I WAS A BIG NVO SUPPORTER!
I always knew that a proper DEX is exactly what the crypto space needs, I had full faith in the team, and I was a heavy investor, and at one stage holding 100K+ NVST, which will probably meet the definition of a whale, although a trapped one with no easy way to get out…
However, after a while I have come to realize that, this project quacks like a scam, and smells like a farce. I’m not 100% certain yet, but the probability is going up with each passing day, and with each pieces of info I found.
It took me over a week to get rid of my entire 100K stake, can you even imagine the difficulty in selling over 100K NVST? I must take advantage of whatever liquidity I can find. The people are waking up and I knew my time to dispose was running out.
Anyway I have found a multitude of red flags with respect to the NVST project, and I’ll explain below, hopefully it can save somebody some money, in NVST and more importantly in Xenio and in all future nemgun projects:
1. Long List of Unfinished Projects –
Why finish a project, when you can raise fresh BTCs with fresh investors peaching a new one with a simple marketing whitepaper? This team have no shortage of unfinished projects:
1.1 BlueMedEx – Some Decentralized Binary Option Platform
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1542256.0
http://blumedtoken.mywebcommunity.org/
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1681719.msg17409646#msg17409646
1.2 Sucide Coin –
1.3 Verserus Exchange –
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1693034.new#new
Some sort of ICO project from the past? Oh well, might as well recycle it for these annoying NVO investors who keep asking for updates:
1.4 Stakecoin -
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1506391.msg15157005#msg15157005
1.5 Escrow Services -
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1764072.msg17616701#msg17616701
1.6 Signature Campaign Manager Service -
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1752126.msg17502192#msg17502192
1.7 NVST - While this project is behind and delayed, nemgun is already getting impatience to get his hands on fresh BTCs by peaching the next one:
1.8 Xenio -
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2142127.msg21425241#msg21425241
What a busy boy, last but not least, don’t forget to check out the NVO repo:
https://github.com/nvoproject/NVO-Project
https://github.com/nvoproject/NVO-Project/issues/3
2. Faking of Affiliation / Endorsements of Others –
Of course, when you don’t have the reputation, you got to steal some affiliation to make it looks like the ICO is somewhat endorsed, partnered, hopefully the other party won’t notice or complaint….
2.1 BluMed ICO –
Attempted to show that they are partnered with Poloniex, Bittrex. Poloniex picked it up and immediately replied with:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1542256.msg15506092#msg15506092
We have no affiliation with this coin at this time. Your use of our logo in your Pre-ANN implies otherwise. Please remove our logo from this ANN and from any other promotional materials immediately.
2.2 NVO –
Fake Maidsafe Partner during ICO:
https://safenetforum.org/t/nvo-decentralized-exchange-crowdsale/13608/204
We have only one partner that we have signed up with right now, that is maidsafe asia.
Then:
https://safenetforum.org/t/nvo-decentralized-exchange-crowdsale/13608/366
I think you stated that you already had removed the "endorsment" references, which you minimize and nor call affiliations. I dont speak for Maidsafe. I speak for me. Thats called a forum. Clearly your intent to mislead is evident. That speaks to many aspects of your project. But keep the dialog going because this is how things get fleshed out.
Finally:
https://safenetforum.org/t/nvo-decentralized-exchange-crowdsale/13608/368
Show me an "Endorsement" Do you have anything demonstrating that? Or is it the reference to a comment made by someone at Maidsafe that you manufactured into an endorsement? Somehow out of nowhere you were a Maidsafe Partner and then your realized you weren't. Is this the same thing?
3. Escrow Funds – The 3000 BTC question:
If you feel that your money is somewhat safe because some names were mentioned on some forum and someone on that forum says that these are reputable fellas, consider the below:
3.1 Is there any record, of any previous ICO where the investors successfully got their money back because of a failed delivery of a project from these escrows?
3.2 Who are the escrows? Who pays for the escrow? Do they answer to you? How do I actually go about getting a refund because they deviate from the white paper? If an escrow is under NVO’s payroll with our escrowed money, how can we trust them? Fox guarding the hen house?
3.3 The bitcoins are supposed to be held in a multi-sig address, exactly who holds the keys to that address? And under what circumstances can they release the funds? And how can we verify the accountability of these funds? Oh nevermind, the funds are long gone from the multi-sig address: https://blockchain.info/address/3AiGej11G8jUXvEBPvQKPLiHXC7ruUCp1Z
3.4 Where are the altcoins held? First, Ton said they were all converted to BTC. After BTC more than doubled, he changed his mind and said only some were converted, address unknown, amount converted unknown and unverifiable.
3.5 Ton have always maintained that 9% were withdrawn, when questioned further, suddenly became 15-20%. This is unverifiable because all the altcoins (~50% of raised money) are hidden. Can a CEO not know where his funds are? How much were spent? Seriously? What does he think we are smoking?
3.6 BTW - Lauda was fired for attempting an extortion before… was he/she supposed to be some sort of angel escrow?: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1764757.0
4. Real Identity? –
Do these profiles look real to anybody?….. Notice the lack of any real life connections except the ICO projects? Are these even their real names? Does Ton Bi even exist? you be the judge…
4.1 Ton Bi -
https://www.linkedin.com/in/ton-bi-828934129/
4.2 Imed BouDali -
https://www.linkedin.com/in/imed-boudali-4b2585b5/
Did you notice the ICO post was made by nemgun and not Ton Bi in bitcointalk? Isn't this a bit strange?
