Keep building

Just wanted to re-focus our attention to what’s important: bringing privacy to crypto in a scalable and decentralised way.

I know a lot of folks in the community are on the edge now after the recent changes (pNodes production shutdown, re-prioritise development, @andrey and the growth+support team leaving, @inccry selling incscan). While I think scaling down growth and support at this time was a bad idea, it doesn’t change the end-goal and vision of the project.

It’s easy to give in to negativity and trolls on this forum. It’s easy to give up when you hit a bump in the road. But we’re not here to do the easy thing, we’re here to do the right thing. Crypto needs privacy today more than ever. If we compromise short term growth for long-term scalability, correctness and decentralisation, fine by me. But let’s not forget that the platform requires integrations, accessibility, usability and liquidity to be successful.

Just wanted to say a huge thanks to the growth and support teams for their effort and dedication (@andrey @elena @aaron @Ducky @Chucky etc) and the dev team for making all of this a reality (@duc @khanhj @0xkumi @binh etc). Sorry if I missed anyone but I’m only allowed 10 mentions :slight_smile:

You have our full support, let’s stay focused and keep on building.

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People don’t like change, that makes it a little difficult for some to see the good in this. Prioritizing development will do miracles for the future. Incognito was meant to be a longterm project from the start.

I feel bad for the support team members though. I hope they will be brought back in when the time comes.

To be honest, I sold some of my PRV, because I expect a drop in price, when that happens I will be there to buy back cheap. Then all I need to decide on is the color of my Lamborghini :sunglasses:

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Mine will be black…hehehehe… :smiling_imp: :sunglasses:

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Tough decision to let go the team that was the face of Incognito over the past year and a half. Fingers crossed the developers focus on making the UI more user friendly as that will bring in more users. Will miss the monthly callas it was a good sounding board for issues facing this project. I really think this is the future of personal finance and that the lessons from these growing pains will be addressed in future versions of the app. Build it and they will come but pease listen to the users as the same questions always arise over and over again.

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The incentive to build right now is week after edging people on with a new builder rewards for months and not providing. It was honestly the main reason developers would spend their time working on expanding and integrating the project for new use cases. If it wasn’t for the money, it was because they believed in the project. Right now, Trust in the platform has been dwindling causing developers to pull out. In my opinion, Incognito is currently short staffed and prioritizing things without taking the necessary initial steps required to continue development of the platform. Unfortunately Optics and Morale are just as important as the tech. Incognito is going to have a hard time if the thought is that people will come if we just decentralize the tech.

Development should definitely be focused on, however right now with the current state of the platform, decentralization isn’t going to do any good without releasing extra information. It doesn’t matter how decentralized the platform is. If there isn’t any Transparency in regards to the DAO and the Funds associated with it, we aren’t going anywhere. The longer this information is in the shadows the worse off it will be for Incognito.

The fact is, the concerns voiced in this thread worries people. The DAO: Incognito Community Governance. In fact, they worry me, which is exactly why I started it in the first place. A lot of people just don’t feel comfortable keeping their money in the platform because of lack of assurances. Pair that with the optics of no response on the matter and the growth team getting fired (Serious lack of transparency and community say here). Let’s face it, the situation is not looking so hot for the platform.

Honestly it feels like the community only has say for some small things and is used to do all the sh*t work the team doesn’t actually want to do. This platform was supposed to be run by the community. One of the main reasons why the ETH bridge was made was to add a voting mechanism for the community via smart contracts, so we could actually decentralize things (let the community have a guaranteed say). Then the Incognito Core Team decided, nah, we don’t trust the community, we will test the waters and only let them vote for builder rewards, but they don’t get absolute say, we the core team get final say. Then it’s decided to just remove builder rewards promising a replacement, and it never came. If you can’t trust us, how are we supposed to trust you.

If you actually want people to build, give them a reason to come back to the platform and build. If you can’t eliminate the worries of a potential rug pull, your going to have a tough time selling the idea for people to spend development time on the platform, and that’s just how it is. Take a look at what’s currently happening with the platform and tell me i’m wrong. Liquidity is on a downward trajectory, IncScan is being sold, and people are leaving.

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I disagree.

The Incognito devs are just back to focusing on the project, decentralizing it, securing it, making it even more private. Working on all those things that have been mentioned by the old and the new users.

I think it is a wise decision. Driving people in once those things are taken care of will be a better starting point. That is what the project needs. It is not a money printing machine, it will gain its value from providing privacy.

