Meeting at Cambridge University
This week has been a very busy week for myself and the team. I went to Cambridge University and met with the professors, we discussed research topics, how we can work together and what areas those areas might be. This is required for the phase Sparkster is in today, which is contracting with the University.
We have come up with topics and areas where we can collaborate, this is moving forward very well.
I also met with some PhD, Masters and Undergraduates students, these are some very smart people. Some specialise in distributed systems and decentralized systems, they are working on different consensus algorithms for the likes of Microsoft etc.
Update on ARM
I also had dinner with ARM, we discussed new collaboration opportunities and something new (that I am very excited about, but cannot discuss until this opportunity is finalised) - Overall this was a very productive meeting.
Discussion on Unlock
The past week or so there's been a lot of turmoil in the community with regards to unlock. I'm not quite sure why that's the cause, I don't know what's happened, maybe it's the rising market and some impatience. But I have to stress how important it is that as a community that we stick together and we work together.
Nobody owns more than 0.15 percent of tokens. If nobody owns 0.15 percent of tokens, that is approximately one sixth of 1%. Your success depends on the community working together, sticking together and operate as one group
Why have we delayed the unlock?
I want to remind some people about why we locked the tokens in the first place. As soon as we completed distribution of the tokens after the crowdsale, we had an external third party KYC and AML audit of our sale. This is because of the regulations and jurisdiction we are in, this was required. We promised that process would take two weeks, we delivered those tokens early in less than two weeks of time.
We had no intention of delaying unlocking, but the market fell off the cliff and it began to fall substantially and precipitously. So we made the decision that is not in the interest of the community, it's not in the interest of token holders to unlock tokens at that point in time.
The deep bear market continued and exasperated, but now I'm happy to say that we have reached, in my opinion, a semblance of stability. We are seeing stability in the market and I hope that continues to be the case, Some people are saying we are not there yet, that Bitcoin is going to fall to 5,000, who knows, I don't know, I'm not a speculator by any nature nor am i someone that can predict the future. All I can tell you is, do I see and our team and our advisors see that now is the time to release tokens? The answer to that question is no.
Why do we care about the short term performance of the token, shouldn’t we just focus on the long term?
We have to make a collective decisions because this impacts an entire community, It does not impact one person individually. One individual may want us to unlock, whilst another wants us to stay locked, some people are bastions of the free market. They think the free market should rule in all circumstances and we should just release the token, they think the team shouldn't care about what the market conditions are and it doesn't matter what happens to the token in the short term.
Who is right and who is wrong? At the end of the day it's the will of the community that matters here. Let's talk about these ultra right-wing individuals, the people who say it's not up to us and we shouldn't be holding tokens etc. My perspective on that is very simple: we live in an era where projects live and die by their community, whether people contribute to our project, contributing code, support or devices.
The community is paramount to our success, our reputation is determined by the community, and here is an example of that: the professor that I met yesterday, professor John Crowcroft, a juggernaut in computing, his name was recommended to me by a member of our community. I had independently found his team and the work that they do at Cambridge, but her recommendation validated that I was looking in the right places. So the community does contribute this project, whether you realise it or not. There are partnerships and relationships and exchanges that we speak to that come to us directly from the community.
It would be it would be detrimental to us if we didn't have a community. If our community vanished because the token performed poorly on exchanges, how would we disseminate news and information? If we sign a new major partnership, how does that news get disseminated to the wider community? We depend on a vibrant and excited community to do that for us.
There’s also an impact for taking this decision lightly. If we had released our tokens two months ago, much like other projects that were releasing at that point in time that dropped to one tenth of their value (90% of the value wiped off the value of the token), firstly, people would say that we're a scam, and secondly the fudders would say “we are right.” Thirdly, our community would instantly evaporate. So it's in the project's interests, let me be clear it's in Sparkster’s interests to serve the community. I want to say this more broadly, in fact, it's in any project interests to serve their community.
Those projects that scam their community, those projects that hurt their community, that do illicit deals behind the community's backs and that steal tokens or sell tokens without telling the community in my opinion they are killing the long-term prospects of their own project. So for the reasons that I've just mentioned in the last few minutes, it's paramount and it's extremely important that we are acting all the time in the interests of the community. It is also important that we're transparent with the community, so this is my position and my perspective on unlocking.
Timing of Unlock
Previously, I have mentioned that we are looking at other projects to see what happens and if those projects rise above ICO price. The vast majority of cases, this has not happen.
