BitShares Forum
Main => General Discussion => Topic started by: lil_jay890 on May 04, 2017, 01:02:46 pm
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This is copied from a Steemit post on kencodes blog... Probably the reason behind the torching of BlockPay's market cap today.
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@Chris4210 where are you?
Today, my claws come out. I invested my entire life savings into those BLOCKPAY tokens because you promised us that we would get to “share in the rewards from BlockPay transactions as well as value increases from products built by the Company”.
My life savings: http://cryptofresh.com/u/kencode
Your promise: http://cryptofresh.com/a/BLOCKPAY
(more promises found on reddit, facebook, twitter, linkedin and more)
The past couple weeks, Development has come to a crawl Chris, this is very damaging as my Developers and I have no idea where the money is. I heard you were starting another company with xeroc and some shark named constantin. Is that true? I even got word that you had my company formally Appraised? Is that true?
I have still not been paid my salary, my bills are past due now, my babies are hungry and you know I sure as hell can’t afford a lawyer to track you down. Barely 2 weeks ago you emailed me and said “Current reserves are around 540 BTC + 25k Euro on Bank account”. Really?
If that is true, then where is all that money?! I see you have been recently taking out hundreds of thousands of dollars, where did all that money go?!
https://blockchain.info/address/37jDFfS9WJEPL33YivJbnjfQQNU5RjFWFY
How the hell are we going to be able to continue launching crypto products with no money Chris? A Bitshares Worker Proposal? Your investors never agreed to that!
You agreed (multiple ways) that you would stop trying to take charge of my Developers and Rodrigo’s marketing team too. I guess you fail to remember him yelling at you and hanging up on you?? Even emailing you and telling you to stop it. Obviously that contract has also been breached. My Developers said that you contacted them and stated that you are in charge now and I am leaving my own company? Is that true?!
You agreed (in person with your lawyer/father, and via email) that if more than $2000 was to be expensed that you would get my permission first! Where is the money?!
Your investors deserve to know what I am building, every single week, at a minimum. People love it when I post my weekly technical reports and I will not stop writing them and posting them online to show off what we’re building (including links to our github commits). Apparently, because of this, a couple weeks ago your excuse was “you leave us with no choice but to stop all sales and marketing activities immediately” as if my reports were somehow damaging my own company. You’re kidding, right? If you quit, then why did you start flying around the world on a “BlockPay World Tour”? 1,095 Bitcoins wasn’t enough for you? Now I find out that you are hiding out somewhere in China with your girlfriend. WTF?!
Our commits: https://github.com/kenCode-de?tab=repositories
1,095 Bitcoins: https://blockpay.ch/newsroom/investor-relations/blockpay-reserves/
There are currently 762 of us who have trusted you!!!! I’ll be damned if you’re going to steal all of the STEALTH tokens I bought for my company too.
Holders: http://cryptofresh.com/a/BLOCKPAY
STEALTH tokens: http://cryptofresh.com/u/bitshares-munich
Attempts to contact you and settle this matter by email, SMS and Telegram have failed. Hopefully this steemit post reaches you. You have left me no choice but to contact the Authorities.
Chris, I was building crypto products before I even met you and refuse to let you destroy my company like this. I gave you 49% of BitShares Munich so that you would pay the bills, and get out there and start marketing the products that I built and continue to build (well, not as of late, obviously).
Going public with this is the right thing to do, as transparency is required Chris! Of course this may damage the value of our BLOCKPAY tokens for a bit, but you have left me no choice. As you are well aware, I have always fought for my rights and I will do so once again. As an activist, I assure you I will not stop until you honor the contracts you have made with us, let us see your accounting, pay all of our invoices, answer my questions above, and settle this with me immediately. Since you Follow my blog here on steemit.com, we all know you have been notified. Just as before, I will also send you this notice via email, SMS and Telegram.
More posts to come. Stay tuned, this may get bumpy."
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@kenCode says he can't afford lawyers and then @Chris4210 responds by saying:
"We are still waiting for your lawyers answers regarding a time to meet"
Hope you guys can just talk directly and move forward in an amicable way.
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What a tragedy! Interesting, somehow I am not surprised.
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Wasn't BlockPay and Stealth one of the main reasons people have gotten all bulled up about BTS?
It's also very troubling to see how disconnected the "main" players for blockpay seem to be from each other... Isn't this a business? Shouldn't everyone be keeping in constant contact with each other? It seems like they havn't met or talked in weeks. Ken says he tried to contact Chris via SMS, email, and telegram... Why not try a telephone!
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@kenCode says he can't afford lawyers and then @Chris4210 responds by saying:
"We are still waiting for your lawyers answers regarding a time to meet"
Hope you guys can just talk directly and move forward in an amicable way.
Very good point, I guess Chris will be waiting indefinetley then? lol..
But in all seriousness this is a surprising setback, I thought Blockpay was progressing nicely..
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whatever happens, you cannot hold back salary. that's breaking labour laws
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(http://wx1.sinaimg.cn/mw690/d15bdcc8gy1ff59jxta0fj209q03ywek.jpg)
They just want to make some money
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(http://wx1.sinaimg.cn/mw690/d15bdcc8gy1ff59jxta0fj209q03ywek.jpg)
They just want to make some money
Translation?
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Oh my word, this is awful news, just as BitShares is improving.
I hope Chris gives us an explanation and things can get back on track.
Hang in there KenCode.
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(http://wx1.sinaimg.cn/mw690/d15bdcc8gy1ff59jxta0fj209q03ywek.jpg)
They just want to make some money
Translation?
Let me do the honor.
Sometimes the dude just want to earn some money, but the public really dug into the white paper.
Those coins that can rise in price do not need a white paper.
As for those coins that cannot rise in price, it meant nothing even if the white paper was written as if it was the ‘Origin of Species’.
-------- Famous BTS evangelist Wuyanren
It's a inside joke to point out that dev teams uses whitepaper to earn money, and the public really thinks reading white paper can help them earn money as well.
but in the end those coins that can make u money(rise in price) do not need a white paper at all.
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Dear community,
please find my answer here: https://steemit.com/news/@kenCode/chris4210-where-are-you#@Chris4210/re-chris4210-re-kencode-chris4210-where-are-you-201754t182021979z-20170505t084559589z
I am open to answer more questions in today´s hangout here:
https://steemit.com/beyondbitcoin/@Chris4210/bitshares-hangout-19-w-chris4210-and-officialfuzzy-2017-05-05
Best regards,
Christoph Hering
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This sounds like Ken wants to keep everything MIT licence and you don't.
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kenCode-de/smartcoins-wallet is licensed under the
MIT License
A short and simple permissive license with conditions only requiring preservation of copyright and license notices. Licensed works, modifications, and larger works may be distributed under different terms and without source code.
smartcoins wallet and I think every other software is released under MIT, as expected, now you try to claim some IP? this is exactly what no one wants or needs in crypto, and what most of us want to avoid.
very disgusted by your actions, @Chris4210
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This sounds like Ken wants to keep everything MIT licence and you don't.
Hi JonnyBitcoin,
MIT or not is not the dispute with Ken. I am supporting open source and MIT licensed projects because that will help us all to develop more crypto product and services. The blockchain community is still in its early stage and the more useful applications we can build and share the better.
BitShares Munich products have been published under MIT license so that other teams can contribute and even build their own versions with the goal to provide a larger infrastructure of BitShares and Blockchain-based tools.
kenCode-de/smartcoins-wallet is licensed under the
MIT License
A short and simple permissive license with conditions only requiring preservation of copyright and license notices. Licensed works, modifications, and larger works may be distributed under different terms and without source code.
smartcoins wallet and I think every other software is released under MIT, as expected, now you try to claim some IP? this is exactly what no one wants or needs in crypto, and what most of us want to avoid.
very disgusted by your actions, @Chris4210
@fav thank you for sharing your concerns.
It is not my intention to "claim some IP" and/or to close source our products. I am for open source work.
In the case of BitShares Munich we are specifically talking about that Ken did not follow common business practices and did not make proper IP transfer agreements with our developers. In the last 10 months, I reached out several times to Ken and asked him to provide the signed documents for the company. Unfortunately, I never received it.
BitShares Munich is now solving the dispute over the IP, to avoid any future claims, lawsuit or other copyright violations that may occur through providing for example white label mobile wallet solutions. Since white label mobile wallets are one of our most requested products today, the company needs to make sure it hold all the necessary rights to sell, promote and maintain white label mobile wallets for its clients.
Nothing could be worse than building a Smartcoins wallet based mobile wallet for a restaurant, gas stations or a bank only to end up in a legal lawsuit because the IP rights have not been cleared before with the developers.
With more than 10 white label clients in the pipeline, it is in the companies best interest to know what is the legal situation with their developers.
Please also keep in mind that some of our clients, who want to buy a white label wallet from us, prefer to keep their apps private and request to show them the proper IP documents.
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I don't get it. If Ken publishes his stuff under MIT, what kind of IP transfer agreement is needed beyond that?
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I don't get it. If Ken publishes his stuff under MIT, what kind of IP transfer agreement is needed beyond that?
Would make sense if devs contribute code to private repos and they later claim that their code was used without consent. Unclear if this is the case though, one dev said he contributed to the open MIT based repo.
This is very strange
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Yeah, just goes to show we're not getting the whole story.
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So after listening to the latest mumble... It sounds like the Blockpay token will either be exchanged or redefined. Chris said it was mainly going to be for branding reasons, but the real reason sounds like it is to remove Ken from the equation. How that is done seems to be up in there air still though.
There were several vague terms like "mess" thrown around, but the subject was danced around. Also it sounds like Ken has still not been paid, which makes me think Stealth has been delayed. This topic was also danced around.
Overall there is a lot of uncertainty brewing. Changing the rules of the Blockpay token is worrisome. The effort to cut out Ken seems like it will be very detrimental to the entire project. Not only will there be legal battles (which i'm sure will be paid for from the funds that were raised from investors), but any progress on any of the projects will likely come to a standstill in Ken's absence. Thom and JoeyD? seemed to do a good job asking some pointed questions, but the answer's were very vague and eventually the conversation digressed.
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So after listening to the latest mumble... It sounds like the Blockpay token will either be exchanged or redefined. Chris said it was mainly going to be for branding reasons, but the real reason sounds like it is to remove Ken from the equation. How that is done seems to be up in there air still though.
There were several vague terms like "mess" thrown around, but the subject was danced around. Also it sounds like Ken has still not been paid, which makes me think Stealth has been delayed. This topic was also danced around.
Overall there is a lot of uncertainty brewing. Changing the rules of the Blockpay token is worrisome. The effort to cut out Ken seems like it will be very detrimental to the entire project. Not only will there be legal battles (which i'm sure will be paid for from the funds that were raised from investors), but any progress on any of the projects will likely come to a standstill in Ken's absence. Thom and JoeyD? seemed to do a good job asking some pointed questions, but the answer's were very vague and eventually the conversation digressed.
That was a very good review of the topic on mumble @lil_jay890. Xeroc also chimed in and provided a perspective this might work out better for everyone, but I don't see it that way. From my perspective this is a hostile take over and I believe it was motivated by an outside party who is throwing money at a few individuals to make this happen. Who / whatever that source is needs to be exposed and scrutinized, brought out into the light. If the community were given the choice to continue under kencode's management or bring in others what choice do you think shareholders would make? One of the most important criteria should be who could finish Stealth first? It was not that long ago ken was saying Stealth would be ready for testing on the testnet. Unfortunately this power play has derailed that timing.
