I am hiring a legal advisor to assist with the creation of a foundation, which will help establish proper governance in order to protect the remainder of the DEX project from future actions like what happened this last week with NVO. The board of this new foundation will be made up of myself and some existing NVO community members to be named at a later date.

A secondary purpose of the foundation will be to explore the possibility of filing a civil action against the CEO of this project, known here and elsewhere as Ton Bi, for his apparent misappropriation of project funds, for his lack of financial transparency as CEO of the project, and to compel him to finally commit to a full refund of investor funds as is appropriate in this situation. Of course, in the event a full refund is executed, this action would become moot.

If it is ultimately determined that legal action is warranted, it will be brought on behalf and for the benefit of the previous project's NVO investors. After the foundation has been created, I will invite members of the community who wish to be part of this action to apply for membership to the board and represent their fellow NVO investors.

There has been significant discussion about the current status of the DEX code, and those discussions include many false statements and accusations. For the immediate future, and to protect third parties, I will not release the code under any circumstances. If legal action is brought by the foundation against the CEO, the code and its associated history will be given to the court, under seal, as part of the evidence.

As the CTO and as a co-founder of NVO, my role in the project has been to select the technology of the DEX and then produce it. That is exactly what I have been doing since the project began. Until now, I have been keeping this technology secret in order to protect the project. For the first time publicly, and only because development has already reached a point where the technology of the DEX is well established, I am willing to describe some aspects of the DEX implementation. The DEX is based on Blockstream technology, with integral support for smart contracts, sidechains, and peer-to-peer communication services to keep latency low and throughput high for each node of the network. Sidechains enable the plugin system, and smart contracts enable the trade validator. This multi-chain Blockstream-based technology is highly superior to slow and expensive atomic swap systems used in technologies such as Komodo, and was chosen at the beginning of the NVO project for its speed, flexibility, and extensibility. That is all I am willing to say on the subject of the DEX at this time.

Now to the subject of the pending investor vote. Ton is the CEO and is responsible for representing the investors' best interests in all matters. Unfortunately, vote manipulation was evident in several public Telegram announcements where he promised to airdrop tokens only to people who voted in his favor. This manipulation is not in the interests of investors at all, and creates a conflict between his own interests and the interests of investor funds. Any vote that includes an option that benefits only one or the other remaining team member cannot be an option on the ballot. The only question for investors should be "Should a refund be made or not?"  If the vote returns "yes", then all funds should be pooled and a snapshot should be announced at a specific future bitcoin block height to allow trading of the token to halt at that time. After the snapshot has been taken, the pooled funds should be distributed proportionally to all addresses that hold NVST as of that snapshot. If the vote returns "no", then the project must be completed as outlined in the crowdsale agreement.

To prevent dragging this along further, I hereby call for and agree to a full refund to all investors, just as Ton has publicly stated several times in writing and on recorded calls. Because we are not being treated equally right now, we will make it equal and I will return the bitcoin that I earned and received from the milestones we have already completed, and Ton will also return all of the bitcoin he earned and received from the milestones. In addition, any coin forks that were created while the funds were in the escrow accounts will be redeemed and returned to investors as well. This method ensures investors are credited with the maximum possible amount, which is in their best interest. The only permissible alternative is to finish the project with a neutral 3rd party mediator in charge of all distributions and payments going forward, and who will be approved by both parties. Completion of the project as stated during the crowdsale is what the investors paid for, and unless the original terms of the crowdsale are followed, investors will have been defrauded, which is unacceptable to me. For the benefit of the investors, I am willing to work with a mediator as a go-between for all matters between myself and Ton, but only under the strict condition that there be full transparency and a complete audit of all funds held by the escrows, including deposits, trades, and distributions made to date, a full account of all remaining funds and their current addresses, and the status of all forked coins for the duration of the escrow accounts' lifetime.

Regardless of the outcome of any investor vote or decisions by the escrows, I will continue to support the future of the DEX that I have been developing over the past year. In a matter of months, I expect the DEX testnet to be up and running, and the first public testnet trades can begin. At that time, I will announce a plan to further benefit all, I repeat, all NVST holders, regardless of how they voted (if a vote is necessary.)