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Again, the main concern here is the finances of the project. Decentralization and privacy is important and definitely the direction we need to go in. No body cares about privacy more then me, but right now to do any of that, or to have people want to use the platform in general, the finances of the project need to be public. The structure of the Founding Team needs to be public. There needs to be certain assurances in place. You can’t tell me from an outside perspective that you would be 100% comfortable putting your money in the platform with the current information that the community currently has.

Look at it from our perspective.
A majority of the current PRV in circulation is controlled by the Core Team. Is this audited or publicly logged in a clear concise manner, no, not really. Who exactly controls the flow of those funds, is it manual, or automatic? Who runs the DAO, the Core Team? How is the Core Team structured and who is a part of it, I don’t really know, there are no clear answers. A bunch of people who I just thought were part of the Core Team got fired. Who is doing the firing? Again, I don’t know.

So TLDR: We don’t know who is in control of the Core Team or how it is structured, and we don’t know what mechanisms are in place for whoever’s in charge to just liquidate the PRV they currently have control over. This is an issue at the core fundamentals of the platform. This has nothing to do with the tech. The tech can be good, but it won’t make the platform usable. I don’t care how private the project is, and neither will anyone else if we don’t know these things.

I have been asking for Transparency and Decentralization since when I first joined. I’m glad we finally decided to decentralize, but the most important aspect regarding anything in the crypto space is Trust.

The reason I’m pushing so hard for this is because I don’t think Incognito will survive without it. This information is very much needed to continue, or it will certainly fail. It’s not like we haven’t been waiting for this information for a while. It’s annoying to hear that it’s not a focus or a concern when it most certainly is. It is the main concern and it always has been.

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Thanks for your support @adrian, when we look back, it’s been over 2 years and a half since Incognito’s inception. That’s quite long and somewhat proved our commitment to the project (remember that this was a self-funded project). So nothing can stop us from keeping building (and improving) it even if there were users/supporters leaving the project after the recent changes. Yes, @Jamie, people don’t like change and that’s understandable for their leave.

But as you guys knew, we defined the new focus and timeline so what we must do now is to follow it strictly and make sure it happens, anything else may come later. You don’t need to trust the team but the code and the products we build. That would be the best answer I think.

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Jaime is a troll who only repeats the same line about new people and non-devs ruining the project. Your concerns are valid. The team is fractured and whoever is left essentially has control over a centralized and opaque exchange…

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Well when the team is custodians for over 70% of the current PRV in circulation, it’s kind of a prerequisite to Trust the team if your using the platform, even after the bridges that aren’t currently trustless get decentralized. So whatever. These issues are issues that @raz brought up back in the day, and they still haven’t been solved, guess he got tired of waiting.

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Its been over 2 years, I’m sure $1Mill was already blown through by now (if we had proper accounting, we would actually know this and not have to assume). At this point in time, as far as I am concerned, your using nothing but community funds. Your exchanging PRV (5mill that you own) at market price to fund development. Any proceeds past the $1 million mark is not self funded, it’s 100% community funded. You can see it as an investment and that you profited off your investment, but honestly, nobody else had the opportunity to premine PRV, and nobody else has control over the PRV in the DAO. You literally set the price to whatever you want, and take advantage. What percentage of PRV is actually in control of the the average everyday user, and not the core team? From preliminary calculations its astronomically low, way less then 20%. But we don’t even have all the information to get an accurate number because it’s not ‘important’. Don’t you see how ridiculous this is. All i’m asking is for you to release the information, it’s not hard. Takes barley any time and effort, and it would fix your Trust problem. The fact that you aren’t shows the community a lot about what the actual priorities are for the platform.

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The IRS is auditing. So they cannot release it :smirk:

Auditing what, Vietnam?

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+++
sounds like they are hiding something. why lack transparency in this project??

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@detved you are more like a trol than I am. The current change is exactly what the project needs, and what I have been talking about for a while now. You can’t blame me for being happy about this change (happiness doesn’t include removing the support team). As much as others have the right to express their concerns, I allowed to express my lack of concerns as well.

The team has been involved with multiple successful projects already, I have come to know them all as passionate people. That is where my trust in the team and the project comes from. Dumb? Maybe, time will tell.

If I remember correctly, the team put $5Mill together to start this project, the 1Mill number related to the lines of code, but I am pretty sure there are way more lines of code already.

