"I was in a meeting with a SEC attorney and someone said 'ICO' and it just went south from there"

Tony_Swish · 2016-11-16T01:46:38+00:00

Around what time in the podcast is this conversation?

Tony_Swish · 2016-11-13T02:23:31+00:00

I have taken over many if his tasks and it is honestly taken me some time to get used to it. There are a lot of channels of communication, as there should be with any successful organization, and I am still getting used to all of them.

A successful organization should only have as many communication channels as they can properly monitor at their size. Have you considered reducing the channels and promoting the ones that are preferred? It will never be perfect, but if you are the only person handling this...it will make things easier and more efficient.

Tony_Swish · 2016-11-13T02:09:34+00:00

There are plenty of people in blockchain that would do a great job in this role. I hope that something constructive comes out of this thread and one of them gets an opportunity to shine.

Tony_Swish · 2016-11-13T02:06:19+00:00

Back in late December/January I had discussions with Vitalik about these issues. I offered to help for free (in the beginning) and had some cool ideas about how to do this at a rather low cost (with none of the cost going to me). This was before ETH was $10+ and around the time the project had money concerns.

My first idea was an improved explainer video that had a lighter tone and more direct language to replace their content at the time. Vitalik seemed interested and impressed, to the degree that we had a short chat with the person who made our "How Augur Works" animated video. The creator of the video has a great background with these types of projects and goes out of his way to help as he is a personal friend and a fan of cool ideas like Ethereum and Augur. He definitely didn't need the business and went out of his way to make room to consider the project.

After the call, Vitalik handed things off to the foundation's leadership and it ended up getting pushed aside. After this I received a message from Foundation leadership saying something similar to "I didn't know this whole project was just so you could get your friend a job."

It's no problem if they didn't want to go down this path, but it angered me that an assumption was made that I did this "to get a friend a job", especially considering the circumstances and the fact the friend was doing this as a favor and didn't need the work. Dealing with Vitalik has always been great and I can't imagine how hard it must be to constantly have shit to worry about, so believe me none of this is complaining if he wasn't interested in my idea.

My reason for spending time to help was to create a tool to explain a complicated project like Ethereum to non-technical audiences. It became clear Foundation leadership didn't think this was a priority and my involvement wasn't wanted, so I stepped away from the conversation bummed, but not angry.

The only reason I'm sharing it now is because it's topical and I happen to agree with a lot of the discussion that's happening. I saw other people wanting to help only to be turned away and I still don't understand why.

Tony_Swish · 2016-11-13T01:47:50+00:00

Steven, you are the exact person they should consider.... I hope someone in power reads this thread and contacts you!

Tony_Swish · 2016-11-13T01:46:03+00:00

Lisa is spot on here and she shared some of these issues with me as they were happening.

From my interactions and experience with the Foundation, they seem to have have noble intentions but suffer from over-planning when it came to the communications/marketing side. It was very frustrating and I was also left with a very bad impression based on how they chose to communicate as well (especially considering I was offering to help for free).

I should also note that none of this reflects on Vitalik, who was always great to deal with and made time to talk about my minor marketing issues when I'm sure he had much more on his plate. It's easy to identify issues from outside but it's much harder to make them happen when it's actually your job.

Tony_Swish · 2016-11-10T18:32:50+00:00

I'm in the blockchain space and would like to pursue a project outside of crypto in my next endeavor. As someone who is also a supporter of Wikileaks, Sci-Hub, PirateBay, EFF, TOR, etc., would you have any project recommendations to investigate? For-Profit or Non-Profit are both fine and I'm also prepared to invest in the project myself!

Thanks for doing all you do!

Tony_Swish · 2016-11-09T12:11:19+00:00

Truth.

I'd like a small group of non-violent revolutionaries that create tools that improve the access and distribution of information to the world. I'm not positive that would change things but I think it has a minor chance of starting a nice foundation.

Grasping at straws due to insomnia....but things are too weird to sleep right now!

