above is a link to my story…
First off, I’d like to say thank you all for considering this proposal and I appreciate the time you have taken out of your day.
As you can read from the link above, my story is a bit different than Vee’s. Vee has been very helpful to myself and many others the last couple years working on this proposal. He has a lot of heart, and seems to be a genuine guy. I have a few different/additional points I’d also like to bring up.
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The majority of funds being recovered (around 90%) are to people who didn’t do anything “wrong”. They sent their money and got nothing for it back, due to some type of systematic malfunction. My personal experience of investing in the fundraiser was I woke up 2 hours early and had the page ready to send my money, once a btc address was available I sent and waited for some type of confirmation, probably 1 hour and nothing came up so I assumed that the phrase was my back up recovery seed to my btc/ trezor. Ed thought this was the case as well, as he stated in his post. I was up 2 hours early and waited 1 hour after because I missed out on fundraisers like this before. Once the Cosmos atom came out about 1.5 years ago I used my btc recovery seed to attempt to recover the atoms. I tried a minimum of 500 times to recover it with a useless phrase and also was in talks with programmers that could scramble letter and words to try and make more guesses. I honestly felt like a disappointment as if I did something wrong, I couldn’t sleep and I felt like I let Ed down and felt he thought I was stealing from him but as you can see, the atoms are still unclaimed. At this point we started to reach out to people.
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Around 10% of people did lose their seed but do have their private keys so can provably show ownership. Crypto is a terrifying experience to most people and Cosmos is attempting to make this easier. One could argue that what’s lost, is lost, but this is a big reason why people are hesitant to enter crypto to begin with. Like dtribble said above, I also consider this to be an opportunity to express the power of voting and governance to make things right when obstacles like this arise. If this proposal passes, I believe Cosmos will be seen in a positive light. This voting process further expresses the power of decentralized governance.
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10% compensation fee - I actually believe this should be a polar decision. Give all the money back or 0. I obviously am on the side of giving the money back, so this fee is for the time and energy everyone has put into this proposal.
I’m sure you know this is where the 10% donation will go - Mintscan
At the current price of 5.35, 131K donated atoms is about 700K usd, a 4.5% increase to the 15.5 mil usd fund. One could argue that that amount of lost atoms will not affect the price at all (or very little), especially when you compare it to the positive impact 700K could do to the network.
Iconimi is giving their money to 1500 investors who will likely hold because it’s not a ton of money when diluted across so many people. Plus, early investors knew Cosmos was ahead of its time when they invested but that time is now. With defi really taking off, and companies wanting their own chain but still having the ability to intertwine between chains, Cosmos seems to be the only answer. In my opinion this space is shaping where everyone is a competitor with one another and Cosmos’ technology will be used to intertwine them. Cosmos is more than just a governance token, it’s a service that provides interoperability among all potential chains. The fees for this service paid back to atom holders will be much more valuable than yield farming opportunities. What I’m basically saying, is that even if people did sell their tokens, someone smarter will buy and hold so it shouldn’t make a difference long term.
I can’t speak for everyone but I am selling a portion of my share of atoms to Ed and we are both holding the full positions. I intend on voting and participating in future proposals and giving input based on my opinion because I want to see Cosmos succeed. I’m not just saying this, I am an early investor in btc, eth and have been involved in the dash community, blockfolio and am invested in other projects that align with my principles. Cosmos was an early investment that I made and truly believe in, and nothing has changed. Honestly, even if this proposal doesn’t pass, I am going to continue to hold the atoms I already have but there will obviously be bitterness and a lack of involvement, but that same understanding of positive sentiment and incentives is exactly what makes Ed and I positive community members.
I am open to taking question or discussing anything, thank you all for your time and voting. Even if your opinion is a no to this proposal, I respect your decision because decentralized governance is a principle I stand by.