This community is comprised of people on a spectrum of different political and social perspectives. The core people that had the vision for this ecosystem were mostly oriented towards a volunteerist / anachist mindset, and I know @kenCode is as well. My impression is that Chris4210 leans more towards a statist perspective and still trusts in the benevolence of government much more than kencode does. If I'm right about this I'll bet whatever outside source is pulling the strings is not aligned with a volunteerist / disruptive mindset.
For any of you naive enough to think that the banksters won't aggressively work to prevent loosing their monopoly on money have another thing yet to learn. Once they truly recognize the disruptive threat is real they will identify who they can, the weakest and easiest to manipulate or influence, and target them to neutralize them. It may not be obvious who is behind such neutralization tactics but at some point they will use the power they still have (and that is still huge) to try to retain their monopolistic control.
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So after listening to the latest mumble... It sounds like the Blockpay token will either be exchanged or redefined. Chris said it was mainly going to be for branding reasons, but the real reason sounds like it is to remove Ken from the equation. How that is done seems to be up in there air still though.
There were several vague terms like "mess" thrown around, but the subject was danced around. Also it sounds like Ken has still not been paid, which makes me think Stealth has been delayed. This topic was also danced around.
Overall there is a lot of uncertainty brewing. Changing the rules of the Blockpay token is worrisome. The effort to cut out Ken seems like it will be very detrimental to the entire project. Not only will there be legal battles (which i'm sure will be paid for from the funds that were raised from investors), but any progress on any of the projects will likely come to a standstill in Ken's absence. Thom and JoeyD? seemed to do a good job asking some pointed questions, but the answer's were very vague and eventually the conversation digressed.
That was a very good review of the topic on mumble @lil_jay890. Xeroc also chimed in and provided a perspective this might work out better for everyone, but I don't see it that way. From my perspective this is a hostile take over and I believe it was motivated by an outside party who is throwing money at a few individuals to make this happen. Who / whatever that source is needs to be exposed and scrutinized, brought out into the light. If the community were given the choice to continue under kencode's management or bring in others what choice do you think shareholders would make? One of the most important criteria should be who could finish Stealth first? It was not that long ago ken was saying Stealth would be ready for testing on the testnet. Unfortunately this power play has derailed that timing.
This community is comprised of people on a spectrum of different political and social perspectives. The core people that had the vision for this ecosystem were mostly oriented towards a volunteerist / anachist mindset, and I know @kenCode is as well. My impression is that Chris4210 leans more towards a statist perspective and still trusts in the benevolence of government much more than kencode does. If I'm right about this I'll bet whatever outside source is pulling the strings is not aligned with a volunteerist / disruptive mindset.
For any of you naive enough to think that the banksters won't aggressively work to prevent loosing their monopoly on money have another thing yet to learn. Once they truly recognize the disruptive threat is real they will identify who they can, the weakest and easiest to manipulate or influence, and target them to neutralize them. It may not be obvious who is behind such neutralization tactics but at some point they will use the power they still have (and that is still huge) to try to retain their monopolistic control.
easiest way would be for ken to just do a crowdfund for stealth / smartcoin wallet fork with 2-3 devs and further graphene dev. in my opinion.
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I have also listened to mumble.
What bothers me is that neither side provided story in full detail. So we could only speculate.
From what I understood , Chris and Xeroc discovered something troublesome, not willing to reveal at the moment. They are trying to fix that, Ken is opposing. Ken is also secretive, not exposing details. He complains about blocking his salary. They are negotiating.
I would also be on Ken's side if Xeroc wasn't involved. Since he is I believe there is something more on that. Our forum member Chronos
ones reminded me about Ken's past. I doesn't have to mean anything, only that we should be cautious when rationalizing current situation.
Let's be patient. They cant hold the truth indefinitely.
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Such a shame that once again, for outside reasons, stealth ends up being delayed.
Bitshares, then, continues to be a tool of mass surveillance rather than the beacon of liberty it has the potential to be.
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(http://i.imgur.com/oHYlHKo.png)
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(http://i.imgur.com/oHYlHKo.png)
Thx for the info.
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KEN FOR PRESIDENT!!
I want people who share Ken's ideals and work ethic to be front and center in BitShares development.
My only faith in Chris4210 stems from the fact that Ken agreed to work with him in the first place...
There is a possibility that Ken is in the wrong here, and I reserve the right to withdraw my support for him, but I would hate to see a pro-freedom community such a BitShares cannibalize their own
Xeroc is a top bloke so his involvement in this situation eases things for me a little
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KEN FOR PRESIDENT!!
I want people who share Ken's ideals and work ethic to be front and center in BitShares development.
My only faith in Chris4210 stems from the fact that Ken agreed to work with him in the first place...
There is a possibility that Ken is in the wrong here, and I reserve the right to withdraw my support for him, but I would hate to see a pro-freedom community such a BitShares cannibalize their own
Xeroc is a top bloke so his involvement in this situation eases things for me a little
I tend to agree. Just keep in mind NOBODY is beyond being influenced, it's just a matter of price. Some will even go to their grave despite an offer of unlimited wealth, or to protect those they love. It only indicates the "price" (i.e. benefit as seen by the person) was not right.
So until we have all the facts I can't explain why xeroc is backing Chris4210 in this, aside from the facts that they are both German and that xeroc & ken don't get along too well.
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I have also listened to mumble.
What bothers me is that neither side provided story in full detail. So we could only speculate.
From what I understood , Chris and Xeroc discovered something troublesome, not willing to reveal at the moment. They are trying to fix that, Ken is opposing. Ken is also secretive, not exposing details. He complains about blocking his salary. They are negotiating.
I would also be on Ken's side if Xeroc wasn't involved. Since he is I believe there is something more on that. Our forum member Chronos
ones reminded me about Ken's past. I doesn't have to mean anything, only that we should be cautious when rationalizing current situation.
Let's be patient. They cant hold the truth indefinitely.
Once Ken and I solved our internal issues I kindly request to stop further speculation. I am for full transparency at the right time and I am planning to release a full report ala Erik from Shapeshift about our case. I loved to read Erik´s story and to get a better overview what happened.
I will have more updates for all of you within the next days. Thank you for your support.
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Regarding Alfredo worker please see my latest update here: https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php/topic,23698.msg305983.html#msg305983
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Once Ken and I solved our internal issues I kindly request to stop further speculation. I am for full transparency at the right time and I am planning to release a full report ala Erik from Shapeshift about our case. I loved to read Erik´s story and to get a better overview what happened.
I will have more updates for all of you within the next days. Thank you for your support.
Are you saying you have resolved the issue between yourselves already?
As in present tense?
If so, great :)
I have no personal complaints about Chris, just that the consensus seemed to be steering against Ken and I wanted to voice my support.
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Once Ken and I solved our internal issues I kindly request to stop further speculation. I am for full transparency at the right time and I am planning to release a full report ala Erik from Shapeshift about our case. I loved to read Erik´s story and to get a better overview what happened.
I will have more updates for all of you within the next days. Thank you for your support.
Are you saying you have resolved the issue between yourselves already?
As in present tense?
If so, great :)
I have no personal complaints about Chris, just that the consensus seemed to be steering against Ken and I wanted to voice my support.
Definitely not resolved! I suspect his words were chosen very carefully, being the son of an attorney. What does that tell you?
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Definitely not resolved!
I understand that many BitShares community members speak English as a second language. Which is great and fine for discussing around on the forums. I'm not complaining about that :)
But when an employee that the shareholders pay via the blockchain write communication to BitShares; accuracy in language is important.
It is the "minutes" of the boardroom meeting with the shareholders.
Once BitShares' scales up, paying bts worth lots of money, the standard for written communication should be quite high.
In general, I think this is something the shareholders should look out for.
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(http://i.imgur.com/oHYlHKo.png)
Sorry for being only little responsive here but I want to clarify two things:
a) I am not involved in BitShares Munich nor am I a shareholder of BitShares Munich IVS or BlockPay
b) The picture above actually shows that I assist BitShares Munich's CEO Chris Hering in his rebranding efforts
The fact that they need me to help them create those repositories should tell you a little about what is going on.
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(http://i.imgur.com/oHYlHKo.png)
Sorry for being only little responsive here but I want to clarify two things:
a) I am not involved in BitShares Munich nor am I a shareholder of BitShares Munich IVS or BlockPay
b) The picture above actually shows that I assist BitShares Munich's CEO Chris Hering in his rebranding efforts
The fact that they need me to help them create those repositories should tell you a little about what is going on.
a) The last time you and I corresponded, you were sitting in the Munich office of Bitshares Munich while Chris was actually in China. That tells me that you have very good access and are far from being a disinterested party.
b) The picture above actually shows that you are aiding and abetting Chris Herring (and other parties?) in a hostile takeover attempt of Kencode's (51%) company, Bithares-Munich, which he started and of which I was the first backer. You should be ashamed of yourself. "Re-branding" is a very very misleading way of describing the nefarious activities being perpetrated in Munich.
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(http://i.imgur.com/oHYlHKo.png)
Sorry for being only little responsive here but I want to clarify two things:
a) I am not involved in BitShares Munich nor am I a shareholder of BitShares Munich IVS or BlockPay
b) The picture above actually shows that I assist BitShares Munich's CEO Chris Hering in his rebranding efforts
The fact that they need me to help them create those repositories should tell you a little about what is going on.
tells me that they have literally 0 devs left.
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tells me that they have literally 0 devs left.
That includes .. or excludes KenCode?!
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a) The last time you and I corresponded, you were sitting in the Munich office of Bitshares Munich while Chris was actually in China. That tells me that you have very good access and are far from being a disinterested party.
How am I supposed to work with the people in the BitShares Munich office if I wasn't there? I wonder how Ken did it all these months.
As for the access, I only have as much access as Chris gives me since I am only contractor to BitShares Munich with very limited focus.
BTW, Munich is host to other companies and startups as well .. but that is non of your businesses ..
b) The picture above actually shows that you are aiding and abetting Chris Herring (and other parties?) in a hostile takeover attempt of Kencode's (51%) company, Bithares-Munich, which he started and of which I was the first backer. You should be ashamed of yourself. "Re-branding" is a very very misleading way of describing the nefarious activities being perpetrated in Munich.
Chris Hering is officially the CEO of BitShares Munich ... you can see that by looking into the company register of BitShares Munich IVS. As long as that is the case, I can be hired by Chris who has to sign each and every contract.
I have no idea what causes your sudden hostility against me - and tbh, I wonder if I should care - I did nothing wrong in helping out a local company to deal with the business problems - no matter who caused them.
As for the github repos ... I was told that Ken was asked to move over BitShares Munich property (read: the code that was paid for by BitShares Munich investors ... and that has been ordered by BitShares Munich CEO) to a neutral (read company-owned) github project multiple times but he didn't comply.
Can you believe that BitShares Munich (the company) has not been granted access to the private repos for BlockPay and the internal exchange?
Either way ... I made my (business) decisions, offered my assistance to the company (that includes everyone of BitShares Munich) as a contractor to either deal with business demands or on the technical aspects - and that is what I did. BTW, I have been very open to kencode as well who has asked to hire me to deal with Trezor support (I declined to to having too little time tho), so please don't tell me I was) ... but I am sure some devs from the BitSharesDEV telegram group can confirm that I am helping the guy that ken hired instead.
If you think that was morally wrong, then I can live with it. For me this drama has been way too time consuming for the last 2,5 months (yes, that long) and I decided to get back to productive mode. You guys can stick with Kindergarden - I am done.
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Frankly I am surprised by your response here xeroc. Your arguments seem rather weak to me.