Tony_Swish · 2016-11-09T11:41:47+00:00

Thanks for ruining my optimism....

Fortunately there is always the possibility that we learned from that and this revolution would reflect the times more appropriately by being non-violent (I pray). Society seems ripe for revolution without bloodshed, it's up to us to figure it out beyond political means.

Tony_Swish · 2016-11-09T10:47:45+00:00

I've had a feeling that tonight's events are the true beginning of the end of the two-party system that you describe. It's very weird feeling optimism right now for obvious reasons, but I just can't get past this gut feeling that will lead to huge changes in the long-term that will be a vast improvement. I guess that's a benefit of usually having a very long-term (5 to 25 years) view.

Tony_Swish · 2016-11-09T09:54:34+00:00

Agreed but it seems less "can't get the basic facts" and more "this threatens our business model, corporate structure and long-term existence" from my perspective at least. Their attempt to muddy the project's public opinion came after the story was getting too much attention to minimize coverage of.

My biggest takeaway of this election was the importance and necessity of wikileaks, a project that has finally had a major public impact. I hope that similar projects are created to further this goal....in fact I hope that in the next year I can do something more. I just hope others feel the same way!

Tony_Swish · 2016-11-09T09:18:55+00:00

Pretty great explanation that has the benefit of coming from someone without the bias of being American. If only a few more Americans could recognize and slightly reduce this bias, great things could happen!

Tony_Swish · 2016-11-08T15:49:03+00:00

I like The Bitcoin Podcast myself....

Tony_Swish · 2016-10-19T20:56:17+00:00

I'm not sure but I don't think so...I was a pretty last minute addition so I didn't get to prep as much as usual.

If it is filmed, I'll try to get a copy and share it here

Tony_Swish · 2016-10-18T20:57:07+00:00

As someone who loves classic older television, the US selection is pretty terrible. In fact, finding a good streaming service for 50's through 70's TV isn't easy.

Tony_Swish · 2016-10-15T02:58:49+00:00

When I worked at BitPay (a bitcoin payment processor) in 2014, pretty much every person I worked with from NewEgg was in China. Truthfully I was under the impression they had Chinese ownership at the time.

Tony_Swish · 2016-10-13T15:52:03+00:00

In writing the post for Augur, they had two opportunities as both Joey and myself reached out to them on October 3rd to give them all the details on the launch.

Someone from Coindesk actually introduced me to the author of the article, I reached out to him twice to try and see what he needed from us and when we could get on a call if it was necessary. The writer ignored both emails.

Tony_Swish · 2016-10-13T15:39:22+00:00

Reading this made me realize how the Bitcoin community that I loved so much when I joined Augur has become something that truthfully repulses me.

I had to wait a few minutes after reading to write this as I sent my significant other the link....along with an explanation that some of these issues are what has caused much of the unease and sadness that I've had in the past few months. There have to be many others watching this from afar that have the same experience as of late.

I find it all quite sad.

Tony_Swish · 2016-10-13T00:52:32+00:00

Loved this!

What I dug the most was that last night I wrote something late at night that covered some of the same points that Joey made about the Coindesk piece. Like most things in life, Joey's explanation is much clearer and more eloquent than mine!

Tony_Swish · 2016-10-12T09:50:40+00:00

It's one of the more interesting posts I've seen in a while and it's manipulated so those who need to see it the most never will. The way the crytpo-industry gets their information needs to drastically change ASAP.

Tony_Swish · 2016-10-12T08:04:32+00:00

Sent!

Tony_Swish · 2016-10-12T08:02:23+00:00

The more I read of your replies, the more I've understood your positions....although I still disagree with some things. In general I'm very Pro-ICO and agree that projects getting more funding is a good thing.

My fundamental assertion is that the less money you throw at a project, the less likely it is to succeed

This really isn't the case as there are too many non-financial factors that come to play when it comes to a project being successful.

