Who took it seriously

Good title. That definitely explains the data well. Those who took it seriously exchanged POB for VYB very early. You were definitely one of those who ‘took it seriously’ -- thanks for the early show of support!

The surprising thing (to me) was that very few took it seriously enough to aggressively purchase POB on the open market during those first couple days, when the exchange rate was 4:1. If a token can be exchanged at 4:1 when it should be 1:1, then everyone should be willing to pay 2x for that token, to make a cool 100% profit, or 3x to make a quick 33% profit.

Yet, to my knowledge, no one (other than me) actually did that. It’s as if no one (yourself included) truly believed (during those first couple days) that VYB would actually reach 1:1 parity with POB.

only those who KNEW in advance all the exchange algorithms and exact launch day, could prepare enough liquid POB in time.

Those who knew in advance were specifically instructed to hold back for several hours after the announcement before participating in the 4:1 exchange (and did so). (This also included some friends of mine who had committed, in advance, to support the project, with little more than a 2-sentence explanation.)

As was mentioned in the initial VYB white paper:

if you want to hodl VYB and stack it while it’s cheap (the claim-exchange ratio starts out at 4 VYB for every 1 POB), you’re going to need liquid POB, which will most likely mean purchasing POB on the open market.

The intial market price for VYB is being set at 0.25 POB, by virtue of the aforementioned VYB claim procedure. As such, the initial valuation for VYB will start out significantly less than the current market value of POB.

It took about 72 hours before the 4:1 claim was exhausted. During that time period, as stated above, very few individuals (other than me) aggressively purchased POB on the open market (i.e. by accepting numerous open SELL orders, or placing a MARKET order). There was PLENTY of liquidity there for those who had faith or belief that VYB would eventually reach parity with POB (i.e. 1:1 exchange rate). In fact, that was the whole point of the 4:1 then 3:1 then 2:1 variable claim rates -- to reward those who were willing to step out and embrace the uncertainty early, with respect to whether the project would gain traction or not.

I have not done a thorough analysis of the POB market purchase history, but the data I've seen suggest that you were unwilling to purchase POB 'on the open market' (i.e. via accepting numerous open SELL orders, or placing a MARKET order). You limited your POB purchases to the use of your Hive account@gimme-your-coinz bid bot, or a FUD-inspired 'off market' BUY offer aimed at getting as much POB 'on the cheap' as possible, where you said:

Don't trust in POB anymore?
I will give you a great chance to get rid of them in quick, safe and painless way.

In other words, you wanted to claim VYB at the 4:1 exchange rate, but you were unwilling to pay the going 'market' rate for POB (i.e. open SELL order rates) to do so. Why is this? The only viable explanation would be that you had significant doubts as to whether VYB would truly gain traction (i.e. enough to reach 1:1). You saw it as an opportunity (and rightly so), but you were cautious with how much risk you were willing to take (again, rightly so).

You have, in the past, consistently (and correctly) pointed out inconsistencies whenever people are making market purchases of various tokens without paying attention to obvious arbitrage opportunities. As such, you clearly understand that a 4:1 exchange rate for a token that should have a 1:1 exchange rate would be a HUGE arbitrage opportunity, yet you did not avail yourself of that opportunity. You treated it more like a 1.25:1 or 1.5:1 opportunity, during those first few days when the 4:1 rate was available -- and that was a perfectly reasonable approach for you to take, given the uncertainty surrounding a brand-new token and associated project.

By contrast, every time I purchased POB, it was via an aggressive BUY (or MARKET) order that generally doubled (or tripled or quadrupled) the BUY / SELL spread (which then fairly quickly settled back to its previous levels). Quite honestly, I was a bit surprised that no one else seemed eager enough to follow my lead and employ that same approach. What that told me, during those first couple days, was that I was one of the only ones who truly believed that VYB would reach 1:1 parity with POB. I was happy to accept that risk, because I had spent months developing the initial plan and weeks working with Hive account@calumam and Hive account@scholaris to refine it -- I was confident that we could and would build something of considerable value and that, as a result, an eventual 1:1 rate between POB and VYB was a good and reasonable long-term bet. (Also, I knew that a good moderation team would be critical to the success of the VYB project, and I was committed to making sure there would be at least 50k POB available as initial delegations to fund that effort -- this was also described in the initial white paper.)