msg06570.html

The relationship between Proof-of-Publication and Anti-Replay Oracles http://www.mail-archive.com/bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net/msg06617.html

I know some of that stuff is not very sexy. It’s not fancy anon or dubious instant confirmations. But they are essential improvements and bug fixes that contribute to the robustness of the network, which is the core of the project.

So regarding CHECKLOCKTIMEVERIFY. I am sure most people dont understand how important this new opcode is. It might seems like an obscure technical feature. But that is exactly how P2SH (multisig) started out. It was added to bitcoin with great urgency because the developers thought it was essential for bitcoin. Well they were right, but no-one even care for 2-3 years. Then multig started to be talked about in early 2014, and now in 2015, it have been implemented in just about every major wallet for bitcoin. Adoption of technology can take time.

Who has been involved with viacoin and clearinghouse? Well Grynn San helped a lot pre-release of viacoin and for a few months afterwards. He is unfortunately a diabetic and had severe complications which mean he has been unable to work much. Grynn was paid (what masternode said about debt is completely false). Maran also worked on ClearingHouse to implement the Blockchain Notary as a paid developer. Reorder from 1GH has been instrumental to the project and works as an unpaid volunteer. We discussed this and he did not want remuneration. Peter of course is chief scientist and gives advice as a paid consultant. Esotericizm was involved in making a mobile wallet for viacoin on Android.

I’ve worked very hard doing what I set out to do. It’s involved lots of long hours and sleepless nights. Maintaining this sort of thing requires a lot of thought, care and discussions because consensus systems are hard and one needs to be careful about the effects on the network.

I have always just quietly worked on things without much fanfare. I prefer to under promise and over deliver. I have evangelised viacoin a lot in the background. For example, I got adoption at woodwallets; coinpayments.net, the altcoin version of bitpay; and giffoff (was pock.io) which allows purchase of 1500 variety of giftcards payable with viacoin. A friend of mine got viacoin added to Litepay, a fiat gateway in Europe for viacoin. I just went ahead and did these things. I frankly don’t understand why the community isn’t doing the same. If everyone made an effort to get one merchant each to adopt viacoin… our collective voice would be deafening.

So overall, just like bitcoin, it really is up to the community to band together to evangelize viacoin. A few people have contacted me with ideas on how to kick start this a bit more which I am keen on exploring. So let’s discuss the nuances.

I am going to be more active on the forums, especially to facilitate the future plans. I had always envisioned crowdsourcing evangelism from the community instead of relying on a single whale early adopter and I believe that together we can make that happen.

So while I would prefer to focus on the technical stuff (stick to what I’m good at), I acknowledge that that people would appreciate discussing future positive plans for viacoin during the difficult times of the bear markets.

Interesting that Drak says these things as much of it is simply not true.  I have a strong reputation in crypto that speaks for itself.  But I should clarify a few things, as I don't mind being totally open about my work:

I have never actively traded VIA for day trade profits nor has Otoh.  We typically accumulate large positions very early and help nurture the projects, a lot like what we have done with Darkcoin.  Yes there are times we sell, but it's not done on a daily basis, or even a weekly basis for that matter.  Also, I want to be very clear, I've never released any priveledged information to Drak about other projects, and if he believes so I welcome him to share it here as I'm that confident he won't be able to give me an example.  

"Alarm bells began to ring for me when he started sharing privileged information with me about other projects his associates were involved in. I became concerned he might actually be using his position with viacoin to his advantage and leaking to his group."
 
Yes, Drak was telling me priveledged information that could be advantageous.  And like I said in many previous posts, we were already the largest holders of VIA and XCH and we haven't sold our VIA position.  And to say there were alarm bells at this point or prior is interesting and I'll point out why.  Drak had shared with me that Patrick Byrne was interested in VIA and that they wanted him to fly out to the states in February.  Drak had contacted me because he knew I represent some of the largest holders, and wanted to see if we could secure a block of coins for Patrick.  I told him I could ask Otoh but I was not willing to sell any, in fact I told him I was interested in purchasing more (quite the opposite of what he claims of him feeling I was looking for a way out).  Also, one extremely important point here: If there were really red flags prior to this, wouldn't Drak have just told me he has found a large interested buyer and not disclose names?  Drak had informed me that he didn't mind me accumulating more just not to run up the price.  Drak even advised me on the trade saying if anything to place bids just below the market.  I debated including this info, but I figure at this point it's best to disclose everything.  Eventually he become extremely upset when I informed him that I spoke with my attorney because I had some interest in accumulating a bit more VIA (We wound up acquiring maybe 7 btc more worth over the next 4 weeks at a price of 10-12k satoshi, hardly increasing our already sizable position of millions of coins).  And to be honest I was quite surprised that he expected me not to consult with an attorney regarding anything, especially this as the last thing I wanted to do was put my self in any sort of legal problems.  Fwiw, my attorney had informed me that as long as I was not manupaliting prices, since it's an unregulated market, that it was ok to accumulate more without any legal risk.  Drak was not happy about the fact that I spoke to my attorney regarding this issue (but he was totally fine with my buying) and then decided to stop communicating with me over me obtaining legal consultation.  This was definitely interesting as it seemed extremely irrational, not to mention as a trader wouldn't Drak want to know where legal lines are?  February came and went and Drak had become even more silent on the forums as well as with others that he normally communicates with whom I am close with as well.  I began to wonder what was happening behind the scenes, and began to question if a lot of what he's represented to this point was really as it seemed.  