I have always respected your work ethic and technical insights, as well as your helpful attitude towards the people in this community, myself included. I still have you as my proxy, but there are things about this BitShares Munich drama that aren't adding up. We're not being given the whole story on the matter. Perhaps you're not either. Unlike many people I am not one to blindly accept a narrative. All I am doing here is asking questions and trying to gain clarity.
a) The last time you and I corresponded, you were sitting in the Munich office of Bitshares Munich while Chris was actually in China. That tells me that you have very good access and are far from being a disinterested party.
How am I supposed to work with the people in the BitShares Munich office if I wasn't there? I wonder how Ken did it all these months.
Are you saying onceuponatime is mistaken and you were NOT in the BitShares Munich office as he stated? As for you needing to "be in the office" to work with people there, certainly physical presence isn't required, people "work from home" all the time. We have people all over the world working together to get things done, have meetings, discussions, collaborate etc., surely you know that. Perhaps kencode works best from home without office distractions. Did he say he would meet you there and didn't? If so was this after Chris4210 made plans to ransom kencode's paycheck to obtain the IP you were hired to create github repos for?
As for the access, I only have as much access as Chris gives me since I am only contractor to BitShares Munich with very limited focus.
BTW, Munich is host to other companies and startups as well .. but that is non of your businesses ..
It does make sense to provide contractors limited access, but "limited" is vague. If you had access to the BitShares Munich office when both kencode and chhris4210 were away that doesn't seem all that restricted or "limited". Again, a rather odd response. Was this in reference to this Constantin party? Whoever or whatever outside party may be involved to try to force kencode to relinquish his control of what he has worked so hard to build (and protected my having his majority ownership stated clearly in the contract with Chris4210) by withholding his salary, that is an aggression and a clear violation of the NAP (Non Aggression Principle) BM and many others including me fully endorse.
If this remark was NOT related to such outside influencers, this remark is even more strange. Who isn't aware that the city of Munich Germany has many other businesses. I don't see where oneuponatime asked you about other Munich businesses so I don't understand why you replied so defensively. It seems to be a totally irrelevant remark.
None of us should be so naive to believe that when we finally get enough traction and begin to truly threaten and disrupt status quo money flows and financial interests that said interests won't try to defend their control. We all need to be prepared for when that day comes, b/c it may not come as a frontal, obvious attack. Could this be such an attack carefully planned and calculated to introduce delays and strife at a minimum and outright controlling interest in the products BitShares Munich is working on as a best case outcome?
b) The picture above actually shows that you are aiding and abetting Chris Herring (and other parties?) in a hostile takeover attempt of Kencode's (51%) company, Bithares-Munich, which he started and of which I was the first backer. You should be ashamed of yourself. "Re-branding" is a very very misleading way of describing the nefarious activities being perpetrated in Munich.
Chris Hering is officially the CEO of BitShares Munich ... you can see that by looking into the company register of BitShares Munich IVS. As long as that is the case, I can be hired by Chris who has to sign each and every contract.
OK, fine. Were you aware that Chris4210 only has a minority ownership position and kencode has a majority 51% position in BitShares Munich? Are you aware that a majority owner can over-rule a minority owner? Why do you put so much importance on Chris' title? What matters is contracted ownership rights, titles are merely a label. The contract dictates ownership rights. I have seen the contract and it clearly indicates ken owns 51% of BitShares Munich and Chris4210 has only 49%. What more do you need to know? Did you bother to ask kencode if he approved of the actions Chris4210 asked you to do? Considering ken was unwilling to give you access to the private repos Chris4210 asked him for didn't that give you pause? What do you consider due diligence in such a situation, to follow the dictates of the minority owner of the company, or do not care? I would say you should care.
This is a major issue for this community. Many are eagerly awaiting the completion of the projects kencode is managing. You xeroc carry a lot of well earned clout here, and like it or not your involvement can have a major influence on the community's perception of what's going on. It's one thing to help Chris4210 out with marketing efforts that may require technical consultation but it's quite another to be going against kencode's interests in technical matters which ken has been managing quite well and to which Chris4210's only involvement should be limited to that of an accountant that pays wages. Elsewhere on this form others have raised concerns about how Chris4210 is managing funds. See the thread about Alfredo's salary, which was to be paid 50 / 50 by his worker and matching funds by BitShares Munich but which 50% to be provided by BitShares Munich has not been accounted for.
Chris4210 is clearly overstepping that role in opposition to kencode. And although I had no reason to doubt Chris4210's sincerity until this drama began to unfold I am not comfortable with his answers and my confidence in his sincerity as a result is declining. TBH I can't say it is exactly helping my confidence in you either. You and Chris4210 are considerably younger and less experienced in business than ken is. He assured me he has contracts in place that leave no ambiguity about IP ownership of the contractor's work with every dev team member he has hired, and this is the central issue Chris4210 raised to justify his actions, without mentioning that kencode has a majority ownership interest in the company.
I am sad this situation has developed, withholding salary is manipulative and contrary to the best interests of the project. You spoke up 2 weeks ago in the mumble saying this might work out best for everyone, which sounded like a defense for what Chris4210 is trying to do. Chris4210 was very evasive in answering questions in that mumble. If you have truth on your side there's no need to be evasive. This is a typical legal tactic and it does not help to get at the truth of the matter, it only obfuscates and hides information in an effort to manipulate public perception. That's not a position of integrity, and I would hope you can see that.
I have no idea what causes your sudden hostility against me - and tbh, I wonder if I should care - I did nothing wrong in helping out a local company to deal with the business problems - no matter who caused them.
It's no secret you & kencode don't get along very well, and it shouldn't be hard to understand why onceuponatime might be strongly opinionated and a bit emotional towards these attempts to gain control of ken's dev team and code he has been working on so hard for so long on.
I'm not saying Chris4210 has no skin in the game, clearly he does and has also worked hard to market BlockPay and make it a recognizable brand. Not sure precisely what the core disconnect is between them has been triggered by, be it an outside influence, greed, or philosophical differences, but the contract should be king and from my perspective that puts ken in a superior position that this community should respect.
As for the github repos ... I was told that Ken was asked to move over BitShares Munich property (read: the code that was paid for by BitShares Munich investors ... and that has been ordered by BitShares Munich CEO) to a neutral (read company-owned) github project multiple times but he didn't comply.
Can you believe that BitShares Munich (the company) has not been granted access to the private repos for BlockPay and the internal exchange?
Sure, I can easily believe that and it's perfectly understandable. If ken has 51% ownership in the project everybody else's perspective is secondary. His failure to relinquish control of the private repos is simply to protect his interests in the face of this power play. Why is Chris4210 trying to intervene in technical management? He has no expertise in such matters, hence he contracted you to do the dirty work. Sadly you are helping him.
Investors? Don't you mean donors? What standing do they actually have to demand anything as donors? Ken is not defrauding or screwing anyone over. He is trying to develop and deliver the products and just when he is about ready to begin testing this drama surfaces (tho it has been brewing for some time now).
Either way ... I made my (business) decisions, offered my assistance to the company (that includes everyone of BitShares Munich) as a contractor to either deal with business demands or on the technical aspects - and that is what I did. BTW, I have been very open to kencode as well who has asked to hire me to deal with Trezor support (I declined to to having too little time tho), so please don't tell me I was) ... but I am sure some devs from the BitSharesDEV telegram group can confirm that I am helping the guy that ken hired instead.
If you think that was morally wrong, then I can live with it. For me this drama has been way too time consuming for the last 2,5 months (yes, that long) and I decided to get back to productive mode. You guys can stick with Kindergarden - I am done.
I am sincerely grateful to all you do for this community as I said above xeroc, and truly hope you are done helping chris4210 gain control over ken's work, whether you see it that way or not.
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Well said @Thom all this thing smells very fishy, nothing justifies the ransom salary to @kenCode, as you explain Ken is the major shareholder of BTSM so this kind of bullshit is beyond my understanding, i have 0 sympathy for this kind of childish behaviour of @Chris4210
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Thanks for posting @Thom
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Great post Thom! +5%
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Thanks guys for the feedback. I asked 16 questions in that post, so let’s see if any of them are actually addressed (particularly by @xeroc or @Chris4210) as future posts are added here. @kenCode saw it and also liked it. When I tried to reply earlier at 10:15AM CDT the forum was not responding. It is now but is extremely slowly.
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Thom thank you for your clear and complete post and effort spent on following this utmost important issue.
I know @kenCode as old, beneficial and active member of our community.
IMO if somebody speaks about lawyers instead of "handshake was made" the whole matter smells.
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Were you aware that Chris4210 only has a minority ownership position and kencode has a majority 51% position in BitShares Munich? Are you aware that a majority owner can over-rule a minority owner? Why do you put so much importance on Chris' title? What matters is contracted ownership rights, titles are merely a label.
You are wrong there, Thom. In a company, the designated CEO acts on behalf of the company, and he usually is the only one entitled to do so. The owners merely have the right to hire or fire the CEO. When Xeroc is doing business with BitShares Munich, the designated CEO is the person he needs to talk to. The CEO signs his contract on behalf of the company, and the owners have no say in this.
Apart from this I can tell you from personal experience that quarrels between business owners are very nasty stuff, and in the end there will be no winners - except for the lawyers, probably. If you want my advice, then stay out of this everybody.
I perfectly understand that neither party is going full disclosure here, because that would probably be considered treason by the opposing party, and is therefore likely to weaken their own position.
Just wait until Ken and Chris have sorted out the situation, and live with whatever explanation they come up with. I don't think you have much of a choice, anyway. The drama in this thread is just a waste of time.
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Were you aware that Chris4210 only has a minority ownership position and kencode has a majority 51% position in BitShares Munich? Are you aware that a majority owner can over-rule a minority owner? Why do you put so much importance on Chris' title? What matters is contracted ownership rights, titles are merely a label.
You are wrong there, Thom. In a company, the designated CEO acts on behalf of the company, and he usually is the only one entitled to do so. The owners merely have the right to hire or fire the CEO. When Xeroc is doing business with BitShares Munich, the designated CEO is the person he needs to talk to. The CEO signs his contract on behalf of the company, and the owners have no say in this.
Apart from this I can tell you from personal experience that quarrels between business owners are very nasty stuff, and in the end there will be no winners - except for the lawyers, probably. If you want my advice, then stay out of this everybody.
I perfectly understand that neither party is going full disclosure here, because that would probably be considered treason by the opposing party, and is therefore likely to weaken their own position.
Just wait until Ken and Chris have sorted out the situation, and live with whatever explanation they come up with. I don't think you have much of a choice, anyway. The drama in this thread is just a waste of time.
Thanks for the input. @Thom : thank you as well.
Time (for me) to get back to work.
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Were you aware that Chris4210 only has a minority ownership position and kencode has a majority 51% position in BitShares Munich? Are you aware that a majority owner can over-rule a minority owner? Why do you put so much importance on Chris' title? What matters is contracted ownership rights, titles are merely a label.
You are wrong there, Thom. In a company, the designated CEO acts on behalf of the company, and he usually is the only one entitled to do so. The owners merely have the right to hire or fire the CEO. When Xeroc is doing business with BitShares Munich, the designated CEO is the person he needs to talk to. The CEO signs his contract on behalf of the company, and the owners have no say in this.
Apart from this I can tell you from personal experience that quarrels between business owners are very nasty stuff, and in the end there will be no winners - except for the lawyers, probably. If you want my advice, then stay out of this everybody.
I perfectly understand that neither party is going full disclosure here, because that would probably be considered treason by the opposing party, and is therefore likely to weaken their own position.
Just wait until Ken and Chris have sorted out the situation, and live with whatever explanation they come up with. I don't think you have much of a choice, anyway. The drama in this thread is just a waste of time.
