Following up our conversation with Talkstar, we've decided to come set the record straight summarily.
About 20 BTC was paid to Zapo for the signature campaign and we got zero KPI off that. Similar results with the token bounty, and while we can still blame Zapo for not completing the data collection, the fact that the event was rife with scams and cheats.
We could have stuck to our guns - if we're playing by some hard set rules - about the bounty manager not delivering and let it die a natural death, after all, who's getting negged? It's the BM. The incomplete data was there alongside the numerous messages we sent that was never responded to.
But we didn't.
The management decided to rescue the situation and uphold its end of the bargain by taking on the extra financial responsibility of hiring auditors to complete and audit the sheet after months of waiting on Zapo to no avail. However, completing and auditing a bounty that ended almost six months prior proved to be a daunting task especially with bounty hunters shifting allegiance and the hard-nosed attitude of social media platform resulting in dead links and missing data. We also created a new telegram group to directly address participants, only to find out that out of the roughly 900+ members in the original group, only 100+ were actually "human".
With no measurable KPI and less than 10% of the deliverables promised, we had to critically evaluate the situation. Yes, hard work should be rewarded and goodwill fostered with the community. However, when community participation is rife with scams, cheats, and zero engagement, something has to give.
Yes, crypto has its own fair share of scams and cheats and the good work/goodwill of the community being exploited by nefarious actors. However, it seems most are overlooking the fact that we are also the victim here, sinking manpower and operational costs into doing right by the community.
And therein lies the problem. Doing right.
It will be unfair to not reward those who diligently took their time to support the project. However, we will not be empowering scammers and cheaters by giving them what they never sowed. Accountability works both ends and so does the responsibility. We took on the responsibility of accepting the fact that someone took us for a ride and we still have an obligation to fulfil to the community. However, the community too has to accept the fact that is was "one of their own too". Hence, the "meet-me-half-way" approach we've taken to resolving the situation.
We are now distributing tokens to those who passed the audit (and we're already getting "which exchange list" and "how much price" queries in. Awesome support). For the sake of sanity, we wouldn't be making the spreadsheet public (Talkstar and xtraelv have seen it though) because not everyone is going to make the cut and translating that into several languages 24/7 is beyond our abilities. However, if someone feels they can audit the original sheet, they are welcome to try. It's still in the bounty thread created by Zapo.
We recognize the fact that there's no marketing strategy that can trump community goodwill, hence the reason why we've implemented a 5-tier referral reward system that is based on the number of BQTX tokens held. We will also be rolling out other bonuses and engagements for those who have grown to become a part of our ecosystem.
Our purpose on this thread is to set the record straight. Yes, some blockchain startups have been less than honourable to bounty hunters and a few bad eggs have spoilt the basket. Is it possible that not everyone will be happy with this outcome? Yes, it's true. Sadly, this is the best we can do without committing seppuku.
We'd like to acknowledge the effort of Talkstar to stand up for the community and xtraelv for his mediation and willingness to hear us out. The community can certain do with more folks like you