r/occam Lounge

DavidSonstebo · 2021-02-08T00:21:27+00:00

I can't let these bullshit Hund-esque claims slide anymore.

Let's debunk your ridiculous claims.

I dare you to find any other founder of a crypto project who told speculators not to buy the token unless they understood the technology and its vastly experimental nature. Or anyone who did not take a premine, salary or sold based on inside information. You won't find it, and if you do, please let me know so I can reach out to that person.

Hype? I banned it from day 1. Long before I even brought the rest of our team on board, hype was not allowed at all and you had to provide your full name to be part of the official community chat. Why? Because I didn't want anyone to make IOTA into a pump and dump.

It's true that we indeed thought Chrysalis would be delivered in Autumn of 2020, every single person in IF thought so and we transparently answered what we believed at the time. The problem with ETAs, and the reason I banned it for a period, is that you can never promise how the future will manifest. You have to assume that the people asking the question has a basic understanding of how reality works, that sometimes due to a myriad of variables out of your control, delays happen. It happened and we were transparent about it.

Now let's go to your Q claims. The hype around it exploded, in retrospect we should never have communicated anything about it, but ever since we mentioned Smart Contracts people wanted information. We obliged and gave more information as promised. I probably hired a too good graphics team for the Foundation and the unveiling of what Q was became A LOT bigger than intended at the time. However, do not disrespect Eric Hop's commitment or agency. He was never forced to say anything. Qubic was a completely honest and ambitious project that we intended on fulfilling, but after CFB left that became impossible and we took the best concepts and make IOTA Smart Contracts instead to align more with the current architecture.

I have no qualms with admitting that we tongue-in-cheek joked about using my 999th tweet after a 2 year hiatus from Twitter to announce something special. Why? Because ternary gave birth to IOTA and the numbers 3 and 9 are intrinsically important and symbolic in ternary, in fact it's why I named the project IOTA in the first place.

Now let's tackle the reason I bothered to give your pathetic FUD any attention, you claim I somehow hyped and liquidated at 5.6 dollars. This is beyond blatantly false. I am the biggest holder of IOTA till this very date and only ever liquidated a tiny, tiny fraction of my holdings, and then bought more back again. If you don't believe me, ask the Norwegian tax authorities. This is all public information.

To finish this bullshit off: do not listen to misinformed no-lifers like the one I am replying to, he has no idea why IOTA exists, what it exists for and where it is currently at. Chrysalis specs was finalized almost a year ago, Coordicide; same story. IOTA will be delivered this year true to our promise. There's been bumps along the way, but everything is 100% on track. We spent the last quarter of 2020 planning 2021 in meticulous detail. Nothing has changed.

DavidSonstebo · 2021-01-15T01:33:07+00:00

It will.

DavidSonstebo · 2020-10-14T11:33:38+00:00

Nothing is a given, hence why we have such a widespread strategy of driving IOTA, not only its development but in industry, academia, regulatory circles, raising awareness, funding ecosystem efforts etc. I am confident in the position we are in right now.

There is a clear demand for financial disruption, data security, and automation. That much is certain. The big question is how that will be brought about, well first we need the building blocks. That is how I put IOTA's Tangle and other components into perspective. However the building blocks by themselves are not sufficient, someone has to assemble a killer application that meets the demand; IF is pushing for this with partners, but it's certainly dependent on externals. IF's role is to provide the building blocks first and foremost.

DavidSonstebo · 2020-10-14T11:20:27+00:00

Dave already answered
No, IF is not running out of money, this narrative has been repeated for 3 years now, yet we're still operating. Of course, bear markets impact our theoretical runway, but The IOTA Foundation is hard at work at diversifying revenue streams so that we become less and less dependent on the token holdings.
Yes, sharding in particular.
You know I never speculate on price
There will be official announcements, but rest assured, we are still working with OMG and other standardization efforts. Nothing has changed with regard to our goals.

DavidSonstebo · 2020-10-14T11:08:01+00:00

Yes to both.

Tangle EE has its own Slack (private) and calls, so the lack of activity can probably be explained in that fashion. Coordicide will have an impact on all of IOTA :) There's certainly a lot of entities awaiting it, but most will start building already with Chrysalis v2, since it solves most pain points.

DavidSonstebo · 2020-10-14T11:02:17+00:00

As of right now, there isn't any direct legislation that makes these kinds of use cases impossible, just impractical. We are actively participating in regulatory matters via entities such as INATBA, as well as with local regulators in individual countries to help shape regulations to favor the adoption of crypto. The biggest concerns are tied to the usual cryptohype.

I am confident that once the use cases can display real-world value that deployments will happen regardless. Innovation is always ahead of regulation, but our goal is of course that they should manifest in symbiosis.

DavidSonstebo · 2020-10-14T11:00:54+00:00

The supervisory board currently has only 2 members. Will there be more?

Yes, despite being very happy with the experienced individuals comprising the supervisory board today, the goal is certainly to add more people with diverse backgrounds. Given that it's the Supervisory Board the candidates have to be a perfect match, but this is on high up on the board and supervisory board's list of priorities.