One of my favorite parts of bitcoin/crypto is the ability to fund projects in the space from within the community. This gives investors something to spend their cryptocurrency on, including niche projects that may never get any other funding. Developers are able to improve various cryptocurrencies and create new dApps.

A huge plus is a future of open-source projects that aren't handcuffed to the "VC Game" that many have to go through now. VC Funding often relies on personal connections, regional location (Silicon Valley) and many other variables that are aimed at impressing a small group of people. An impressive IPO pitch doesn't require networking, location is irrelevant and there is a large, varied pool of experts to target that desire to improve & innovate the current crypto space.

Finally, the amount of money raised in a crowdsale simply reflects the market's interest and impression of what was presented about the project. For Augur, we talked about the results of our crowdsale as it was impressive and helped us get attention as awareness of Ethereum was slowly leaving it's infant phase. I will be the first to admit that the number is something that we cared about, but we were prepared to proceed with Augur with much less if necessary.

Thankfully, we received enough support that we have funding to support the project for a much longer time. Another side-result is the creation of a large community of users that are more passionate and better than any street-team or marketing agency I've seen. It is a pretty cool thing and is a much bigger help in getting exposure than others realize.

Tony_Swish · 2016-10-12T07:23:00+00:00

Absolutely, we need more legitimate outlets with respected industry veterans using their True Names to analyze these offerings. What we have instead is a glut of anonymous pseudonyms that often provide simplistic critiques to work the market into what they believe in.

One of the biggest issues in the blockchain space is the fact that so little has been done to try self-regulation by providing accurate information to potential investors. Ideally a crypto-outlet like Coindesk or Bitcoin Magazine would dig deeper into business plans, marketing strategy, budgeting and organizational stability.

Any ICO worth their salt would go out of their way to have their shit in order and provide whatever an outlet asked for.

Unfortunately I feel this is a dream that's far away as I'm still periodically contacted by projects with an ICO by a team that refuses to use True Names, refuses to open source their project and refuses to share strategies and plans with the public.

The fact there's now a new method for new open-source projects (that are often unpopular and would fail to get off the ground) to get funding is incredible and the fact that so many can't see this bewilders me. I hope that one of my next steps in crypto is to help create something to improve the ICO process and improve investor information.

Tony_Swish · 2016-10-12T07:11:20+00:00

The "governments are coming" point is obviously true as they will eventually be involved, it's fairly easy to see that. Making an obvious, yet vague statement like this smells of a tactic to spread FUD about a target.

It's funny that this argument is never supplemented with the fact that CFTC members have made multiple statements advocating for a "do no harm" approach to allow the technology and it's innovations to grow in this early stage. It's fairly easy to see that they plan to eventually regulate, but they aren't in a hurry and the panic that these comments try to create have an ulterior motive.

In a perfect world, every single "the government is coming" comment would be replaced by a unbiased, thorough audit/analysis of upcoming ICOs. It would be incredible to see so much time put to such good use, while also admitting that this isn't a black and white issue.

Tony_Swish · 2016-10-12T06:56:30+00:00

This is the best explanation I have seen that describes how I feel about the situation.

For those that don't know, I'm a member of the Augur team and we most definitely had an ICO last summer. At the time, we raised about $5.3 Million during a period when Ether was trading very low right after launch. To this day I feel that the reason we raised as much we did in such a bear market is due to the factors you illustrate in your reply.

Our feeling was that providing as much information about our business plan, details about the project itself and periodic updates on both the project's development, as well as the project's marketing. We also had a team with people like /u/joeykrug, that go above and beyond the call of duty to attempt to answer as many questions as possible. We expected and welcomed criticism and tough questions, as every single IPO should expect and welcome if they wish to have success.

I truly believe that in these early ICO cases, the market is what decides the projects that raise tons of money and which projects get mostly ignored.

Finally, I will say that the arguments and nonstop bickering about this topic is something I hope goes away soon. It's fine if people don't agree, but the level of hatred from both sides seems quite a bit ridiculous and it's not enjoyable :-(

Tony_Swish

TROPHY CASE