5. Consistent failure to deliver –
This team can’t seem to deliver anything on time. Here are the promises made over time. Will let the facts speak for themselves here….
5.1 Shortly after ICO closed -
Getting listed on an exchanged in a week, wallet in a month, DEX by December, release another whitepaper on the validator details in a month
5.2 July 30th –
(Ton) We either release the NVO exchange production ready in 3-4 months on Nemgun’s network or we do it in 6+ months when safenet is production ready.
5.3 August 4th –
(Ton) Wallet in 4 weeks max, easy
5.4 Early Sept –
Wallet out on or before 1st Nov max, worst case. Custom exchange for NVST/BTC shortly after and a January target for the DEX
5.5 Sept –
(website) DEX in Q1 2018
5.6 Nov 1st –
(Yanni) Wallet Maybe a small delay of 2-3 days.
Don’t forget that they have been reassuring everybody that everything is going well and smoothly with the project throughout all these time.
Now consider this: If the wallet, being the simplest part of the project, took 4+ months and counting. What are the odds of them delivering a validator that actually works when it’s technically much more complex?
6. Incompetency and Integrity Issues –
Once the money is in their hands, their conducts falls and patience wanes, after all, why bother maintaining a professional image when the money is already in.
6.1 External Communications –
There’s hardly any project updates, only the usual missed deadlines accompanied with excuses. Investors have to scroll through pages and pages of Slack to find what Ton or Yanni might have said. Information is also scattered through reddit, twitter, slack, bitcointalk and one has to keep track of them all to not miss anything. Announcement channel is empty, and slack is now a totally exclusive club because they are unwilling to fix the invite issue. Why give the investors more clue, all in one place easily?
6.2 Internal Communications –
Things do not look better here, there’s apparently constant miscommunications within the team. Of course, why bother doing any actual work when you can easily blame internal miscommunications for missing delivery?
6.3 Skype Calls –
These are conducted on the fly, with no prior notice so that who attends the call can be controlled by monitoring the sentiment of the chat at the time. Conveniently, nothing is recorded so that any information is relayed by die-hard supporters. Don’t spread FUDs here, ban ban ban.
6.4 Wallet Secrecy –
We are told that the wallet github is private, and everything is pending patent so cannot be released. Two issues:
6.4.1 How do you trust a closed-source wallet written by some unknown <Algeria> person with your private keys?
6.4.2 How do we know the development of the wallet is even happening besides some Xenio github screenshots that really doesn’t prove anything and… faith?
6.5 Validator Secrecy –
The team has never detailed the working of this. A whitepaper specifically for the architecture on Validator has been promised but in true NVO style, not delivered.
The original whitepaper mumbled about api clusters and validators and what not, without any explanation to what those actually are. This validator is essentially a black box. There are lots of valid concerns with the technical execution but every valid question is answered with more jibberish and incomprehensable combination of words. After that, if someone is not satisfied with the answer, the tone changes and suddenly everything is an attack, threat, insult, provocation etc.
Decentralized computation is a very difficult problem which might or might not be solvable. Private keys security aside, where are the incentives for the decentralized nodes to process orders? Of course, all is well and smooth and solved by genius nemgun as he accidentally built a better MAID 10.0 in a week. Further details are conveniently under NDA / pending patents.
6.6 Aggressiveness –
This is displayed perfectly in slack, any doubters are quickly labelled as FUDers and banned before they can induce more questioning by others. While nemgun as a CTO have displayed issues with language, temper, ability to answer questions and self-control. This floats onto the next one below:
6.7 Self-proclaimed Genius – in NVO nemgun is a god.
Maidsafe 10.0 in a week, validator is easy, wallet is easy, exchange can handle 100000 transactions per second blah blah…. All these to go with unknown real life identity, missing github profiles, lack of codes, and aggressive barking when questioned. Does this sound remotely legitimate to you? In comparison to Vitalik who might actually have a point, and he speaks softly.
6.8 Lack of easy means to sell NVST –
This might, or might not be intentional. There are a lot of investors who bought into the ICOs thinking they’ll be Porsche owners in a few months. Few hundreds NVST here, few thousands NVST there. There is considerable efforts required to sell these tokens, so these investors simply left them in cold storage and don’t bother. This alleviate selling pressure when bad news hit, as angry and money losing investors will not do Xenio any great publicity. By making it difficult and troublesome to sell, the price is held together by illiquidity and the activation energy required to actually liquidate these tokens.
6.9 Incentive to Deliver –
IFFFF the developers do indeed one day dream up a solution for the DEX. What is stopping them from letting this project crash and burn, while setting up a competing one of their own? Think Mark Z and Facebook! This way, not only do they keep 100% of the fees and maintain total control, they can also save a lot of headaches worrying about the dividends, two birds, one stone. There is zero incentive for them to deliver on this. Not that it’ll matter, as NVST supply is not locked and they are free to dilute anytime.
Finally, I’m NOT a MAIDSAFE supporter. In fact, I didn’t even know the SAFE project existed until I read the NVO whitepaper. I’m just someone who would really love a DEX, and was happy to put my money behind one.
Unfortunately, this team didn’t deliver, so I bailed.
Price target per NVST; zero.
May karma comes around, and nemgun go to jail.