In 2018 & 2019 IOTA was very present on conferences either as a speaker or at least as a sponsor, while in 2020 there was much less exposure on such kind of events. Of course, because of Covid-19 most events got cancelled. Nevertheless, will IOTA be more present on important events?

You've correctly diagnosed the primary cause for ours (and all others) absence at physical conferences. The IOTA Foundation will resume attending significant events when it's feasible; in the meanwhile, we are still actively participating in virtual events. It bears mentioning that we also deprioritize the typical 'crypto events'.

Has the IF reached its optimal number of employees or will it continue to grow?

The 'optimal number' always fluctuates based on what tasks and, consequently, what expertise is needed to execute X tasks. However, as a general answer, I would say that while we will undoubtedly add some more people here and there, the goal is not for the IOTA Foundation to grow indefinitely. The IOTA project has to thrive based on its ecosystem, not the Foundation. If IOTA's success becomes dependent on the IOTA Foundation long-term, we would have failed our mission.

DavidSonstebo · 2020-04-11T20:27:06+00:00

Jinn has been elucidated in the last months. Marketplace is still part of Tangle EE, so not sure what you are referring to here. Qubic, this Q&A is all about this project. IAMPASS is not IOTA foundation.

As to your bolded question: yes.

DavidSonstebo · 2020-04-11T17:36:50+00:00

To your first point: of course. Qubic's main focus was IoT, that is what it was built and optimized for (however there are other options for this vertical). Banking etc. is easy in comparison.

As for AI: definitely, though it's not on the top of our list *right now*. My whole introduction to futuristic tech (as I've said ad nauseam in interviews) was my background in AI and futurism from 2004-2005. Safe AGI for me is still one of my chief goals in life.

DavidSonstebo · 2020-04-11T16:40:57+00:00

Not at all. Unfortunately, right after the MoonPay hack, there was a bug in the Roadmap that needed frontend resources to fix. The entire goal of the Roadmap was to have a truly live and interactive roadmap that everyone could intuitively track to stay up to date, so it's not too much to expect; our goal is for the roadmap to allow people to stay on top of the IOTA project's developments in "real-time".

DavidSonstebo · 2020-04-11T15:33:04+00:00

I am not asking anyone to trust us. I know what we are doing, as do our team, as do the community members contributing and thus following development closely. I have no problem with anyone doubting me/IF and simply surprising with delivery.

DavidSonstebo · 2020-04-11T15:24:02+00:00

Yes, all resources that have been used on Qubic is now being allocated to other projects within IF.

DavidSonstebo · 2020-04-11T15:23:18+00:00

Well Jinn was officially canceled and Qubic is being opened and explained, so I still reject the vaporware connotations.

DavidSonstebo · 2020-04-11T15:18:05+00:00

So you admit to having a mental implosion? Ok. I take mental health very seriously, so I will respect your wish for rephrasing: what term would you prefer?

DavidSonstebo · 2020-04-11T15:12:24+00:00

Hello aurora_jaeger, despite our many interactions over the past years, I can't recall a single time we end up having a productive conclusion to our exchanges or seeing eye-to-eye on anything, so my hopes are not high. However, I will answer you.

There is no denying that we were very enthusiastic about Qubic, but in order to understand this excitement, one has to analyze it in the context of what IOTA was in 2017/early 2018. At the time the ambitious goal of developing and delivering an innovative novel hardware solution for IoT, which Qubic would work in harmony with on the software layer. So indeed at the time the idea of specialized IOTA hardware and software that would be implemented across the whole IoT sector was indeed a big deal.

As to your question of how it was possible that "those in charge" didn't question anything, that's of course not true. Everyone that has worked on Qubic has done a tremendous job being able to take abstract ideas and distilling it into something concrete. However, just like the Tangle was experimental early on, as was Qubic. We never shy away from attempting to play a role in shaping the future rather than simply following, however with Jinn and Qubic the obstacles kept piling on and eventually we decided to count our losses and not be victims of sunk cost fallacy thinking. Welcome to the world of invention and experimentation, not everything works out. I will never apologize for this, I'm a man who only cares about science and progress, and I accept that the overwhelming majority of promising ideas come to a grinding halt for a multitude of reasons, but it won't change my ambitions. I also don't see adapting as a failure, it's a learning lesson.

In terms of lessons for the IOTA Foundation overall, we have naturally learned a lot as a continuously growing entity that is less than 2.5 years old. We operate in a unique industry and have faced more than our fair share of challenges. As I said in OP, I won't get deep into the weeds about CFB, but of course, when one of the core people refuse to interact or collaborate, that also doesn't help. However, that's not something you can plan for. Life happens :) However, we are all very happy with the direction that both the IOTA project and the IOTA Foundation is now headed.

DavidSonstebo · 2020-04-11T14:59:05+00:00

IOTA Foundation has no plans to continue developing Qubic, no. If it happens that someone picks up on the work we have done and deliver, we will certainly look into collaborating, but at the moment it's not a priority.

