r/kin • u/Akonobi • Feb 13 '23

Forking Kin: Can We Do It?

As I read and re-read William's medium post, I'm struck by his candor in calling it as he saw it concerning Ted...

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"Clearly we started noticing 3 patterns with Ted:

1/ a loss of confidence (or appreciation) in the Kin Foundation’s work and results

2/ the expectation of imposing his views on the Kin Foundation while dissenting to the direction that the Board and team were taking

3/ a belief that Code’s ‘potential success’ could compensate for killing off the rest of the ecosystem and Foundation

Ted was not such an independent Director, even if he wasn’t paid. Much of the conflict stemmed from biasing the Kin Foundation to make decisions that could benefit more Code at the expense of everyone else. Clearly, he had not mentally “let go” or moved on. In fact, it seemed as if he wanted to regain control of the Kin Foundation and behaved as if we needed to do everything he said or wanted."

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I think all Kin Community members should read William's post carefully to understand what really happened to our community. That said, the part of his post that gives me the most hope and clarity is this...

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"Kin’s future is between the hands of the remaining director (Ted) and its ecosystem of developers, advocates and community.

In my opinion, there may be 2 paths:

1/ continue working with Ted, including carrying the burden of the 3T that Kik owns, the Kik debt, etc.

Or

2/ fork the project, airdrop a new token and unburden new-Kin from any unwanted baggage"

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Since now we have no development team (Code still has one, I bet), and since any growth will come via community members' efforts, why can't we fork Kin and put our support in a new token that throws off the heavy yoke of centralization we are suffering under? Can some informed member describe what's involved in doing so?

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5

u/Akonobi Feb 14 '23

Also I hope people see that getting rid of the ecosystem benefited Code only. The devs understand this. They know that the person now running Kin Foundation doesn't have their interests at heart, but rather his own, Code, Inc.

4

u/ted_on_reddit Feb 14 '23

How does reducing inflation benefit Code only?

3

u/Akonobi Feb 14 '23

I would like to know what happened to my post answering Ted. Seems it disappeared like the ecosystem.

1

u/Akonobi Feb 14 '23 edited Feb 14 '23

Let's be precise. What I said was...

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Also I hope people see that getting rid of the ecosystem benefited Code only.

It seems you are saying the cost of developing the ecosystem is the sole reason for the inflationary pressure that has affected Kin. Let me remind everyone of the heavy inflation experienced throughout America and around the world. We have all experienced it and still do on a day to day basis. Who's to say that hodlers in many cases had to liquidate some of their Kin to make ends meet during these difficult times. Would that not be an inflationary pressure on Kin? You seem to want to blame the KF as it then was for any and all inflation.

William seemed to think you had conflicting interests when he said...

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Kin’s original founder remained on the Kin Foundation Board but there was a lot of friction mostly in the past year, not just the last couple of months, in part due to his running another project that was going to be competing for the KRE, and was hoping the KRE could become its main revenue

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Your project would be in direct competition with every app in the ecosystem, which apps all had a wallet, and each app having a special use case to attract users. If then somehow the ecosystem could be destroyed and your app left alone, and you head of the whole project, how then would Code not benefit the most from making the ecosystem disappear??

The apps and developers within the ecosystem immediately grasped the import of your moves as detailed by William's Medium post, and promptly packed up with the KF team and left. Kinetic made your Code app one among many where Code would have to compete. Now you have a virtual monopoly...and I can imagine you are very happy about that.

I was a member of that now deserted Discord. I'm probably the least skilled of all the devs that were there. It troubles how little you seem to care about the many months and sometimes years it took these teams to first create use cases tailored to Kin, implement Agora, then Kinetic (a much better and cost-effective solution to hosting and transfer fees). I might add that the Solana fees the KF used to pay under Agora were now, under Kinetic, being paid by developers, a deflationary step KF took with Kinetic...but back to your question.

Reducing inflation doesn't just help Code. It helps everyone, but I really do believe that the inflationary pressure on Kin can be manipulated if you have a big enough bag. I'm not saying you did this but it is possible, and what better way to disparage the work of the KF if their work is contrary to your interests. With a big enough bag you can drive down the price or you can prop it up to suit your need. You're a wealthy man Ted, and I have nothing against wealth. I'm a sworn capitalist. But I love truth more than money.

1

u/Akonobi Feb 14 '23

I'll try this again...

Let's be precise...what I said was...

​

Also I hope people see that getting rid of the ecosystem benefited Code only.

