Espers is a small cap coin with great roadmap (secure messaging, sites on chain, masternodes, side chains).
Unfortunately, development has halted since June and even before June there were not a lot of things happening. The public github repository has not been updated for more than 2 months, while there is at least an important patch pending to be rolled out, a patch that makes the PoS system more fair.
Price wise, the coin reached an ATH 39 satoshis at June 24. The decline started shortly after and is currently valued at 3 satoshis or a 1160% price decrease in 2 months. This was a big hit for the community and the investors. During those crucial times for the future of Espers and the community, the developer was nowhere to be seen. It turned out that the developer had issues with his life and could not work.
At Sept 10 the community was happy to see that Cryptocoderz, the coin developer, came back.
And then on Sept 15:
Cryptocoderz also visited the Espers community in telegram and made some more promises for the week 18 - 24 Sept:
However there was no update. Nothing at all.
For the last few weeks the community in telegram is discussing the possibility of a fork. This is not the first time that the developer fails to deliver and many members feel that Cryptocoderz is not capable to fulfil the roadmap.
The idea of the fork is treated as a contingency plan in case the developer fails to deliver or an agreement with the community has not reached. The community has already proposed other solutions besides a fork, but Cryptocoderz refuses to discuss.
That being said, a new twitter account not endorsed by anyone posted the following:
The owner of the account has not revealed their identity and is not talking on behalf of the community.
Cryptocoderz panic reacts and starts finger pointing the most active community members claiming that are trying to steal his project and scam the community(!). Also, he makes yet another promise:
A promise that he fails to keep again.
And the finger pointing continues:
Cryptocoderz goes a step further and bans a well respected community member from the telegram chat (Sept 22) The following day he bans yet another member. He did not explain why he banned them.
It is clear that Cryptocoderz has lost control of the situation and lacks essential skills. He treats the community as if the community owes him and answers to no one. The community have lost faith and feel that unless something changes drastically a fork is inevitable.
The banned community members together with more members of the Espers community have gathered at this telegram chat: https://t.me/espers_opencommunity
If you wish to take part in the decisions about the future of the coin, join us in the chat.
Disclaimer: I own a certain amount of ESP with an average buy price around 20 Satoshis. I bought Espers because I liked the roadmap and the community.