When any officer acts against the explicit wishes and directives of the owner(s), not only can they be fired they may also be sued for breaching their fiduciary responsibility. I just heard that chris4210 has stepped down from his ceo position due to a disagreement with Rodrigo, who chris4210 sold some of his 49% interest to. How much I don't know. Now doesn't this tell you all something about who is stirring the hornets nest here?
@pc I don't agree that staying silent in these things is always the best policy. I despise apathy, and that is what that advice sounds like.
I am not so naive to believe I have the entire story. I would not be surprised in the least that information is being withheld by both parties. However, I have more trust in kencode than I do for chris4210 for a number of reasons, the most important of which is the principles the two parties are known to espouse concerning statism. I also give more credibility to those with more experience, not only in business but in life in general.
I thought long and hard about the post I submitted last night, especially considering how important I value xeroc's input and perspective. Nevertheless I felt compelled to do as I can't sit by and just let this happen if I can do something to help. I believe I am doing just that, helping to bring more of this to light so YOU will have more info upon which to makes decisions.
If some piece of information turns up about kencode that impugns his integrity to the point he is disgraced and is shown to be at fault and totally in the wrong, not only will I be sad for what it means to this community it will also reflect on my judgment negatively. I just don't see that happening.
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Today is Blockpays 1st year anniversary. With all the negativity going around here, I decide to do something positive for Blockpay. Here is a little steemit post I did: http://bit.ly/2q1S56b
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Today is Blockpays 1st year anniversary. With all the negativity going around here, I decide to do something positive for Blockpay. Here is a little steemit post I did: http://bit.ly/2q1S56b
+5% +5% +5%
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What is the status of the ongoing blockpay issues? No update here or on steem. Blockpay is severely under performing almost all other currencies/assets. Stealth was suppose to be ready (at least public testing) by now and should have been caught up in the Anonymous coin pump... Huge missed opportunity and very concerning with the lack of updates.
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What is the status of the ongoing blockpay issues? No update here or on steem. Blockpay is severely under performing almost all other currencies/assets. Stealth was suppose to be ready (at least public testing) by now and should have been caught up in the Anonymous coin pump... Huge missed opportunity and very concerning with the lack of updates.
This
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I got tired of wondering what's going on with stealth, so I asked @kenCode what the deal is and he said his team resumed work on it some time ago and the public testnet is probably less than a month away. That was really great to hear!
Not to mention, apparently libsnark has been replaced by Confidential Assets (CA). This is fantastic because with CA, transactions are much faster than with libsnark (which apparently slow down transactions by at least 40 seconds). Also, with CA there is no "trusted setup" issue like zcash and other libsnark implementations have. Anyone who has followed the "trusted setup" controversy even a little bit knows that it's a big deal. So this is a very positive development for Bitshares!
https://blockstream.com/2017/04/03/blockstream-releases-elements-confidential-assets.html
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I got tired of wondering what's going on with stealth, so I asked @kenCode what the deal is and he said his team resumed work on it some time ago and the public testnet is probably less than a month away. That was really great to hear!
Not to mention, apparently libsnark has been replaced by Confidential Assets (CA). This is fantastic because with CA, transactions are much faster than with libsnark (which apparently slow down transactions by at least 40 seconds). Also, with CA there is no "trusted setup" issue like zcash and other libsnark implementations have. Anyone who has followed the "trusted setup" controversy even a little bit knows that it's a big deal. So this is a very positive development for Bitshares!
https://blockstream.com/2017/04/03/blockstream-releases-elements-confidential-assets.html
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I got tired of wondering what's going on with stealth, so I asked @kenCode what the deal is and he said his team resumed work on it some time ago and the public testnet is probably less than a month away. That was really great to hear!
Not to mention, apparently libsnark has been replaced by Confidential Assets (CA). This is fantastic because with CA, transactions are much faster than with libsnark (which apparently slow down transactions by at least 40 seconds). Also, with CA there is no "trusted setup" issue like zcash and other libsnark implementations have. Anyone who has followed the "trusted setup" controversy even a little bit knows that it's a big deal. So this is a very positive development for Bitshares!
https://blockstream.com/2017/04/03/blockstream-releases-elements-confidential-assets.html
Quoted the entire thing because it's that important. Also is it time for a happy dance or do I need to reel myself in?
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+5%
Hodor
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I got tired of wondering what's going on with stealth, so I asked @kenCode what the deal is and he said his team resumed work on it some time ago and the public testnet is probably less than a month away. That was really great to hear!
Not to mention, apparently libsnark has been replaced by Confidential Assets (CA). This is fantastic because with CA, transactions are much faster than with libsnark (which apparently slow down transactions by at least 40 seconds). Also, with CA there is no "trusted setup" issue like zcash and other libsnark implementations have. Anyone who has followed the "trusted setup" controversy even a little bit knows that it's a big deal. So this is a very positive development for Bitshares!
https://blockstream.com/2017/04/03/blockstream-releases-elements-confidential-assets.html
Quoted the entire thing because it's that important. Also is it time for a happy dance or do I need to reel myself in?
Why would blockpay, Ken, Chris, and whoever else is in charge over their leave investors completely in the dark about this? They missed out at a massive opportunity to increase the value of the blockpay token... @Chris4210 mentioned in a previous mumble that the purpose of the blockpay token may be changing, what is the status with that?
While it's good to hear that Ken is still working on this, Blockpay investors shouldn't have to hear this "through the grapevine".
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I got tired of wondering what's going on with stealth, so I asked @kenCode what the deal is and he said his team resumed work on it some time ago and the public testnet is probably less than a month away. That was really great to hear!
Not to mention, apparently libsnark has been replaced by Confidential Assets (CA). This is fantastic because with CA, transactions are much faster than with libsnark (which apparently slow down transactions by at least 40 seconds). Also, with CA there is no "trusted setup" issue like zcash and other libsnark implementations have. Anyone who has followed the "trusted setup" controversy even a little bit knows that it's a big deal. So this is a very positive development for Bitshares!
https://blockstream.com/2017/04/03/blockstream-releases-elements-confidential-assets.html
Quoted the entire thing because it's that important. Also is it time for a happy dance or do I need to reel myself in?
Why would blockpay, Ken, Chris, and whoever else is in charge over their leave investors completely in the dark about this? They missed out at a massive opportunity to increase the value of the blockpay token... @Chris4210 mentioned in a previous mumble that the purpose of the blockpay token may be changing, what is the status with that?
While it's good to hear that Ken is still working on this, Blockpay investors shouldn't have to hear this "through the grapevine".
Why are shareholders being left in the dark? THAT is a VERY important question. I totally agree, they shouldn't be. In a mumble several weeks ago chris4210 claimed kencode did not have an agreement with his devs concerning the ownership of the IP their code represents. That was a serious allegation, and one I found difficult to believe as kencode has been a businessman who managed open source software projects in the past. Ken personally assured me he DOES have such agreements in place. The fact that kencode has control of the code repository of that IP which chris has been trying to obtain is strong evidence (not proof) of that.
I have been in contact with onceuponatime throughout this mess, who as you may know has been the original investor the FBA that STEALTH was to become the first implementation of. He has also been working very hard to resolve the issues between ken & chris, including asking @Stan to mediate the dispute (who did agree to do so) rather than involve attorneys. It is not surprising to me that Chris rejected that offer being the son of a rather high ranking attorney. By high ranking I mean has a Phd in jurisprudence or something along those lines, not just a typical Bachelors or Masters graduate.
I have also been in contact with kencode directly for at least a couple of weeks who has kept me informed. I was one of the parties onceuponatime chose to oversee the stealth FBA once it became operational, and he awarded me a block of those tokens to do so. So yes, for full disclosure I too have a direct vested interest in this matter. If you were present in mumble today you noticed both kencode and chris4210 were present, as were onceuponatime and myself. When chris was asked if the devs who are working on stealth for BitShares Munich under ken's management were being paid or not (a simple yes or no question), chris4210 declined to answer with anything other than "No comment". The community had the perfect opportunity to ask any of us questions but there didn't appear to be much interest in doing so. Why do you so readily accept a "No comment" response? Have politicians conditioned you so well that you no longer will hold anyone accountable to what they agree to do?
Ken had a broken mic (this is not a new problem for ken. It's just not a priority to spend money or time to fix) but assured everyone present via the mumble chat those devs have NOT been paid. I don't know about you but I put far more credibility in an affirmative answer directly from the dev's manager than a "No comment" from the accounting department (i.e. chris4210). In addition chris4210 has not accounted for the 50% pay that was agreed to by BitShares Munich to supplement the worker proposal. Has he kept that for himself? Why has he not paid that which he agreed to pay? That represents a violation of the worker proposal chris4210 published before it was approved to sweeten the deal to shareholders. Chris4210's remark in mumble several weeks ago concerning a reissue of a different BlockPay token are pretty strong evidence of a hostile takeover attempt. He is not being transparent in the least and it saddens me this community does not DEMAND accountability. It smells of THEFT to me, but that is just my opinion. For all who know about the NAP, THEFT IS A FORM OF AGGRESSION and I hate to see it infiltrate BitShares Munich, BlockPay and if it turns out to be true the BitShares committee as well by anyone that uses AGGRESSION.
This dispute arose shortly after ken turned over responsibility of accounting/payroll to chris4210, adding to chris4210's role of marketing. Ken trusted chris and it allowed ken to focus on development. He felt confident his 51% ownership in BitShares Munich protected him from loosing control of the company he worked so hard to create. It's important to note that ken has NOT relinquished control of his majority shareholder position. To this day that remains 49% chris4210 51% kencode. Ken sent me a copy of the document they both signed before it was posted on steemit. I may have been misinformed earlier when I said chris4210 gave some portion of his 49% to ridrigo to manage the marketing in South America / Mexico. That isn't important anyway. According to kencode, Rodrigo and Chris got into a heated dispute and Rodrigo emphatically told Chris to knock off the bullshit and stop trying to do an end run around ken by contacting his devs and requesting them to report to chris4210 rather than kencode. According to kencode his devs are not listening to chris4210 and remain loyal to him which is very apparent since they continue to work on stealth due to onceuponatime's continued generosity to fund their work.
Frankly this whole matter is very disturbing to me. I am also disturbed by this community's lack of interest in getting to the bottom of this. People seem to want to turn their heads and ignore the ugliness of what seems very clear to me is a hostile take over and coercion to gain control away from the rightful owner by withholding payments. Do you people have such lack of discernment that you can't see that, or at least question these actions?
Lastly I will comment on an aspect of kencode's management style I am not a big fan of, that being disclosure of specifications and design documents. The issue of specs was mentioned in today's mumble as well. This is also an area that xeroc has raised concern over. Ken & I have also had differences over his lack of disclosure concerning the roadmap to completion you may have read here in the forum, however I admit I am not in ken's shoes so I am willing to let him manage the project in his own competent manor. Doesn't mean I'm letting him off the hook, I am just giving him more time.
It's very important to note that I have raised similar concerns with the PeerPlays project about disclosure of witness duties, those related to reporting event results. @Taconator has hit the nail on the head in his steemit article to describe what is involved in that aspect of a peerplays witness responsibilities. I have also spoken with Jonathon about this in addition to bringing it up on the Friday mumble many times. The point I am trying to make is that the reason these people are not being transparent regarding such details, stealth specs / roadmap and peerplays witness event reporting details, is because BOTH ARE OPERATING IN A HIGHLY COMPETITIVE MARKET and they believe such disclosure would be detrimental to the success of the project. I was persuaded by Jonathon's rather lengthy but thorough explanation of the rationale for those decisions, and defer to his judgment now that I better understand some of the elements that went into it.