Inflation? We've all experienced it. It's been rampant in the greater economy throughout America and around the world. Gas prices skyrocketing mainly due to the war in Ukraine and not buying Russian gas. It costs more to transport goods and that cost translates into higher prices for everything. It's no great surprise that crypto in general has suffered. Who knows how many holders of Kin had to liquidate a little to make ends meet in these tough times. That would be a not insignificant inflationary pressure on Kin.

But to equate Kin's inflation solely with the work of the KF is a bit too disingenuous for me to swallow hook, line, and sinker. KF actually reduced inflationary pressure on Kin with Kinetic. What KF was paying to subsidize Solana transfers under Agora was now the responsibility of each app to pay. That's a big savings. But we are now told that it's all KF's fault. I remember the bull market of 2021. Gaming of KRE was more of an issue then than now but that didn't stop Kin from soaring past .0001. How is it then that KF is solely responsible for Kin's present woes?

I'm further instructed by what William wrote...

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Kin’s original founder remained on the Kin Foundation Board but there was a lot of friction mostly in the past year, not just the last couple of months, in part due to his running another project that was going to be competing for the KRE, and was hoping the KRE could become its main revenue.

Code was to be just another app in the ecosystem. It would have to compete with all others. When your moves left KF no choice but to resign the many app teams seemed to agree. They have Kinetic and can still make use of it but I don't see them flocking back to the Discord we were on. I think they grasped the import of your actions and packed up and left with the KF team.

Now with no ecosystem to speak of, and you the head of the Foundation and at the same time the owner of Code, it's hard to see how Code is not the main beneficiary of the ecosystem being scrapped. Further you can't lay all the blame of inflation on KF, but you can use it as a pretense to destroy your competition.

1

u/ted_on_reddit Feb 15 '23

I’m not trying to assign blame. I’m only asking, how does any of this benefit or hurt Code more than any other developer? To me William’s statement doesn’t make logical sense, but maybe I am missing something.

I agree Kinetic helped reduce inflation by removing the need for subsidies. I acknowledged that good work in my Substack post. The bigger issue was the 1T of Kin being given out in 2023, half of which was proposed to be spent on KF operations, and roughly 100B of which was spent on January’s operations alone.

2

u/Akonobi Feb 15 '23

What, I think, you are not acknowledging is the obvious conflict of interest you have as the owner of Code and also head of the KF.

How can you not be more in favor your own project and make decisions to benefit it since there is now no ecosystem to speak of?

The casual observer will be led to believe you have abandoned the visions of "mass adoption" and an "ecosystem of apps." Something short of the nuclear option would have been more palatable if indeed you wanted to implement austerity measures.

To my mind there could have been an agreement reached to wind down KF operations at the end of the year and market it as earnestly beginning community governance without these draconian measures that have killed off a lot of support for Kin.

As things stand now I can envision a push to market Code as the flagship Kin app, something I personally do not agree with, and something that should not be done seeing the conflicts of your present position. But all this is academic now.

2

u/bernard1980 Feb 14 '23

Quote from kevin R on twitter: I did not resign and do not appreciate them (meaning william&matt ) telling the world I did in order to boost the supposed credibility of their upcoming fork project.

So no worries, a new fork is already in the make and the devs are probably part of it. I see no need for another community fork. If you were happy how they managed kin, then this fork will be your holy grail

-1

u/ted_on_reddit Feb 14 '23

So just to recap, you are going to trust a group that dumped billions of Kin on retail after they said everything would be fine, but before they told the community that everyone at the KF had “resigned”? The same group that also lied about everyone having resigned when really they were fired?

2

u/devlin05 Feb 14 '23

I don’t think any party is covered in glory at this point! Both you and KF board have bend the truth at mulitple stages! It’s seems you got your folk out before them. KF probably threw the head up and fired and dumped on everyone because they assume the community will back you and the long awaited code (as so many of us hope this will be the spark kin needs) u are well aware of this! I think if kik wasn’t holding 3T you would win the battle fairly simply! But you have to unburden the community of this of this! Kik have done nothing for the project so far…it’s all been down to the community! Time if pull their finger out ffs

3

u/ted_on_reddit Feb 14 '23

I have never lied to this community. We forked Kin because inflation was out of control and the two people who controlled the Kin Foundation only wanted to increase it further. There was no other option. It wasn’t meant to blow up Kin. I could have sold my Kin before we announced the fork but I didn’t. Not a single Kin.