What they need more than your money is your trust. If you feel uncomfortable having your money in the system you should move it out. You can always rejoin later on when things are more aligned with your requirements.

I don’t need them to show me how things are taken care of, I am not moving my funds out of the Incognito system, I will buy more when the price is right. Probably add some vNodes to my pNodes as well. To me it feels like the “we are building something great” vibe that was present during testnet phase is coming back.

Decentralized, private, ease of use, those things will bring even more value to the project than it has already.

So instead of demanding more info, I’d go with the info you have, if it is not secure for you, don’t put your money in it. If you feel uncomfortable remove your money, or leave a small part of it in the system so you don’t regret stepping back, later on. No one can blame you for taking care of your funds the way you feel is best.

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This is not true. It was in fact $1 Million

Incognito would have my Trust, and most of the communities Trust if Incognito released the necessary information that we have been asking for, throughout the many months. This has been a consistent problem. It was initially brought up as an issue by @raz in April of 2020 when I first joined as a member. It has been an issue ever since. The Team’s response to this was that we would have a voting system in place to give the community a say and direct the platform. However that never happened and we never got the requested information.

Yeah except back then Incognito wasn’t financially responsible for a mainnet launch with over 40Mill in liquidity. If you think its remotely right to cast the community aside and focus on whatever you want to focus on without community input, then by all means, watch the people leave and watch the project die. The fact is, the community is way more invested in the platform then the Devlopers or the Core Team. Incognito is playing with the platform like they still own it and can do whatever they want with it. That’s not how these things work. Yes we pushed for decentralization, yes i’m happy that that’s the path we are currently working towards. A simple release of information guaranteeing that our money is safe is all that we are looking for, why is that so hard to ask for? Why is that so hard to give to people?

The attitude of we do what we want, and if you don’t like it, you can leave will literally be the downfall of the platform. Last time Incognito pulled this type of thing was when the liquidity rates were changed to make providing not profitable. Andrey shared this same sentiment against the communities concerns and you know what happened. PRV started to Tank hard. To remedy the situation, provide came out and the price started to climb again. Incognito wouldn’t even be in the current situation that it is in if it released the requested information. I don’t understand why they wouldn’t want to do so as it would dwindle concerns and bring Trust back to the platform.

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Apart from the support team being taken out as the middle man, what exactly changed?

As much as I regret them being let go, this must have been a shock for them personally, none of these people were part of securing the network, making your funds safe and so on.

The financial security of your funds is the same as one, two, three, weeks, months ago. The (lack of) information is the same as one, two, three weeks, months ago.

The ones who should complain should probably be the devs.

You are correct, the financial security is the same as before. No change except more time has passed. The fact that it keeps getting sidelined is the problem. The fact that it’s been this long and we still have no more information then we previously did a year ago is the problem. But the biggest problem now, is the fact we don’t have anyone to communicate our concerns with. It’s clear that the devs don’t care, they are too focused on decentralization. It’s clear that whoever runs this platform doesn’t care, they just fired our only life line. It seems to me that the community was just thrown to wolves, and sorry, the teams busy coding. You expect us to watch this happen without demanding some assurances, your out of your mind. It would be irresponsible to not make noise in this specific scenario. Too many peoples financial futures are currently at stake. You think a majority of the people who use the platform are on the forums or in the telegram? No. You think a majority of people would feel betrayed if they found out what the current situation is?

AAron seems to think so, and quite frankly I agree...

And honestly, so do many people in the community. That is the current issue at hand. It’s quite obvious that the gravity of the situation is not understood. There is a reason why my first post on this thread has the amount of likes it does, it’s not because people disagree with my argument.

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It shocks me. Because I liked to talk to @andrey @Ducky and others. But I don’t have doubts that the others stop developing this platform.

I really valued the communication work @Aaron did.

Yes, I am very unhappy how slow the dev team responds. Almost 1-2 weeks for a simple answer to my question while I developed Incognito Signal. But ey, I just started reading their code, as in every other project I have been part of in the last 15 years.

I have discovered the topic of payments for myself. Therefore I started to work on Incognito Signal and Incognito Pay Kit.

I don’t know how to get in touch with so many founders and contributors of technologies I am working with day by day. Therefore I gave them enough trust to develop my apps and more using their technologies.

I did the same as I started this Integrate Incognito into Signal (PoC).

And I continue building new payment stuff.

The community must come alive through all of us.

Cheers,
Andi

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@jamie was that message intended to be addressed to me? This is the first time I’ve posted in this thread.