Well folks, I've had a good nights rest and have had some time to reflect on the situation.
So last nights launch, was a failure.
I'm not going to sit here and make excuses and ultimately any failure or success of this project lies sqaurely on my shoulders.
We have several issues....
The diff retarget was broken and set too high
Website got hammered with so much traffic the download link was hard to access (721,201 downloads before link removed)
Massive DDOS attacks (121.98 GBPS) and volume took out all of the pools, website and database within 5 seconds of launch
I apologize publicly to the community for this outcome. I wish I could change what has happened.
What I would like to do is try to help people perhaps understand.
I myself, am a front end developer. My strengths lie in bringing products to market and I specialize in branding, marketing and product management. I really worked harder than most will ever realize to ensure that any variable I had any kind of control over was managed to the best of my ability.
In order for DopeCoin to work, it was important that I found the right people to handle the aspects of the business that I am unable to accomplish. I can't write a line of code, and I do not have server administration experience.
So I hired a server guy, and I hired a coin developer.
The coin developer named Otakusama was paid to develop the coin over a month ago. 5 days ago Otakusama deleted all of his contact information on the forums, stole the DopeCoin development money I had put up and disappeared completely.
There was a forum full of people, thousands of Twitter followers, Facebook fans and others patiently waiting for DopeCoin's release.
I knew at this point that my project was in serious trouble.
I discreetly reached out to certain members of the community and scrambled desperately to find a new coin developer to save the launch.
After only being able to find one person who was willing to help but who had never created a coin before (thanks Johnny, I appreciate that bud) I reached out to my top php coder from my main business and asked if he would take on the project.
His knowledge with crypto was 0%. But he is one of the best coders I have ever seen and was my only hope at this point.
He put in a tremendous effort and we finally uploaded the src and wallets onto github about 4 hours before launch after working for over 40 hours straight.
We were afraid that something may of been overlooked, and something had been. We had cloned the coin specifications from Otakusamas recommended parameters during our rush and the diff retarget was set at 16 hours. An impossible parameter for the coin to ever work at from what I understand now.
A couple of members of the community warned me about this, I in turn relayed those warning back to Otakusama and his team to which I was told "that's a just a forum troll, he doesn't even know what hes talking about" (looking at you on this Jolly).
The project has experienced a major setback, not unlike the setback it experienced 5 days ago when the development money was stolen.
I take full responsibility for everything that has happened.
What I can promise, is that I tried as hard as I possibly could of to pull it out of the hat and save the launch.
I will learn from each of these mistakes and ultimately will grow from the experience.
What I hope that has been proven through this whole mess is my dedication to this project and willingness to push through major obstacles to get the job done.
DopeCoin is not over, this is just the beginning!
I'm putting together a plan for relaunch and will be using all new third party providers. LiveChains will no longer be hosting the website, wallet download or the mining pools and I will be looking for a more powerful solution. Additionally I am reaching out to the community for a lead developer to help get us back on track.
I have made alot of enemies it appears because of this situation (some of you forum guys said some pretty rude and unnecessary things, shame on you) but alot of support has also come through and many new friends have been made.
For those of you that stand by DopeCoin I promise I will do everything in my power to get the project back on track. For those of you that don't, I wish you luck with your other adventures.
Sincerely,
Dopey