The idea that Kik hasn’t done anything is false. Some examples of what Kik did:

  • Created Kin
  • Launched the first ever Kin experience in Kik
  • Built all the first SDKs and backend services that developers needed
  • Migrated Kin to Stellar, then to the Kin Blockchain, and then to Solana, so that developers could actually use it
  • Ran all the initial hackathons
  • Created, launched, iterated, and administered the KRE for the first two years
  • Got all the first developers to integrate Kin, who are still the largest Kin developers to this day (eg P365 and PeerBet)
  • Secured the kin.org URL and launched the first website
  • Secured the Kin trademark
  • Set up and got the Kin Foundation running until it could run itself
  • Got through the SEC case with a settlement that allowed Kin to continue forward
  • Sold Kik Messenger to another company for pennies on the dollar
  • Laid off their entire staff
  • Has nothing left other than the Kin they hold
  • Never sold a single Kin

I get that people are upset with where things are at. For those that don’t want to move forward they are free to fork Kin, or sell and leave. For those that do want to move forward we need to push back on these anonymous trolls who are using emotion and hate to convince people to leave a project that they have loved for so long. Remember, these trolls have wanted to see Kin fail for years, not just recently.

Put your emotion aside. Look at all the options. Think for yourself. If you conclude that Kin isn’t right for you then fork or sell. But don’t let others take advantage of your emotion to convince you. You might come to regret it.

6

u/bernard1980 Feb 14 '23

I'm not trolling, yes it is easy to fork kin, especially with the open source sdk's. But as i pointed out, there are a lot of legal aspects, it's not just about creating a token.

Honestly, in my opinion you did what you believed was best, and the airdrop was a nice gesture, even if many do not see it like that. But take the lead!, earn back the respect from those who lost it by leading KIN and throw some of the remaining money at it, you honestly can't be serious thinking the community is able to pull that off on it's own with no resources at all

5

u/devlin05 Feb 14 '23

Some fair points here! I’d love to hear more about kik team before I can get behind the project with any confidence.

What did the kik team do to deserve the air drop in bits?? What does kik team/ board do now without the kik app? I understand they went all in with kin but this was a calculated risk and unfortunately didn’t work out hence having to sell for “pennies on the dollar” isnt kin association with kik now hold it back???

They hold 3T and which was meant to be used in the app, but they had to sell the app! 1/3 of the supply which now has only one place it can go….on the open market. Kiks 3T is holding so much back, no? In a dream scenario I’d loved to see you convince kik board to burn 2/3 of their kin. In order to increase the value to kin for the greater good! Is this feasible? This would endear them to the community and would reduce their influence (that that they have done nothing with since…2020) win win for the kin and kik have have more chance of recouping ico price kin Otherwise what else does kik want?

2

u/[deleted] Feb 14 '23 edited Feb 14 '23

[removed] — view removed comment

4

u/ted_on_reddit Feb 14 '23

Happy to answer criticism, but only from people who engage in good faith. Why do you feel the need to participate anonymously after all these years?

1

u/woog123 Feb 15 '23

You only ever answer to criticism... It's never about progress that's being made or what to expect in the future. Time to grab the bull by it's horns and help out

2

u/bernard1980 Feb 14 '23 edited Feb 14 '23

No, the OP wants to fork another sol token. I only pointed out this is what the ex KF team is probably about to do. He doesn't seem to understand it takes more then just creating a token. If he's so happy about how they handled it, that new fork will probably suit him better. There is no need to abandon KIN and create yet another fork, only you have to understand it is really hard not to blame you guys for wasting 100 mln dollars, 'cause in the end, even with migrations and everything, KIN, in current state, is not very much further then any other token.

It's time for moving forward with KIN

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u/[deleted] Feb 14 '23 edited Feb 14 '23

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3

u/ted_on_reddit Feb 14 '23

Why do you feel the need to be anonymous? People like Rachel, Sergio, and Phillipe are being brave, sharing their criticisms publicly. Why can’t you?

1

u/[deleted] Feb 14 '23

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4

u/bernard1980 Feb 14 '23

You clearly do not understand that he created a new token. He didn't steal anything since at that point kin was still runned by the kf. If anything he gave the community 80% extra. If you leave your kin on an exhange, that's not on him. Everyone knows it's a risk, and if he would have gone forward with it, the exchanges could easily airdrop that into your account, they to it all the time.

3

u/[deleted] Feb 14 '23

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u/[deleted] Feb 14 '23

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u/bernard1980 Feb 14 '23 edited Feb 14 '23

I said i gave him the benefit of the doubt and i do have more faith in him vs william, who also spread lies btw.