People are saying there are no projects left, what are we going to observe to be able to make this determination? I think that the problem with that is that people don't understand the question behind the question. That question is: have exchange buyers returned? The data we see doesn’t suggest that is the case. Historically, there were those that participated in token sales, and a different crowd of people who purchased on exchange. These tended to be mutually exclusive groups. Generally speaking, we are yet to see token listing perform well, en mass, and therefore, I personally do not believe it is time to unlock. However, I promised you a vote in December, and therefore we shall vote.
What are we looking for:
Have exchange buyers returned? There used to be two groups of people that participated in ICOs:
- People that took part in token sales/pre sales etc.
- People that purchased tokens on exchanges,
The question behind the question is, has this second group of people people returned? We don't see evidence that those people have returned. Given the fall in prices across almost all token listings, clearly, this isn’t a Sparkster problem, it’s an industry wide problem.
Voting on unlock
In previous AMAs, I have said that if we get to December and we have not unlocked tokens then we will have a community vote for the unlock of the token. You should have a role and a voice in this process, and naturally only people who have paid for tokens should get the right to participate in the vote. The number of votes you have will be commensurate to the number of tokens that you own, so if you own one hundred tokens, you have a hundred votes. If you have one thousand tokens, you will have one thousand votes and so forth.
I said we will have a vote if we get to December and it looks like we may possibly get to December. However, if the market turns around and in the next few weeks and things explode and the market takes off, then it may be time for us to unlock.
If we get to a point where market conditions don't suggest that it's time to unlock then you guys will have the chance to be able to make a decision and only token holders will be able to vote. The decision will be in your hands collectively as a community. We have to make a collective decision, because at the end of the day this impacts our entire community.
We will provide weekly updates on the progress of unlock and will keep all members of the community informed with any changes.
Updates on Mainnet
We have a mainnet coming out at the end of this year. This mainnet is in testing at the moment, but the development is finished.
Before I discuss this further, we need to understand what mainnet is and how this is different to testnet. In many projects, testnet means proof of concept, if a project is claiming they have solved a problem through (for example) tps, their testnet tends to mean: here is a component that is the heart of our whitepaper, we developed this and we are showing you that the core idea is validated. Mainnet is a fully functional product, people can sign up, deploy code, use the product and not just testing it out. This is not just a proof of the idea or test out their idea, but a usable product.
What this means for us is that we will have a fully functional, usable decentralised network that is will be made available for people to use by the end of this year.
Regardless of the outcome of the vote, this has no bearing on the delivery of mainnet software.
I don’t anticipate delays, we are in testing phase, the risk of delays is minimal.
How does this link to unlock?
Do we have to unlock in December so our mainnet is available and ready to use? Not necessarily. If market conditions are not supportive of a token unlock at the end of this year, does it make sense for us to unlock? I don’t think so.
As I mentioned above, I do not see evidence that ICO exchange buys have returned. So, just because mainet is coming out, we should automatically unlock tokens regardless of conditions? I don't think so.
In the open source community, there isn’t an incentive for those that contribute code, yet, people still contribute code. Will people contribute devices to a mainnet if there are no tokens at that point in time? In the short term, I think that people will contribute devices, simply because they support the project. Therefore, we can say that mainnet will go live, regardless of the outcome of the vote. We all agree that medium term, this isn’t sustainable, hence the necessity of the token.
Naturally, this is an immediate term stop gap measure, until it is the right time to unlock tokens. All of our nodes require tokens, the utility of the token and its necessity to the functioning of the network are discussed here: https://sparkster.me/FAQ. I also recommend taking a look at the mathematics at the end of our whitepaper to understand the algorithm with which the allocation of work is dependent upon. In summary, the will of the people will not impact the release of the mainnet.
We’re here for the long haul.
Now the decision will be in your hands, as a community you will collectively decide should we unlock tokens in December. If you feel that we shouldn't unlock tokens in December then we will decide at what point in time should. We will have another vote if we haven't already unlocked tokens by this second mile marker. We will continue this process of evaluation but giving you the opportunity to participate and exercise your will at a reasonable frequency.
I want to remind you no one owns is it more than 0.15 percent of tokens and therefore the short term success or failure of the token is in your collectively hands as a community.
Hopefully you can see we are working excruciatingly hard and continually adding value to the project and delivering on, sometimes exceeding, the promises that we made about the project.
We promised you technology. and we promised you a real business. Hopefully you see that we are working extremely hard to make that a reality. I hope that the impact of that is that you guys stick with us in the long run.
No matter the outcome of the vote, we will continue to be here, hard at work delivering on the promises made.
You can watch the full AMA here: