so masternode basically wants to
1. kill Via/ XCH and
2. organize refund/ buyout.
1 is easy. Congratulations. Good job.
2 is ridiculous. There is no way to do this. No just way. Why to refund ICO investors? Some people bought at 60k sat levels in the open market. Some are buying now below ICO level. And what about XCH?
I never intended it as refunds to only ICO investors. If it came off that way, it was a miscommunication. It should just be a coin swap. Simply BTC for ANY VIA turned over.
The only real expense Drak has had in this project is Peter Todd at $4k per month. Gryn San (I believe that's his name), was hired to repay a debt he had with Drak, and never really an expense. Other costs are minimal, other than one or two trips I think, one where he went to london and met with the Dark Wallet guys and Amir Taaki and invested 20 BTC into their project. It's debatable whether or not that should be a VIA expense. Regardless, 600 coins at todays value is roughly $175k (which assumes he made the absurdly poor decision of keeping operating funds in BTC this entire time). If he initially converted them to cash, which would be the sensible thing for any project to do with operating funds, then it's obviously much more BTC that he should be holding.
I can't see any way that he has spent over $8k per month (for 8 months) keeping this operational. A very fair number shows that at min. he should have around $110k in operating funds left which doesn't include the XCH raise, which should leave at very least around 390 BTC of the original 600 raised (and even more if he converted BTC to cash at the start). Again, I don't think that should go to the ICO holders, rather distributed amongst all current VIA holders. And obviously XCH holders should be able to redeem their XCH for VIA and then into BTC.
These are very acurate numbers. Again, I'd like to hear if there are any additional figures that aren't included, which is why we should ask Drak to be totally transparent.
So what you are suggesting is liquidating the project and shelve it altogether?
I don't think that is the best alternative in the current situation. I believe Drak should first of all get rid of Peter Todd immediately, since his hiring was simple and exercise in personal vanity... at the expense of VIA stakeholders and serves absolutely no purpose whatsoever in the current state of the project. And I also believe he should also return that money you mention to the community in the form of two funds, one for the purpose of enticing new talent in all areas, and the other one to outright support the coin price at these levels. This would have an immediate positive effect and VIA would rebound much higher almost immediately. I also believe he should be a generous leader and donate a big chunk of his stake AND request that the community do the same to generate even more funds for the enormous promotional deployment that this project requires right now if it is to reach any kind of success level. This will not only result in a much more fair distribution but also in concrete practical results via those direct investments. As I have suggested to Drak, I believe he should not be the leader of this project, at least not the visible leader and should hire, instead, a Project Manager fully dedicated to the constant promotion, at all levels, of the project while doing what apparently he likes and probably does best which is remain in the background and doing and supervising the new tech advancements and features.
If ALL of those measures are adopted, I am convinced there will be some life still in VIA, perhaps quite a bit. It will be hard, it will be difficults but if the ;leader and the community march in sync, anything and everything is possible for VIA still has much more, if all those resources are put to work, than many if not most of it's competitors.
And, sure enough, one of the things Drak has no concept of is time. Time in crypto, that is. Roughly the equivalent of 100 the factor of a single unit in real life time. The waiting is getting quite old Drak, yes even after such a sort period of time. The memo is long overdue now.