Exciting developments and growing dev team. Super community also contributing to different products. Tech wise at par with Monero but 100x lower valued. Huge potential. Holding Monero and Sumo, I have been shifting more funds towards Sumo

Hi,

In the past I was critical about privacy coins (maybe you recollect an early post of mine which was criticized by readers here), but after thinking and reading I see the point of privacy coins. US (non)regulation also looks good. For 3 months I have followed the different privacy coins now, tested some (incl. eg their wallets) and tuned into some of their communities via Telegram and other means.

I want to congratulate SUMO because I think despite being such a small coin in terms of market cap, the product is great. I like the wallet, easy miner, transactions are stupidly simple to make - just all around a solid product. At least at par with the huge players like Verge, Dash or Monero. Not to say there is no room for improvement (see suggestions below), but given market caps and age of others, Sumo has achieved quite a lot already. Obviously the potential for growth of sumo is exuberant. From an investment point of view, sumo is clearly the best choice: huge upside, manageable risk.

What wasn‘t clear to me at first was if Sumo is just a copy paste of Monero, and if someone could equally just copy-paste Sumo. I think you are on the best way of truly differentiating yourselves vs your predecessor and also potential followers, because I see 2 things that are hard to copy for others:

- community: no other community has such content-rich (and fun) discussions, great focus on product developments - not only moon talk. Now, I do think one of your admins (sumogr) needs a punch in the face, but overall your community  is wicked and is helping develop concrete product features (e.g. branding, applications in online shops, hw wallet (!?)). More of that is needed and will further set you apart.

- code: up to now, I didn‘t really see THAT much innovation over Monero. Ok - I‘m no expert, but min. Transaction mixins of 12 and somewhat robust difficulty algorithm won’t set you apart forever. I think cryptographically speaking only now with the planned code changes to counter ASICs (before Monero!) will you emancipate yourself a step further from your father coin. As anyone can fork Sumo, and ASICs won‘t sleep - you need ability to constantly adapt and not only rely on initial coin features. So, if I read the trend correctly, keep it up!


The 2 biggest improvement opportunities which I see and I hope you would take to heart:

1. Communications
- Community admins Patrick, Sumogr (and others?): amazing effort you put in, you are very knowledgeable and always present. Truly great. Now Sumogr your wake-up call: you represent the whole community, not yourself only. Hence, I think your engagement in personal fights with admittedly idiot guests or members is not a great way to represent such a smart and mature community. You are brilliant, so why not meet hollow critics with polite determination and facts - and quickly move on. Use your emotions on the positive, those members who offer constructive criticism and good ideas. I don‘t know how old you are - but if you want to become old chose where you invest your energy. As said, you represent the community. For personal fights, create a personal nickname...
- Devs: you work in silence, and I dig that. Now, communicating is not a nuisance or a luxury, it’s an essential. I strongly suggest you commit to a periodic communication schedule (e.g. bi-monthly or quarterly) in which you express your views on the changes in the environment, give updates on developments to the roadmap, dev staffing, etc. I think you reddit update in Jan or Feb was great, so just do it on a regular basis (commit to it).  

2. Brand identity
I am not saying „marketing“ which I know you don‘t want to push now. I am saying you have a great logo and brand identity on the website, so use it consistently across your product features. I have the Mac wallet. It works like a charm. And it looks horrible! This is really a low-hanging fruit, so just apply the branding across all features and when you communicate formally (e.g. letters to exchanges). When you are ready for it, market the hell out of Sumo - it has great appeal potential that‘s for sure. Consider though simplifying to „sumo“ as the „koin“ in my ears is immature and outdated. The slogan „the heavyweight“ amongst privacy coins is nice, use it!


Look, the intent of this post is to share my observations. I am really just posting this here as I have no intent to promote / „shill“ (?) Sumo anywhere. I just felt this is the only privacy coin to which I emotionally felt / feel connected to, and hence wanted to try to provide helpful impressions. You have a good product already, but this can be so much more. Just keep the focus on developments of the coin and its use-ability - and consider the above if it also resonates with you. Good luck!

Break all ties with Monero.

And make an official announcement

TO SUMOKOIN DEVELOPERS & COMMUNITY

With high likelihood privacy coins will be included in upcoming regulations, restricting their potential use via different measures and policies (e.g. only exchanges w/o privacy coins allowed in the country, etc).

I believe SUMOKOIN needs to be proactive and commit publicly to measures which ensure its coins are not abused for illicit activities. As I lack technical expertise I cannot suggest what this could look like. Perhaps offering full collaboration to provide information to Authorities from which sources (e.g. numbers of ETH or Bitcoin accounts) the SUMOKOINs were acquired from and how much could be enough to trace back to the origin where there is reasonable suspect of illicit activity. Perhaps 100% privacy within SUMOKOIN network transactions, but transparency if requested towards the outside would be the solution. As said, I lack expertise to suggest something which is acceptable for the SUMOKOIN philosophy, technically possible and politically reassuring.

 I do consider having experience and insight into regulatory and policy processes and mindsets, hence I am convinced that you should think about the above and propose collaborative solutions for Authorities / Regulators. Doing so will significantly de-risk your project and create value to the SUMOKOIN Community. Don’t only focus on technically advancing your product, invest energy now to ensure there will be a fruitful environment for it to prosper. Take my advice and act now.

Food for thought.