As to design docs & specs, I tend to take xeroc's perspective and believe those are extremely important. But when has ANYONE demanded that ByteMaster or Cryptonomex produce such documents, let alone to do so BEFORE their product was released? That is simply not reasonable. A roadmap is a different matter IMO, and is more a matter of PR and accountability than anything.
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I think the solution here is obvious... Time to remove Chris from the equation and redistribute a new blockpay token without Chris. Ken can do this by creating a new token... Whatever value blockpay had has been destroyed by Chris for what seems no good reason.
I would trust ken, the man who I bought the OPENPOS token from and has shown me real results, over some scammer kid who's Daddy is a lawyer
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I think the solution here is obvious... Time to remove Chris from the equation and redistribute a new blockpay token without Chris. Ken can do this by creating a new token... Whatever value blockpay had has been destroyed by Chris for what seems no good reason.
I would trust ken, the man who I bought the OPENPOS token from and has shown me real results, over some scammer kid who's Daddy is a lawyer
Are you suggesting to screw over all BLOCKPAY holders? Or are you talking about some kind of sharedrop minus Chris? If that's the case, watch Chris' account for any movement... Can anyone else smell the karmic irony?
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I think the solution here is obvious... Time to remove Chris from the equation and redistribute a new blockpay token without Chris. Ken can do this by creating a new token... Whatever value blockpay had has been destroyed by Chris for what seems no good reason.
I would trust ken, the man who I bought the OPENPOS token from and has shown me real results, over some scammer kid who's Daddy is a lawyer
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Great post @Thom.
RE: Accepting the 'no comment' response - what are we to do? Derail the Bitshares hangout like a broken record repetitively getting the same 'no comment' response? We had other important things to discuss (such as the stealth chat then the beyondbitcoin hangout).
RE: Lack of interest - Don't get me wrong, there's certainly a lot of interest in this however hangouts are not court sessions and as above there's zero further info from Chris for us to work with. As an investor I'm disappointed in the workplace ethics that Chris is currently promoting (withholding dev pay for proj-mgt quarrel) and am mildly annoyed that the deliverables such as the new smartwallet have been delayed because of Chris' actions.
I've removed my proxy vote in Chris, I'd advise others to do so.
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Great post @Thom.
RE: Accepting the 'no comment' response - what are we to do? Derail the Bitshares hangout like a broken record repetitively getting the same 'no comment' response? We had other important things to discuss (such as the stealth chat then the beyondbitcoin hangout).
RE: Lack of interest - Don't get me wrong, there's certainly a lot of interest in this however hangouts are not court sessions and as above there's zero further info from Chris for us to work with. As an investor I'm disappointed in the workplace ethics that Chris is currently promoting (withholding dev pay for proj-mgt quarrel) and am mildly annoyed that the deliverables such as the new smartwallet have been delayed because of Chris' actions.
I've removed my proxy vote in Chris, I'd advise others to do so.
Thank you @custominer for your support and concern of this matter.
To answer your question, what should you do, I would simply say - ask questions, apply pressure so the message is loud and clear aggression is not tolerated. Asking for information is the way you challenge authority. We ALL make mistakes and we ALL should be willing to hear about them from others when we do. None of us like to be challenged when we think we are right but it is healthy and with the right attitude towards criticism it will only help us to improve. Keeping evil at bay is a constant struggle in life, and to believe it can be forever vanquished is just an illusion. Constant vigilance and rational questioning are the only defense against those that wish to hide their actions to gain control over others.
So I thank you for challenging me on the 2 points you raised above.
RE - "disrupting" mumble. My goal in challenging chris4210 was NOT to disrupt the mumble. In fact, it wasn't until 40 minutes into it this discussion occurred. With such an important issue we shouldn't restrict the discussion, and Friday mumble is the perfect venue to make people aware of what is going on. On that note mission accomplished. If that means some topics aren't discussed this week so be it. 1 hour is obviously not enough time to cover everything. I will admit it might have been better had onceupoonatime posted in the beyondbitcoin steemit article that fuzzy publishes each week to officially get on the bbc agenda, but that was addressed in the opening moments when chris / fuzzy asked the audience if other topics should be added to the agenda. So the discussion of stealth was introduced properly and acknowledged as an agenda item that way.
RE - the lack of community interest. I simply don't see many people even willing to ask questions about this mess. @pc in the forum actually said it's not good to make this public. ALL IT TAKES FOR EVIL TO PROSPER IS FOR GOOD MEN TO DO NOTHING. If this were happening to you wouldn't you want the truth to be known? Those wanting to do evil thrive in the darkness of secrecy and it's important to shine a light of truth on them to expose them. How hard can it be to ask a question?
The crypto space is a mixture of many people of many perspectives, some volunteerists, some statists, some are just here to make money and don't care about philosophy or the overall CORE reason this ecosystem was created which is to CREATE AN ALTERNATIVE to corrupt, centrally controlled institutions that do not help lift people up but instead only wish to exploit them. Those types are oligarchical, tend to favor socialism, and exploitive. The question is, will this community allow THIS ecosystem to become corrupted by the same influences that corrupted the status-quo institutions people are fleeing from.
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I'm an investor in Blockpay. And I have big plans for it. I wasn't not going to make my plans public just yet, but @Thom got me motivated.
I'm involve in building a large theme restaurant. I want it to be the first business in my area to accept digital cash. We got a reality TV show interested and doing a show at our place. And I'll make sure Blockplay gets notice. But if Blockpay is not a thing in the future, I'll look else were.
Just my 2 bitshares
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RE - "disrupting" mumble. My goal in challenging chris4210 was NOT to disrupt the mumble. In fact, it wasn't until 40 minutes into it this discussion occurred. With such an important issue we shouldn't restrict the discussion, and Friday mumble is the perfect venue to make people aware of what is going on. On that note mission accomplished. If that means some topics aren't discussed this week so be it. 1 hour is obviously not enough time to cover everything. I will admit it might have been better had onceupoonatime posted in the beyondbitcoin steemit article that fuzzy publishes each week to officially get on the bbc agenda, but that was addressed in the opening moments when chris / fuzzy asked the audience if other topics should be added to the agenda. So the discussion of stealth was introduced properly and acknowledged as an agenda item that way.
I did not mean to imply that you were disrupting the mumble session, I meant that if we were to all ask in the mumble about this topic one after another we would only get 'no comment' from Chris. I do agree that it's a serious issue that needs resolved, but he's simply not going to divulge anything productive in public (other than fud - eg rebranding/reissuing tokens).
RE - the lack of community interest. I simply don't see many people even willing to ask questions about this mess. @pc in the forum actually said it's not good to make this public. ALL IT TAKES FOR EVIL TO PROSPER IS FOR GOOD MEN TO DO NOTHING. If this were happening to you wouldn't you want the truth to be known? Those wanting to do evil thrive in the darkness of secrecy and it's important to shine a light of truth on them to expose them. How hard can it be to ask a question?
Perhaps because it's really negative and none of us were expecting this mess when we originally invested in Blockpay? If I was a developer who had his pay cut because of a quarrel between my bosses I'd be livid; it's disgusting to withhold employees salaries, doing so is a serious warning that something is wrong (perhaps even breaching EU work rights?). If I was Chris I'd be asking others to host the hangout to avoid the public spotlight until this is all sorted out...
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Why are shareholders being left in the dark? THAT is a VERY important question. I totally agree, they shouldn't be. In a mumble several weeks ago chris4210 claimed kencode did not have an agreement with his devs concerning the ownership of the IP their code represents. That was a serious allegation, and one I found difficult to believe as kencode has been a businessman who managed open source software projects in the past. Ken personally assured me he DOES have such agreements in place. The fact that kencode has control of the code repository of that IP which chris has been trying to obtain is strong evidence (not proof) of that.
Until so far no development agreements and IP transfer agreement have been presented by Ken that documents that BitShares Munich IVS is de facto the legal holder of the Software IP it paid for with investor funds. Without these IP transfer documents, the code is still owned by the original developers and cannot be sold by the company. At the moment Ken´s private Github page is granting a MIT x11 license for code that is still owned by the developers, not by the company. More details on that issue in the upcoming report.
Ken had a broken mic (this is not a new problem for ken. It's just not a priority to spend money or time to fix) but assured everyone present via the mumble chat those devs have NOT been paid. I don't know about you but I put far more credibility in an affirmative answer directly from the dev's manager than a "No comment" from the accounting department (i.e. chris4210). In addition chris4210 has not accounted for the 50% pay that was agreed to by BitShares Munich to supplement the worker proposal. Has he kept that for himself? Why has he not paid that which he agreed to pay? That represents a violation of the worker proposal chris4210 published before it was approved to sweeten the deal to shareholders.
There has been no violation of the worker proposal so far. Alfredo´s worker proposal is still actively running and managed by BitShares Munich. Payments for Alfredo are regularly done and he will get paid what has been announced in the worker proposal to the community. We all learned our lesson with the BitShares worker system. The worker is ending July 24th 2017. https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php/topic,23698.0.html
Lastly I will comment on an aspect of kencode's management style I am not a big fan of, that being disclosure of specifications and design documents. The issue of specs was mentioned in today's mumble as well. This is also an area that xeroc has raised concern over. Ken & I have also had differences over his lack of disclosure concerning the roadmap to completion you may have read here in the forum, however I admit I am not in ken's shoes so I am willing to let him manage the project in his own competent manor. Doesn't mean I'm letting him off the hook, I am just giving him more time.
It's very important to note that I have raised similar concerns with the PeerPlays project about disclosure of witness duties, those related to reporting event results. @Taconator has hit the nail on the head in his steemit article to describe what is involved in that aspect of a peerplays witness responsibilities. I have also spoken with Jonathon about this in addition to bringing it up on the Friday mumble many times. The point I am trying to make is that the reason these people are not being transparent regarding such details, stealth specs / roadmap and peerplays witness event reporting details, is because BOTH ARE OPERATING IN A HIGHLY COMPETITIVE MARKET and they believe such disclosure would be detrimental to the success of the project. I was persuaded by Jonathon's rather lengthy but thorough explanation of the rationale for those decisions, and defer to his judgment now that I better understand some of the elements that went into it.
As to design docs & specs, I tend to take xeroc's perspective and believe those are extremely important. But when has ANYONE demanded that ByteMaster or Cryptonomex produce such documents, let alone to do so BEFORE their product was released? That is simply not reasonable. A roadmap is a different matter IMO, and is more a matter of PR and accountability than anything.
Stealth is a very sensitive technical feature for the BitShares Platform and is also highly debated. One the one side Stealth can be used to protect the privacy of the users, on the other end it can be used for illegal and criminal activities. Both sides have to be considered and evaluated while developing this feature.
Further, we are talking about a new core feature for the BitShares Blockchain because the old version from BM was just using blinded transaction. The new stealth version "2.0" also includes new technologies like CA that still need to be tested. As BitShares shareholder I would like to know what kind of new features will be added to the core code and how do they work? Who has access to the stealth feature and its mechanic? Can a stealth transaction be rerouted? What parts of the Stealth transaction are hosted on IPFS? Who holds the IPFS management keys? How are these keys protected? What if the keys get stolen?
There are still many open questions and I think it is in our all best interest to know more about the mechanic of this critical feature before we add it to our BitShares Blockchain. As Xeroc and others already mentioned a technical documentation of the feature would be helpful.
RE - "disrupting" mumble. My goal in challenging chris4210 was NOT to disrupt the mumble. In fact, it wasn't until 40 minutes into it this discussion occurred. With such an important issue we shouldn't restrict the discussion, and Friday mumble is the perfect venue to make people aware of what is going on. On that note mission accomplished. If that means some topics aren't discussed this week so be it. 1 hour is obviously not enough time to cover everything. I will admit it might have been better had onceupoonatime posted in the beyondbitcoin steemit article that fuzzy publishes each week to officially get on the bbc agenda, but that was addressed in the opening moments when chris / fuzzy asked the audience if other topics should be added to the agenda. So the discussion of stealth was introduced properly and acknowledged as an agenda item that way.
I did not mean to imply that you were disrupting the mumble session, I meant that if we were to all ask in the mumble about this topic one after another we would only get 'no comment' from Chris. I do agree that it's a serious issue that needs resolved, but he's simply not going to divulge anything productive in public (other than fud - eg rebranding/reissuing tokens).
RE - the lack of community interest. I simply don't see many people even willing to ask questions about this mess. @pc in the forum actually said it's not good to make this public. ALL IT TAKES FOR EVIL TO PROSPER IS FOR GOOD MEN TO DO NOTHING. If this were happening to you wouldn't you want the truth to be known? Those wanting to do evil thrive in the darkness of secrecy and it's important to shine a light of truth on them to expose them. How hard can it be to ask a question?
Perhaps because it's really negative and none of us were expecting this mess when we originally invested in Blockpay? If I was a developer who had his pay cut because of a quarrel between my bosses I'd be livid; it's disgusting to withhold employees salaries, doing so is a serious warning that something is wrong (perhaps even breaching EU work rights?). If I was Chris I'd be asking others to host the hangout to avoid the public spotlight until this is all sorted out...
The reason why I decided to continue hosting the weekly BitShares Mumble is to be approachable by all of you. I am open to community question and continue to answer them as good as I can at that specific moment. Unfortunately, some questions cannot be answered right away due to legal issues, but I hope to come back to them later again to clarify.
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Stealth is a very sensitive technical feature for the BitShares Platform and is also highly debated. One the one side Stealth can be used to protect the privacy of the users, on the other end it can be used for illegal and criminal activities. Both sides have to be considered and evaluated while developing this feature.
I don't think it is highly debated at all.
This is akin to saying that encryption can be used for illegal and criminal activities, ditto for language, ditto for the internet, and so on.
These would all be true, however, what is the alternative? A world where certain governments have privileged backdoor access ?
I believe we have enough evidence by now (not that it wasn't clear even 15 years ago, but by now it is irrefutable) to know what some have known all along: you cannot trust anyone with that kind of power.
And even if you could, then we would be left with the question of what happens when the privileged few are hacked, and this privileged access is made more broadly accessible.
Even the CIA and the NSA can and have been hacked, I don't see much room for debate here. Backdoor access to cryptographic systems has always been and will always remain a stupendously bad idea.
Thus it is a good thing that the encryption works, in spite of unsavory characters leveraging this same technology to conduct their unsavory business.
There are other ways to catch fish without massive dragnet surveillance, that is a bad habit that is relatively recent (indeed, the technology that makes it possible is itself recent, which only speaks to the nature of the person who feels the desire to control and subject everyone else -- as soon as the technology became available, such systems began spreading like wildfire)
In the crypto space, only the monero team got this right. Privacy in transactions has to exist, and it has to be on by default.
Anything else is not "crypto" at all, and more to the point, continues to facilitate the kind of systems that are eroding so many of our rights away.
More surveillance is not the answer, and transparent blockchains allow for perfect surveillance.
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Without these IP transfer documents, the code is still owned by the original developers and cannot be sold by the company.
Sold to whom?
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I think private/stealth transactions are heavily discussed, maybe not in this community, but in blockchain in general. When I spoke to merchants, banks, and SME they were very interested in keeping their financial transaction history private. On the other side, all transactions are documented on a blockchain forever and are full publicly visible for everyone because we all love transparency. Especially government and the public sector financial transactions should be more transparent in my point of view.
In my personal opinion, the bitshares stealth feature should be developed in such a way that it gives individuals the protection they seek for a reasonable small price. On the other side the transaction type "stealth" should be too expensive or "unattractive" for criminal activities so that they look for easier alternatives. In this way, we could keep the balance between the two sides. I want to avoid that the BitShares Platform and our company BitShares Munich is getting into any legal troubles for providing criminals a platform.
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I think private/stealth transactions are heavily discussed, maybe not in this community, but in blockchain in general. When I spoke to merchants, banks, and SME they were very interested in keeping their financial transaction history private. On the other side, all transactions are documented on a blockchain forever and are full publicly visible for everyone because we all love transparency. Especially government and the public sector financial transactions should be more transparent in my point of view.
I agree with you on the government being more transparent, the big difference when compared to private companies and individuals is the tremendous difference in power between the government and these.
Making the government more transparent empowers us the people and lets the government know that obvious corruption will not be tolerated - the power balance gets a bit more balanced.
Forcing private companies and individuals to have total lack of privacy in their financial affairs, on the other hand, further shifts this balance of power in the direction of the government. This, I believe, must be resisted.
In my personal opinion, the bitshares stealth feature should be developed in such a way that it gives individuals the protection they seek for a reasonable small price. On the other side the transaction type "stealth" should be too expensive or "unattractive" for criminal activities so that they look for easier alternatives. In this way, we could keep the balance between the two sides.
I'm in complete disagreement - here's my reasoning.
Criminals (and let's use the term here to mean not just someone who is breaking the law, but someone who is being immoral/evil, or in other words, not committing a victim-less crime) become criminals because they are attracted to the high rewards from this high risk (imprisonment, bodily injury) activity. It won't be a few more cents or even a few dollars that will stop them.
Day to day people, on the other hand, would suffer from absurd fees for transferring value privately with such a fee structure: and this would hit the poorest people (think people who don't live in 1st world countries) disproportionately.
Whether it be sending my buddy 2k, or paying for a coffee, I want my transactions to be private.
Any other way, the system is leaking a lot of data, and it can't be said to be private at all. All stealth transactions automatically become targets of much higher attention if most transactions are not private.
This, I believe, is not the right path.
I want to avoid that the BitShares Platform and our company BitShares Munich is getting into any legal troubles for providing criminals a platform.
You or Bitshares Munich can't be held responsible for criminals using Bitshares.
Criminals use encryption all day long, no cryptographic researchers or open source developers have to answer for that.
The technology itself is neutral. If we begin tailoring it to only cater to the "good" guys, what ends up happening is that it ends up being no good for bad and good guys alike.
The bad guys, however, will find somewhere else.
The good guys stay, and have their privacy compromised.
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Stealth is a very sensitive technical feature for the BitShares Platform and is also highly debated. One the one side Stealth can be used to protect the privacy of the users, on the other end it can be used for illegal and criminal activities.RED FLAG Both sides have to be considered and evaluated while developing this feature.
I don't think it is highly debated at all.
....
In the crypto space, only the monero team got this right. Privacy in transactions has to exist, and it has to be on by default.
Anything else is not "crypto" at all, and more to the point, continues to facilitate the kind of systems that are eroding so many of our rights away.
More surveillance is not the answer, and transparent blockchains allow for perfect surveillance.
+5% @karnal
Where is it debated?
Among the shareholders of BitShares?
...or among circles of people who aren't stakeholding, vote giving, investment funding bitShareholders?
Who is paying for implementing stealth?
Can the holders of BitShares Munich vote on who is the CEO?
I would highly value the ownership of Munich stake if such a shareholder vote was possible
How much would the Munich share price pump if the general BitShares community wanted to vote to change CEO of BitShares Munich, and thus there was large demand for stake?
I think the solution here is obvious... Time to remove Chris from the equation and redistribute a new blockpay token without Chris. Ken can do this by creating a new token... Whatever value blockpay had has been destroyed by Chris for what seems no good reason.
I would trust ken, the man who I bought the OPENPOS token from and has shown me real results, over some scammer kid who's Daddy is a lawyer
Are you suggesting to screw over all BLOCKPAY holders? Or are you talking about some kind of sharedrop minus Chris? If that's the case, watch Chris' account for any movement... Can anyone else smell the karmic irony?
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Without these IP transfer documents, the code is still owned by the original developers and cannot be sold by the company.
Sold to whom?
In this term sold means to commercialize. In general, a company itself needs to own the IP so that it can commercialize and market the software it developed. Also in the case of granting any license to the public, one has to own the IP first.
In our case of BitShares Munich, we have different options how we can use the software we developed.
* Sharing the source code of the mobile wallet with an MIT x11 licence for free
* Selling white label versions of the mobile wallet to clients
* Selling a privatized and modified version of the mobile wallet to clients
* Integrate the source code of the mobile wallet into an existing app and add value to their user base
* Plus many more options
All those potential revenue streams are not possible without the company owning the IP. Hope I explained it good enough in the examples given above.
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n a mumble several weeks ago chris4210 claimed kencode did not have an agreement with his devs concerning the ownership of the IP their code represents. That was a serious allegation, and one I found difficult to believe as kencode has been a businessman who managed open source software projects in the past. Ken personally assured me he DOES have such agreements in place. The fact that kencode has control of the code repository of that IP which chris has been trying to obtain is strong evidence (not proof) of that.
This is the key issue. He said / she said. Get this on the table in public. I'm not just talking to you chris4210 but also kencode. Ken needs to step forward to show his developer agreement. Even a boiler plate agreement provides IP protection, so your allegation seems quite uncalled for. IMO the actions ken has taken are defensive in nature and triggered by your "bad faith" behaviors. Lawyers speculation that a loophole can be found. A phishing expedition looking for a weakness. Your very allegation might actually stimulate the devs to think, "Hmmm... maybe I could have a case here" when it never would have occurred to them otherwise. And would they have the resources to pursue it anyways.
Perhaps I am being misinformed. Only ken can answer that for certain. I do not believe he is deceiving me. I don't believe he is withholding key evidence. I don't know for certain. What I do know is you are not acting in an honorable way. If it turns out ken's agreements are not in place to protect the IP, that's on him and he will have to answer for that. Aggression is not the way to do so. But like I said, it would be more surprising if that were the case knowing his history of software management. It was a bold claim for you to make that the IP is not safely in the control of BitShares Munich. Well, maybe not so bold for an attorney's viewpoint.
Now it is typical of attorneys to find loopholes in words. I've been told by several attorneys there is rarely a contract that can't be nullified or escaped with the right approach. We owe that to a corrupt legal system. Court rooms are not about finding truth or justice they're about persuading an ignorant jury or who has the most influence with the judge.
It wouldn't surprise me in the least if this takeover were orchestrated with this corrupt legal system in mind, as you have a strategic advantage there.
As for the need for thorough testing, of course, I completely agree. All of the technical issues you raise must be addressed. That is also true of the existing graphene codebase. Nobody has done a thorough and qualified security audit on the base system stealth is to be added to. It makes a lot of sense to do that after functional testing of the additions are complete. It needs to be done, clearly. It needed to be done before but no priority has been given to do so.
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Without these IP transfer documents, the code is still owned by the original developers and cannot be sold by the company.
Sold to whom?
In this term sold means to commercialize. In general, a company itself needs to own the IP so that it can commercialize and market the software it developed. Also in the case of granting any license to the public, one has to own the IP first.
In our case of BitShares Munich, we have different options how we can use the software we developed.
* Sharing the source code of the mobile wallet with an MIT x11 licence for free
* Selling white label versions of the mobile wallet to clients
* Selling a privatized and modified version of the mobile wallet to clients
* Integrate the source code of the mobile wallet into an existing app and add value to their user base
* Plus many more options
All those potential revenue streams are not possible without the company owning the IP. Hope I explained it good enough in the examples given above.
Thanks for replying chris, here are my views on your statements:
When we all decided to fund STEALTH development, I don't think anyone had in mind that the resulting code would become a product to sell (and I understand you meant "sell" metaphorically as well as literally here, yeah?).