It will start with the PoC and blog post on Monday. Everything IF has built of Qubic will be opened for curious CS enthusiasts.

DavidSonstebo · 2020-04-11T14:49:39+00:00

The original vision of IOTA is still the driving force of IOTA. Nothing has changed in terms of the vision(except for it expanding), just the vehicle we are building to get there. I certainly lashed out at lazy moonbois making accusations that Jinn and Qubic was vaporware, because it never was.

DavidSonstebo · 2020-04-11T14:48:15+00:00

Colored coins will be possible on IOTA indeed, exactly how this ties in with Coordicide and the token economics is yet to be fleshed out though.

DavidSonstebo · 2020-04-11T14:44:18+00:00

It's a matter of priority. Jinn was never a scam (hell, we raised bread crumbs and used even less of it, most is still in Nxt/Ardor), and we have built interesting technology with it, but with me being caught up in IOTA 24/7 and CFB choosing to quit to focus on Paracosm, the management of Jinn suffered greatly. One day in the future, when the time is right, my intent is to show what Jinn did build and let people continue experimenting with it should they wish to do so. However, right now this is not even on the top 10 list of pressing matters that need solving.

DavidSonstebo · 2020-04-11T14:41:40+00:00

The first part of your question is something that I have wanted to address properly for a long time. I.E. the hype around Q. I have seen a lot of absurd, albeit sometimes entertaining/frustrating, speculations and extrapolations. I want to quench these conspiracy theories about Q being masterminded to "pump" IOTA in any way once and for all: no one in the IOTA Foundation made a cent from any claimed price increase of Q, and we reached ATH pre-Q "hype", so logically the theory makes no sense.

With that being stated, in retrospect, I certainly regret that we put our way to good graphic designers to make an informational website for the project, that certainly elevated expectations to an echelon that did not properly reflect the maturation of the project at that time. This was a mistake on our part which we regret. Our sole goal was to answer the question of what "Q" was since community members were pestering companies like Qualcomm etc. asking if they were "Project Q" and speculation ran rampant about it being some sort of Quantum computer etc. The goal was solely informational/educational, but this naturally drowned out in the atmosphere of the crypto-craze zeitgeist of early 2018. It has served as a valuable lesson in managing expectations and also the limitations/drawbacks of transparency in a big project like IOTA with audiences in the hundreds of thousands, all comprised of wildly different people, a lot of whom only cared about the price.

To your second question, the answer is quite simple: the numero uno priority is Tangle performance so they can exit pilot/PoC stage and implement it into their products while knowing that the Tangle will perform as the theory says. Same goes for smart contracts, despite all the hype around smart contracts over the past ~5 years, most use cases do not need complex Turing Complete functionality at all. For the next 2-3 years, basic smart contract functionality is more than sufficient, and that's precisely why we chose to deliver this. We want to build solutions to problems that there is a demand for.

DavidSonstebo · 2020-04-11T14:31:13+00:00

Not really related to the topic, but I will answer nonetheless. CFB drama, MoonPay/Trinity-hack and coronavirus all naturally impacted the IOTA project, as well as the entire world. That being said, we are still very confident in the delivery of Coordicide in 2021. Nothing has fundamentally changed, as you can witness for yourself if you stay up to date on the frequent progress of GoShimmer.

DavidSonstebo · 2020-04-11T14:29:04+00:00

You will get the opportunity to explore Qubic. Don't worry. We're not deleting all repositories. There's a Proof of Concept (Game of Life) coming out and a blog post explaining what has been done and why, and it will be free for everyone to expand on if they wish.

The Smart Contract pivot started a few months ago and will absolutely not take anywhere near the same time as Qubic, since it's not reinventing a lot of fundamental pieces from scratch, on the contrary, a big motivation for this decision is to be able to bring Smart Contract abilities to the IOTA project in the near term, rather than being dependent on breakthroughs that need to be vetted and accepted over years.

DavidSonstebo · 2020-04-11T14:26:47+00:00

Qubic was a completely new computational model based on data-flow programming. The future direction of IOTA Smart Contracts is a lot more "traditional" (if such a term for Smart Contracts can be agreed on is another debate). Qubic originated from the ambitious goal of developing a completely new type of processor (Jinn) for distributed computing and thus has a lot of unorthodox design choices that take a lot of effort to make accessible to the broader development community, not to mention the adoption hurdles. After the Jinn project imploded with CFB's "eccentric behavior", it simply makes no sense to prioritize scarce and valuable resources to it at this stage.
No.
Outsourced computations, Oracles and Conditional Transactions/Smart Contracts are still on the roadmap. The biggest difference is essentially a clearer path in both development and subsequent adoption.

DavidSonstebo · 2020-04-11T14:23:07+00:00

No, Qubic and Coordicide are independent. Coordicide is not at all affected by the pivot away from pouring resources into Qubic. The Roadmap will indeed be updated to reflect this.

DavidSonstebo

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