To whom Captain, Dero’s lead developer, feels it does not concern
This is an urgent message from Serena, and Mojo to the DERO community. When Mojo and I started with DERO (at different times) we did so with the understanding that DERO was a community based project (https://github.com/deroproject/documentation/blob/master/WhitePaper.md — https://imgur.com/a/7YuroN5 and more archived in various public places). We joined after communicating with Captain that we have a strong personal focus on the ideologies surrounding the field of cryptography (https://www.activism.net/cypherpunk/manifesto.html), outstanding morals, promising technology, and the goal of helping as many people as we were able to while growing and learning ourselves.
Mojo and I recently discovered that Captain has to date no intention of locking the DERO premine
and instead intends to disregard both the originally stated intentions of DERO (https://github.com/deroproject/documentation/blob/master/WhitePaper.md) and the more recent public promises to lock the premine when Atlantis launched and we had confirmation of the actual block times. Worse, Captain intends to propose an ongoing agreement with John McAffee (https://twitter.com/officialmcafee/status/887024683379544065?lang=en) for an ongoing piece of the premine.
This is Captain’s proposed version of aggressive marketing, while Serena was pushing for https://wachsman.com/. In order for a leading blockchain marketing company to pick up DERO, they require that the team meet its commitments in all areas, including transparency, roadmap goals, communication, and how teams deal with issues. Captain did not want to meet that criteria (which was discussed frequently and grouped in with exchange discussions), and was unwilling to explore Serena’s option further, proclaimed John “the best”, and opted instead for the John McAffee route. This is an example of Serena making a gentle, and valid suggestion regarding a legitimate company, and having it passed over entirely. (1/3
2/3
3/3
On July.3/2018 I, Serena, spoke internally directly with Captain, obviously not for the first time, to explain there were communication issues, disregard for the community, and things needed to change.
On July.4/2018, the following day Serena stated exasperation with the communication issues, Captain announced information to the public that he deemed the team did not need to know early, and when we stated out concern again, it was again brushed aside.
As the communication issues, and general disregard for the community got worse, so did the concern from Mojo and Serena. Captain was making an entirely centralized decision regarding who would be added to the DERO Community Advisory Board, and Serena spent hours trying to explain that was not appropriate for the DERO core team (Captain 100% exclusively) to form this for the community with the intention of controlling membership. Serena also showed deep concern when she asked “What will the DERO core team do in the event of a strong disagreement with the DCAB when they have an overwhelming consensus?”. This question went unanswered after multiple attempts to gain an answer. This is just an example of the type of very valid and simple questions that went chronically unanswered nearly 100% of the time for both DERO community members.
2/2 and Captain claiming the DCAB is decentralized
In fact, many of the core members including Mojo and Serena had no idea who even joined the DCAB as Captain invited people at will without so much as mentioning he would be doing so to the DERO community team.
Core member spends 1 full month building http://stats.atlantis.dero.live/ for free and Captain won’t even bother to respond to him
More long term members with no knowledge even after the DCAB formed
2/2
Captain blatantly lying to the entire community for no reason regarding the reason Serena left (to prove a valid point)
Captain ignoring ongoing communication issues as it relates to a Bittrex listing and ultimately refuses to change his way to the detriment of the community
Serena discovers that DERO had a 3.07 minute block time for 204 days from launch until Atlantis released on the mainnet. Serena has been trying to solve core issues quietly since the first day she joined with ethical and polite disclosure, and even with offers of proof, her discovery of major flaws is ignored on more than one occasion. (https://imgur.com/a/XQND80b) — this resulted in somewhere around a 35% reduction in block rewards for all miners from Day 1 to Day 204 and Captain refused to acknowledge, fix the problem, or even inform the community.
A similar issue exists in Atlantis in a new form. Captain had originally announced that they expected the topoheight (side blocks) to increase at a rate of around 10% — 15% faster than the “block height”. In reality, the network is producing around 30–50% more side blocks (topoheight) than normal blocks, and distributing the associated additional rewards. Further, Captain publicly stated that the developers would change the DERO emission curve to make it less profitable for current ASIC miners giving others a greater opportunity in the future. These changes unfortunately never went into effect, or were so minimal that we have an increased emission rate, not a decreased one. This is on top of the 3.07 minute block times we had for 204 days.
This is Serena and Mojo informing the community that we’ve been trying to work on things politely and internally since day 1 of each of us joining DERO respectively. However, since Captain is going to spend the premine early, and change the originally stated terms, we felt that this showed the ultimate disrespect for the community collectively, their ideals, and the individuals who support DERO.
Serena — DERO Community Manager
Mojo — DERO Team Member