I think I speak for the majority of the community here when I say we chose to fund this work because it is a fundamental feature that is lacking in the platform.
Frankly speaking, I don't think Bitshares Munich should be salivating to capitalize on earning revenue from (literally) selling this feature - this, to me, is losing track of the original goal: improving the Bitshares platform, so that we ALL benefit.
And so that we carve a nice ever-expanding niche for ourselves in the space, and bring more value to the world.
Perhaps you guys don't have the same opinion I've always expressed about the dire necessity of adding some privacy to the chain, because otherwise it follows that you're willfully delaying implementing what will, at least in my mind, without a doubt be the major game changer in Bitshares.
I've asked around and 9 out of 10 old-school crypto users (that would be our target audience that we've managed to ignore for the better part of 2 years now) just are NOT comfortable with stashing their hundreds of thousands of USD in Bitshares, in small part because of the possibility of a black swan event, but mostly because it would be there for all to see and they are not comfortable with that.
It doesn't have to mean they're doing some shady or illegal to think like this, for instance, I'm about to go take a real nice shit (morning coffee, eh?), I'm doing nothing wrong, but also, I'd like my privacy.
We don't take privacy seriously enough around here. And it's costing us. Big time.
Chris, Ken, sort this out .. think of the bigger picture. We'll all benefit.
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Stealth is hugely important and without it no crypto currency has any hopeof being useable except for big extremely powerful entities, and we'll be right back in the same hellhole we are in now. Without anonymity and privacy I honestly believe that cryptocurrencies will be a giant catastrophe. Who goes around the street flashing how much cash he has on his person, or worse who goes around flashing his entire live savings? Doing that on just about any place on the planet will all but insure a very exciting life, albeit a very short one. Worse yet, we might just end up empowering the same powers that are turning things to shit right now.
The IP thing though is very important. I've seen a couple of opensource and openlicensed projects die or suffer massive delays because of software needing to be rewritten from scratch, because of a disgruntled dev claiming their IP. The software license thing is a cesspool and especially the opensource licenses need extra help, because even after all this time opensource and public domain still does not have the same legal track record as single ownership. The law seems to be mostly focused on individuals and public good and public domain don't immediatly seem to fit into an egocentric mindset.
Btw, convincing an uneducated jury is not a thing in most of Europe, because as far as I know the judicial theater system with popularity poll is more a thing in England and the US. The English always loved their theater. Not that the system can't be played, but they are more bound by the rules of law instead of spur of the moment sentiment. Any idea which judicial system this whole thing is supposed to play out in?
So in short, yes stealth is massively important. Way waaaaay beyond any short term gains. Hell what gains do you think you'll be able to keep without it? Even in the best case scenario and you make it big, then you should also realize that you've just painted a giant target on yourself.
EDIT
Oops, almost forgot. I also do agree that the stealth feature needs to be properly scrutinized by smarter people than me. It has to be useable no strings attached and not in the control of any single entity.
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@pc in the forum actually said it's not good to make this public.
I think what I said is that *for the parties involved* saying things publicly may be dangerous, because it can harm their position in court.
I also think that taking sides without knowing the whole truth is unwise.
Any idea which judicial system this whole thing is supposed to play out in?
BitShares Munich IVS
Registered in Kingdom of Denmark
Company registration no.: CVR-NR 37 62 63 76
attn: Vintervej 119, 1.1., Hasle, 8210 Aarhus V. , Denmark
Chris in Ken live in Germany, so I'm not sure where exactly the drama is to be or not to be, that is the question.
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@Chris4210, looking forward to your feedback concerning the latest posts in this thread.
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https://steemit.com/bitshares/@karnal/bitshares-at-the-crossroads
edit: wow, one single downvote from https://steemd.com/@tombstone and the whole post gets relegated to obscurity .. fantastic.
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Not sure what to believe is going on here, but in the course of researching the issue, I found some interesting links to Ken's past:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/2vqhsr/dont_give_ukencode_any_of_your_money/
http://archive.is/XBw1a
https://steemit.com/news/@kenCode/chris4210-where-are-you#@constantin-ag/re-kencode-chris4210-where-are-you-20170505t103246301z
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"Even the CIA and the NSA can and have been hacked, I don't see much room for debate here. Backdoor access to cryptographic systems has always been and will always remain a stupendously bad idea."
Agree with Karnal. If there are any backdoors, they will be used for nefarious purposes, whether by government or private individuals. I would like to see Bitshares support strong anonymity and privacy by default, such that even if the developers of the code themselves were being beaten to death with a rubber hose, they could not be compelled to give up any information about transactions on the Bitshares network.
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"Even the CIA and the NSA can and have been hacked, I don't see much room for debate here. Backdoor access to cryptographic systems has always been and will always remain a stupendously bad idea."
Agree with Karnal. If there are any backdoors, they will be used for nefarious purposes, whether by government or private individuals. I would like to see Bitshares support anonymity and privacy by default, and in such a way that even if the developers of the code themselves were beaten with a rubber hose, they could not be compelled to give up any information about transactions on the Bitshares network.
+5% nothing to add
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Not sure what to believe is going on here, but in the course of researching the issue, I found some interesting links to Ken's past:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/2vqhsr/dont_give_ukencode_any_of_your_money/
http://archive.is/XBw1a
There were some very serious allegations being made on steemit (top reply to the "chris, where are you post" of his, if you're interested) as well.. I thought, and indeed started, writing an article asking for clarifications on all of that, but no matter how neutral I wanted it to read, it always read like a hit piece.. so I ended up not publishing it.
I am very curious about what ken has to say about the allegations. Hopefully he can clear the situation up..
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Not sure what to believe is going on here, but in the course of researching the issue, I found some interesting links to Ken's past:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/2vqhsr/dont_give_ukencode_any_of_your_money/
http://archive.is/XBw1a
There were some very serious allegations being made on steemit (top reply to the "chris, where are you post" of his, if you're interested) as well.. I thought, and indeed started, writing an article asking for clarifications on all of that, but no matter how neutral I wanted it to read, it always read like a hit piece.. so I ended up not publishing it.
I am very curious about what ken has to say about the allegations. Hopefully he can clear the situation up..
super old news, and we investigated a lot of time and text here in the forums on ken already. how did you manage to ignore this?
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Thanks, karnal. Here's post in question:
https://steemit.com/news/@kenCode/chris4210-where-are-you#@constantin-ag/re-kencode-chris4210-where-are-you-20170505t103246301z
constantin-ag:
Kencode,
We have met in Munich a few weeks ago. Back then, I was very impressed by Christoph and his presentation during House of Nakamoto in Austria.
In fact, I had my money set up to invest in his company, BitShares Munich, and support it fully, with my time and my contacts,
Then, I met you.
In our first meeting, statements have been made by you that forced me to change my mind. Not only did you not accept any offer I have made to you with statements like "over my dead body", but you also insulted your business partners Christoph and Rodrigo while talking to me, a potential investor. This appeared to me as very unprofessional.
I still liked Christoph and wanted to support him and his business. We made our usual thorough background investigations.
For those that haven't done their due diligence, here some links and facts we have found:
http://archive.is/XBw1a
warrent in florida
international warrant
Also interesting to watch:
Gun School / Ken Silver SCAM Bonita Springs, FL
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f191hnL4snU
Ken Silver / Gun School LCSO Range Proposal Goes Down in Flames
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UC3R4Nf9piE
Gun School / Ken Silver Falsifies Better Business Bureau Credentials
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rxNRnSP6PQ
Ken Silver / Gun School Closes Amid State Criminal Fraud Investigation
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6J14umqpWU0
Still, because of my faith in Christoph, his plans and opportunities, the interest I have in the community and the ecosystem; I wanted to find a peaceful resolution through my lawyers to this and not create unnecessary drama. You were invited to multiple meetings over the last 6 weeks by your employer, you choose not to appear. Subsequently you leave us no alternatives but to confront your current malpractices. It is our every intention to protect current investors in Blockpay.
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super old news, and we investigated a lot of time and text here in the forums on ken already. how did you manage to ignore this?
I'm pretty new to Bitshares, so this is the first I'm finding out about the allegations regarding Ken's past. A search of "Ken Silver" or "gun school" on the forums doesn't turn up anything except the post I just made. Can you point me to a link of the discussion or suggest search terms for finding the previous discussion?
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Thanks, karnal. Here's post in question:
https://steemit.com/news/@kenCode/chris4210-where-are-you#@constantin-ag/re-kencode-chris4210-where-are-you-20170505t103246301z
constantin-ag:
Kencode,
We have met in Munich a few weeks ago. Back then, I was very impressed by Christoph and his presentation during House of Nakamoto in Austria.
In fact, I had my money set up to invest in his company, BitShares Munich, and support it fully, with my time and my contacts,
Then, I met you.
In our first meeting, statements have been made by you that forced me to change my mind. Not only did you not accept any offer I have made to you with statements like "over my dead body", but you also insulted your business partners Christoph and Rodrigo while talking to me, a potential investor. This appeared to me as very unprofessional.
I still liked Christoph and wanted to support him and his business. We made our usual thorough background investigations.
For those that haven't done their due diligence, here some links and facts we have found:
http://archive.is/XBw1a
warrent in florida
international warrant
Also interesting to watch:
Gun School / Ken Silver SCAM Bonita Springs, FL
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f191hnL4snU
Ken Silver / Gun School LCSO Range Proposal Goes Down in Flames
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UC3R4Nf9piE
Gun School / Ken Silver Falsifies Better Business Bureau Credentials
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rxNRnSP6PQ
Ken Silver / Gun School Closes Amid State Criminal Fraud Investigation
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6J14umqpWU0
Still, because of my faith in Christoph, his plans and opportunities, the interest I have in the community and the ecosystem; I wanted to find a peaceful resolution through my lawyers to this and not create unnecessary drama. You were invited to multiple meetings over the last 6 weeks by your employer, you choose not to appear. Subsequently you leave us no alternatives but to confront your current malpractices. It is our every intention to protect current investors in Blockpay.
I think your the guy @onceuponatime wanted to talk to.
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Here's that previous discussion from 2 years ago for those who would rather read it than repeat it: https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php/topic,16071.msg206458.html#msg206458
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Not sure what to believe is going on here, but in the course of researching the issue, I found some interesting links to Ken's past:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/2vqhsr/dont_give_ukencode_any_of_your_money/
http://archive.is/XBw1a
There were some very serious allegations being made on steemit (top reply to the "chris, where are you post" of his, if you're interested) as well.. I thought, and indeed started, writing an article asking for clarifications on all of that, but no matter how neutral I wanted it to read, it always read like a hit piece.. so I ended up not publishing it.
I am very curious about what ken has to say about the allegations. Hopefully he can clear the situation up..
super old news, and we investigated a lot of time and text here in the forums on ken already. how did you manage to ignore this?
life outside bitshares? :D
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Here's that previous discussion from 2 years ago for those who would rather read it than repeat it: https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php/topic,16071.msg206458.html#msg206458
Thanks, Troglodactyl!
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I think your the guy @onceuponatime wanted to talk to.
I'm not constantin-ag, nor connected to him. I also don't have any connection to Bitshares munich, or any of the principals involved.
I am very interested in seeing stealth implemented in bitshares (or made easier to use), so I was following Bitshares-munich's work on it. I've also been actively involved in another community (unrelated to crypto or bitshares) where a con artist caused a lot of damage. Therefore, the fact that the lead of the currently most active team working on stealth had multiple allegations of fraud against him (eplug, gun school) set off my alarm bells.
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Fair enough. I took a shoot in the the dark in hope that you were. Glad to see that your very interested in stealth.