Prior to this incident I had done everything I could to help Drak push this project forward.  I had brought on the largest base of investors (as a group we still hold over 3M VIA and around 12M XCH), I had converted 200k VIA for XCH even though I was not excited about the surprise second raise, I had introduced Drak to other companies in the crypto space in an effort to get him and his coin support.  However, continuously since the beginning of VIA, I've seen him systematically shut down interest in this project as he has turned it into one of the smallest communities I've seen for a cryptocoin.  Again, my actions in my projects speak for themselves.  I've been active in helping other coins and investments succeed, and Drak has spawned practically zero adoption of VIA.  These are simply facts.  

If Drak thinks I'm trying to kill his coin he is wrong.  The truth is I have lost faith in it, more specifically his ability to create any sort of adoption or community behind it, enough so that I think the best course of path is for him to shut it down and return remaining funds to coin holders.  However I'm open to other possibilities.  

I point out that I do question if he is being totally honest with the community.  Otoh checked out long ago, because he is convinced that Drak is not.  

However, if the community wants to move forward with the project, then so be it.  If that is the case I propose that we have a trusted finance officer put in place to administrate the funds (which is why i've been trying to get an idea of where finances are).  If he is truly as straightfoward as he tries to appear this should be a total non-issue right?  If he is opposed to this, well, then we have to ask ourselves why?

[jennings]

Fwiw, my attorney had informed me that as long as I was not minupaliting prices, since it's an unregulated market, that it was ok to accumulate more.

So you made a trade on insider info that was so shady that you had to discuss it with your lawyer first? That just proves btcdrak's point.

[masternode]

Fwiw, my attorney had informed me that as long as I was not minupaliting prices, since it's an unregulated market, that it was ok to accumulate more.

So you made a trade on insider info that was so shady that you had to discuss it with your lawyer first? That just proves btcdrak's point.

There was nothing illegal about the trade.  I wanted to be absolutely sure first.

[Ashdrake]

Interesting that Drak says these things.  I have a strong reputation in crypto that speaks for itself.  But I should clarify a few things:

I have never actively traded VIA for day trade profits nor has Otoh.  We typically accumulate large positions early and help nurture the projects, a lot like what we have done with Darkcoin.  Yes there are times we sell, but it's not done on a daily basis, or even a weekly basis for that matter.  Also, I want to be very clear.  I've never released any priveledged information to Drak about other projects, and if he believes so I welcome him to share it here as I'm that confident he won't be able to give me an example.  

"Alarm bells began to ring for me when he started sharing privileged information with me about other projects his associates were involved in. I became concerned he might actually be using his position with viacoin to his advantage and leaking to his group."
 
Yes, Drak was telling me priveledged information that was advantageous but how advantageous can it be when the price was of VIA was already dead at this time (already below 10k satoshis).  And like I said in many previous posts, we haven't sold our VIA position.  And to say there were alarm bells at this point or prior is interesting and I'll point out why.  Drak had shared with me that Patrick Byrne was interested in VIA and that they wanted him to fly out to the states in February.  Drak had contacted me because he knew I represent some of the largest holders, and wanted to see if we could secure a block of coins for Patrick.  I told him I could ask Otoh but I was not willing to sell any, in fact I told him I was interested in purchasing more (quite the opposite of what he claims of him feeling I was looking for a way out).  Also, one extremely important point here: If there were really red flags prior to this, wouldn't Drak have just told me he has found a large interested buyer and not disclose names?  Drak had informed me that he didn't mind me accumulating more just not to run up the price, and if anything place bids below market.   Eventually he become extremely upset when I informed him that I spoke with my attorney because I had some interest in accumulating a bit more VIA (We wound up acquiring 7 btc more worth over the next 4 weeks at a price of 10-12k satoshi, hardly increasing our already sizable position of millions of coins).  And to be honest I was quite surprised that he expected me not to consult with an attorney regarding anything, especially this as the last thing I wanted to do was put my self in any sort of legal problems.  Fwiw, my attorney had informed me that as long as I was not manupaliting prices, since it's an unregulated market, that it was ok to accumulate more.  Drak was not happy about the fact that I spoke to my attorney regarding this issue and then decided to stop communicating with me.  This was definitely interesting as it seemed extremely irrational.  February came and went and Drak had become even more silent on the forums as well as with others that he normally communicates with whom I am close with as well.  I began to wonder what was happening behind the scenes, and began to question if a lot of what he's represented to this point was really as it seemed.  

