Project update — pausing protocol development

TLDR

• The FTX/Alameda crash disproportionately affected Mojito Markets in many ways. We lost project funds that were under the custody of FTX, we lost our market maker, Alameda
• Obtaining emergency funding has been tough in the context of a bear market, having serious implications on our ability to deliver on our project plan
• The excitement and enthusiasm for Mojito Markets across the team is still very much alive but we have come to terms with the reality of the situation and have decided to pause project development for the time being
• The immediate next step includes putting the required processes and plans in place to effectively pause the project until the macroeconomic situation is better and we can successfully fund the project

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Dear community,

This article forms part of a series of updates we are releasing to detail how we are responding to the exceptional macroeconomic and project circumstances we face. Before we get into updates, as always, we’d like to thank the community for its patience and understanding over the last period. We'd also like to thank the designers, developers, and ecosystem partners for sticking with us and for their kind words of encouragement and support. In the face of an existential crisis for the project, it’s remarkable to see how far just a little encouragement goes. We’re eternally grateful.

It has been a rocky couple of weeks, to say the least. The aftermath of the FTX crash has meant the project has effectively been put on hold while we source emergency funding to push the project forward. We’d like to provide you with a little update on some of the problem statements we’ve been facing over the last period, as well as some next steps we have planned:

In terms of some of the problem statements:

• The FTX/Alameda crash disproportionately affected Mojito Markets in many ways. We lost project funds that were under the custody of FTX, we lost our market maker, Alameda, and to add insult to injury, the core team lost the majority of their personal funds.
• Obtaining emergency investment has been challenging in the face of a bear market. We are a novel protocol which means it’s a tough sell even at the best of times. These issues naturally get resolved through project successes like profitability, obtaining regulatory licenses, and getting audited. Unfortunately, we’ve not yet had the time or resources to hit these milestones.
• The loss of Alameda as our market maker has meant two things 1. Prices on Gate.io are volatile and illiquid and 2. A large sale of MOJO tokens, most likely Alameda, on DEXs like PancakeSwap and LiquidSwap, means an abnormally large flood of Mojito tokens not naturally counterbalanced by equal buy pressure.

The above is a list of problems that our small team has had to contend with. And in all honesty, a new set of problems for which we had no reference points. We are a team of designers, developers, and marketers who love to build stuff. We have a sprinkle of legal and financial advisory, but didn’t feel nearly equipped to deal with such a tough project situation in the context of an also tough macroeconomic environment. Despite these setbacks, we remain committed to our mission to deliver a world-class prediction markets protocol, but we, unfortunately, have to pause development for now due to the lack of project funds. We are excited to someday pick up where we left off and continue working on our project as well as explore new opportunities for growth and development as and when we have the capital to make good on the Mojito Markets vision.

As such, we’ll be pausing development on Mojito for the foreseeable. It is extremely tough to announce we will be pausing the development of Mojito Markets for now. Though the situation is not ideal, we are optimistic we will be able to pick back up where we left off at some point in the future.

We apologize for any inconvenience or concern that this situation may have caused. We appreciate your support and understanding, and we will continue to keep you informed as we move forward.