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Something else to note here... One of blockpays largest investors, in fact the largest investor prior to the OPENPOS dilution, has been significantly cutting their stake over the last couple days.
I'm not sure if info about blockpay is being posted anywhere... steemits bitshares-munich account has been silent for 2 months and kencodes steemint has made no mention of anything either.
Couple that with todays price drop and things seem fishy...
Also, why the hell is the market fee to trade 2%?? That's crazy high...
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And another issue... I got this from the state of the network report
"In this weeks Bitshares Hangout, @kenCode and @onceuponatime have revealed that Bitshares Stealth utilizing CA (Confidential Assets) is in active development and should be seeing this tech hit the testnet in the next couple of months. Big thanks to @onceuponatime who has taken it upon himself to fund the remaining development of Stealth and ensure Ken and the team have the runway required to finalise the project."
Does this mean blockpay is not going to enjoy the benefits from stealth?
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And another issue... I got this from the state of the network report
"In this weeks Bitshares Hangout, @kenCode and @onceuponatime have revealed that Bitshares Stealth utilizing CA (Confidential Assets) is in active development and should be seeing this tech hit the testnet in the next couple of months. Big thanks to @onceuponatime who has taken it upon himself to fund the remaining development of Stealth and ensure Ken and the team have the runway required to finalise the project."
Does this mean blockpay is not going to enjoy the benefits from stealth?
If stealth becomes a core functionality of the BTS network, why should BlockPay be not able to benefit from it/use it? Am I missing some obvious thing?
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And another issue... I got this from the state of the network report
"In this weeks Bitshares Hangout, @kenCode and @onceuponatime have revealed that Bitshares Stealth utilizing CA (Confidential Assets) is in active development and should be seeing this tech hit the testnet in the next couple of months. Big thanks to @onceuponatime who has taken it upon himself to fund the remaining development of Stealth and ensure Ken and the team have the runway required to finalise the project."
Does this mean blockpay is not going to enjoy the benefits from stealth?
If stealth becomes a core functionality of the BTS network, why should BlockPay be not able to benefit from it/use it? Am I missing some obvious thing?
Stealth developement is being paid for by blockpay investors... The investors in blockpay should see a direct return from stealth transactions. @kenCode or @Chris4210 needs to clarify how blockpay investors will be compensated for funding stealth.
From the steemit post I quoted, it almost sounds like there is rogue stealth development happening. Obviously bitshares holders who don't own blockpay couldn't care less who developes stealth, but this should be at the forefront of concerns for blockpay holders.
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Since I received no answer here, I went to the blockpay discord channel... They are contemplating a payback. The opaqueness of this whole situation is incredible...
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No PR whatsoever, the only developer and co-founder has been suspended until further notice and the minority shareholder and CEO thinks he can strong-arm the majority shareholder. Correct me if I'm wrong but it seams to me, it's high time to salvage anything that is left from BlockPay project and move forward under the OpenPOS brand.
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With Bitshares value where it is today and given the troubles with Blockpay, is it not possible for a worker to fund the development of stealth? That way everyone pays and everyone benefits. Lets move on asap and get it built.
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With Bitshares value where it is today and given the troubles with Blockpay, is it not possible for a worker to fund the development of stealth? That way everyone pays and everyone benefits. Lets move on asap and get it built.
Only those that hold STEALTH benefit .. and that is mostly dan (who had the foundation coded) and kencode .. no one else has any incentive to work on stealth the way it is right now
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With Bitshares value where it is today and given the troubles with Blockpay, is it not possible for a worker to fund the development of stealth? That way everyone pays and everyone benefits. Lets move on asap and get it built.
Only those that hold STEALTH benefit .. and that is mostly dan (who had the foundation coded) and kencode .. no one else has any incentive to work on stealth the way it is right now
That is besides the BitShares Munich IVS that took money for the development of Stealth and transferred rights to "the stake in the revenue stream from it's products" to the BLOCKPAY token holders. If the CEO were to find himself in a bind that he's unable to solve, he should step down and take his case to the shareholders and the community as the common courtesy dictates. The deliberate opaqueness and unwillingness to debate the situation openly tells it all.
As for the failing price of the BLOCKPAY token I hold the CEO directly responsible.
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So what's been going on in Bitshares-Munich? Part 2
The Plot Thickens - ( !!! and a 5,000 Steem reward !!! )
(that's well over $10,000 US at today's coinmarketcap.com valuation)
Link: copy and paste in your browser
goo.gl/l6qZcV
or
https://steemit.com/beyondbitcoin/@onceuponatime/so-what-s-been-going-on-in-bitshares-munich-part-2
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So what I have garnered this week...
I contacted Chris received a response. Basically he said he can't comment on the relationship with Ken since it is "complicated". He also said he is doing his best to retain the value of the blockpay investors investments.
After listening to the hangout today, it appears everyone else at Blockpay has the opinion that Chris has disappeared with the money. They have not worked in 3 weeks and have not been paid. They have said chris won't contact them.
It sounds like the community is leaning towards removing Chris from all influential positions within bitshares (running the hangout, committee member)
Basically blockpay is not functioning at all... and from what it sounds like, unless chris comes back and clears the air or gives up control, blockpay is dead.
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So what I have garnered this week...
I contacted Chris received a response. Basically he said he can't comment on the relationship with Ken since it is "complicated".
is this tinder or something? did he change his relationship status on facebook too?
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Back to work! Weekly Update for BlockPay, Stealth, C-IPFS, Carbon and more...
( https://steemit.com/news/@kenCode/back-to-work-weekly-update-for-blockpay-stealth-c-ipfs-carbon-and-more )
Please copy and paste the link
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Back to work! Weekly Update for BlockPay, Stealth, C-IPFS, Carbon and more...
( https://steemit.com/news/@kenCode/back-to-work-weekly-update-for-blockpay-stealth-c-ipfs-carbon-and-more )
Please copy and paste the link
+5% × infinity. Shorten link: http://bit.ly/2sKjijb
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That's some good news.
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Trezor support "soon"?
:DDDDDDDDDDDD
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Trezor support "soon"?
:DDDDDDDDDDDD
Haven't you noticed?
Summer's here.
:D
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And another issue... I got this from the state of the network report
"In this weeks Bitshares Hangout, @kenCode and @onceuponatime have revealed that Bitshares Stealth utilizing CA (Confidential Assets) is in active development and should be seeing this tech hit the testnet in the next couple of months. Big thanks to @onceuponatime who has taken it upon himself to fund the remaining development of Stealth and ensure Ken and the team have the runway required to finalise the project."
Does this mean blockpay is not going to enjoy the benefits from stealth?
If stealth becomes a core functionality of the BTS network, why should BlockPay be not able to benefit from it/use it? Am I missing some obvious thing?
Stealth developement is being paid for by blockpay investors... The investors in blockpay should see a direct return from stealth transactions. @kenCode or @Chris4210 needs to clarify how blockpay investors will be compensated for funding stealth.
From the steemit post I quoted, it almost sounds like there is rogue stealth development happening. Obviously bitshares holders who don't own blockpay couldn't care less who developes stealth, but this should be at the forefront of concerns for blockpay holders.
What is the status of Blockpay ? I see that Ken is back to work, does this mean that everything has been resolved ? Are there peaceful terms or has only his pay been reinstated ?
There seems to be some great tech that Blockpay has but what is the situation of the token ? According to Coinmarket cap only 5 mi of a 100 mi supply are circulating. Is the Echo a separate investment that openledger publicized ? Who benefits from the stealth technology ?
Some answers would help me to decide to invest or not
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And another issue... I got this from the state of the network report
"In this weeks Bitshares Hangout, @kenCode and @onceuponatime have revealed that Bitshares Stealth utilizing CA (Confidential Assets) is in active development and should be seeing this tech hit the testnet in the next couple of months. Big thanks to @onceuponatime who has taken it upon himself to fund the remaining development of Stealth and ensure Ken and the team have the runway required to finalise the project."
Does this mean blockpay is not going to enjoy the benefits from stealth?
If stealth becomes a core functionality of the BTS network, why should BlockPay be not able to benefit from it/use it? Am I missing some obvious thing?
Stealth developement is being paid for by blockpay investors... The investors in blockpay should see a direct return from stealth transactions. @kenCode or @Chris4210 needs to clarify how blockpay investors will be compensated for funding stealth.
From the steemit post I quoted, it almost sounds like there is rogue stealth development happening. Obviously bitshares holders who don't own blockpay couldn't care less who developes stealth, but this should be at the forefront of concerns for blockpay holders.
What is the status of Blockpay ? I see that Ken is back to work, does this mean that everything has been resolved ? Are there peaceful terms or has only his pay been reinstated ?
There seems to be some great tech that Blockpay has but what is the situation of the token ? According to Coinmarket cap only 5 mi of a 100 mi supply are circulating. Is the Echo a separate investment that openledger publicized ? Who benefits from the stealth technology ?
Some answers would help me to decide to invest or not
I'll be honest. At this point I personally would not touch blockpay tokens. I hodl them but only because I'm a loyal idealist idiot. The mess going on there I hope gets cleaned up but regardless what happens there BTS is as strong as its ever been ;)
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Thanks Fuzzy. I just tuned in to your show the first time and appreciate all you do for BTS
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https://steemit.com/bitshares-munich/@onceuponatime/so-what-s-been-going-on-in-bitshares-munich-part-3
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Thanks Fuzzy. I just tuned in to your show the first time and appreciate all you do for BTS
SO many people here doing amazing things for BTS. So few known as well as they should be. The more resources I continue getting though...the more I will make that no longer true ;)
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Thanks Fuzzy. I just tuned in to your show the first time and appreciate all you do for BTS
SO many people here doing amazing things for BTS. So few known as well as they should be. The more resources I continue getting though...the more I will make that no longer true ;)
+5%
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BlockPay updated:
http://steem.link/KGwQH
or:
https://steemit.com/news/@kenCode/stealth-ledger-nano-s-blockpay-graphenej-smartcoins-wallet-weekly-report
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BlockPay updated:
http://steem.link/KGwQH
or:
https://steemit.com/news/@kenCode/stealth-ledger-nano-s-blockpay-graphenej-smartcoins-wallet-weekly-report
I think it's time to change the name or this thread.
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BlockPay updated:
http://steem.link/KGwQH
or:
https://steemit.com/news/@kenCode/stealth-ledger-nano-s-blockpay-graphenej-smartcoins-wallet-weekly-report
I think it's time to change the name or this thread.
Well, let me get rid of you-know-who first. Then we can figure out how to deal with the financial mess.
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BlockPay updated:
http://steem.link/KGwQH
or:
https://steemit.com/news/@kenCode/stealth-ledger-nano-s-blockpay-graphenej-smartcoins-wallet-weekly-report
I think it's time to change the name or this thread.
Well, let me get rid of you-know-who first. Then we can figure out how to deal with the financial mess.
Fingers crossed.
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what is the status on blockpay? kencode did not write weekly updates for the last 2 weeks..
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what is the status on blockpay? kencode did not write weekly updates for the last 2 weeks..
yep sorry, been in telegram lately.
waiting on lawyers, everything should be wrapped up by end of this week. the public notice and plan forward will probably be posted shortly thereafter.
i recreated the telegram group if you'd like to join me in the chats :)
http://t.me/BlockPay
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Kencode. Did you change the name of the telegram group?
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I think BlockPay is a good idea. It's good for a merchant to be able to accept all digital currencies at zero cost. I hope this project is going well and moving forward. I know there are troubles but for such a good idea... I would hate for this to die out. All the best for you.
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https://blockpay.ch/general/blockpay-status-update/
They just posted an announcement there regarding the split, terrible ico lol..