Prior to this incident I had done everything I could to help Drak push this project forward.  I had brought on the largest base of investors (as a group we still hold over 3M VIA and around 12M XCH), I had converted 200k VIA for XCH even though I was not excited about the suprise second raise, I had introduced Drak to other companies in the crypto space in an effort to get him and his coin support.  However, continuously since the beginning of this project I've seen him systematically shut down interest in this project and turn it into one of the smallest communities I've seen for a cryptocoin.  Again, my actions in my projects speak for themselves.  I've been active in helping other coins and investments succeed, and Drak has spawned practically zero adoption of VIA.  These are simply facts.  

If Drak thinks I'm trying to kill his coin he is wrong.  The truth is I have lost faith in it more specifically his ability to create any sort of adoption or community behind it, enough so that I think the best course of path is for him to shut it down and return remaining funds to coin holders.  However I'm open to ther possibilities.  

I point out that I do question if he is being totally honest with the community.  Otoh checked out long ago, becuase he is convinced that Drak is not.  

However, if the community wants to move forward with the project, then so be it.  If that is the case I propose that we have a trusted finance officer put in place to administrate the funds (which is why i've been trying to get an idea of where finances are).  If he is truly as straightfoward as he tries to appear this should be a total non-issue right?  If he is opposed to this, well, then we have to ask ourselves why?

BRO

You just admitted twice that you got insider information, and you traded on insider information. Its written right there. Basically, you used whatever information BTCdrak has given you in good faith and acted on it. You just proved his point. Also talking to your lawyer... Come on man...

Also advantegous information when VIA is at 10K is a fucking gold mine dude. if you believe in the project you buy when the price is in the dumps (especially if you get insider info) not when it goes to the MOON.

 LATER EDIT: Also its not your business or anyone's business other than BTCDrak's of where his finances are. Stop acting so entitled.  You are also a scumbag. gtfo

[Ted Unite]

Fwiw, my attorney had informed me that as long as I was not minupaliting prices, since it's an unregulated market, that it was ok to accumulate more.

So you made a trade on insider info that was so shady that you had to discuss it with your lawyer first? That just proves btcdrak's point.

There was nothing illegal about the trade.  I wanted to be absolutely sure first.

What I do not understand that you have interest of a huge HUGE player and want to add 70.000 more coins to the millions you already have. These are pennys and why take that risk when you know that you have (I repeat) a potentially huge deal?

Please, lets try and come together here and make things right to eachother. We need eachother to make this coin great. Maybe I am naive, but with the network of Masternode and the Knowledge of BTCDrak, viacoin has a very strong team to make things happen. I hope the trust can be restored between the two of you and I think (I hope) the community thinks the same.

[masternode]

Fwiw, my attorney had informed me that as long as I was not minupaliting prices, since it's an unregulated market, that it was ok to accumulate more.

So you made a trade on insider info that was so shady that you had to discuss it with your lawyer first? That just proves btcdrak's point.

There was nothing illegal about the trade.  I wanted to be absolutely sure first.

What I do not understand that you have interest of a huge HUGE player and want to add 70.000 more coins to the millions you already have. These are pennys and why take that risk when you know that you have (I repeat) a potentially huge deal?

Please, lets try and come together here and make things right to eachother. We need eachother to make this coin great. Maybe I am naive, but with the network of Masternode and the Knowledge of BTCDrak, viacoin has a very strong team to make things happen. I hope the trust can be restored between the two of you and I think (I hope) the community thinks the same.

"why take the risk"  This is exactly why you should consult attorneys.  To make sure there is no risk.

You are right, my network of contacts helped bring VIA opportunity.  At this pont though, Otoh and I are writing off this investment and stepping away.  We won't be dumping any coins as the BTC we can obtain is meaningless.  But if anyone has any questions about anything I will always make myself available.

[Ted Unite]

I was not talking about legal stuff, but about trust/integrity...