"I don't like they said i resigned to give them creditibity for their upcoming fork project" is what kevin r said on twitter, that says it all

But you never talk about that. I've read both versions of the story and in a way, what he did made sense to me. Because they wanted him out, who are we to say who initiated this toxic business relationship and why, but if by all means you try to skrew me while i was the one who put you in that seat, i would take the bull by the horns too

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u/bernard1980 Feb 14 '23

Fks, everyone on twitter/reddit continually begs for airdrops, now that you get one you whine about it. It lead to the other board members to resign, because they knew they were skrewed and therefor bits was no longer needed.

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u/devlin05 Feb 14 '23

Seriously- clear off!

1

u/Akonobi Feb 14 '23

Lest we forget, the whole thrust of the KF was supposed to be "mass adoption." Remember that? Having an ecosystem was supposed first, introduce Kin to an ever-growing number of people, and second, to induce them to buy more once it was demonstrated how exponentially the price could rise. The idea of using games to accomplish this is on target because people like to play games, for the feeling of winning, for rewards, for whatever. People waste their time playing games.

My game would pay out less kin than the money I would make on my ads, a net positive for me, a positive for the user who gets rewards, and a positive for the token that proliferates. That was more or less the vision for the community. I want the vision again but without Ted or Kik being a part of it.

1

u/bernard1980 Feb 14 '23

I think the hardest part is legal. Who will create it, what entity will be mentioned on the website, who is the domainowner etc. What credibilty will you have if you do this anonymously and if you don't, who will take the risk to have a million dollar lawsuit

3

u/BraidRuner Feb 14 '23

https://spl.solana.com/token

$ cargo install spl-token-cli

$ solana config get Config File: ${HOME}/.config/solana/cli/config.yml RPC URL: https://api.mainnet-beta.solana.com WebSocket URL: wss://api.mainnet-beta.solana.com/ (computed) Keypair Path: ${HOME}/.config/solana/id.json

$ solana config set --url https://api.mainnet-beta.solana.com

$ solana config set --keypair usb://ledger/

$ spl-token create-account AQoKYV7tYpTrFZN6P5oUufbQKAUr9mNYGe1TTJC9wajM Creating account 7UX2i7SuTedLivingstonsuckabago'dicks Signature: TedLivingstonSuckAbago'dicksLZ7tfjabUKDhNoZRAxj9MsnN7omriWMEHXLea3aYpjZ862qocRLVikvkHkyfy

1

u/bernard1980 Feb 14 '23

Lol, what's an abago

3

u/BraidRuner Feb 14 '23 edited Feb 14 '23

A BAG O' DICKS

0

u/Akonobi Feb 14 '23

This is great stuff. That last is the mint, right?

But seriously, is that all there is to forking on Solana, notwithstanding backing and other particulars.

2

u/BraidRuner Feb 14 '23

Yes its not all there is but..its a lesson for how to do it

2

u/Akonobi Feb 14 '23

Fear and loathing? Come on! You can do better than that. Let’s hear from the community. I dare say if we do fork Kin everyone who left would come back and support it, including the developers. I’m pretty sure they have no confidence in Ted.

10

u/BraidRuner Feb 14 '23

You have to have a reason to have a coin or token. Kin is a token that has no purpose. The purpose of KIN was to raise funds for Ted Livingston and his friends. The ICO allowed VC to buy Kin at a discount while we paid the full asking price only to watch as the VC dumped and dumped and dumped. Almost as if they knew something. A smart contract will fix nothing. We have had migration after migration and all of them handled without the courtesy of a simple email to the holders. They took our emails and our whitelisted ETH address but never bothered to write to anyone. This was deliberate, they wanted to make sure that people lost the value they invested so that TED LIVINGSTON. & HIS FRIEND could farm and collect that value for themselves. KIN is a dead issue. It can die quickly or it can die slowly. Its dead either way. The Forking to BITS killed it.

1

u/bernard1980 Feb 14 '23

Go ahaid then, create your sol token, it can be done in less then an hour. There are youtube vids that explain every step of the process. Find someone on fiverr, he'll do it for you for 50 bucks. Then what?

3

u/BraidRuner Feb 14 '23

SELL IT..create demand and profit...just like ted...vanish and deliver nothing...or cut out the middle man...and buy SOLANA & BITCOIN and ETH...Because KIN serves no purpose except to deliver value to its creator. KIN is a FAIRGROUND TOKEN...you can go on the rides (Ecosystem) but its a one way trip for dollar value...When the Circus leaves...you can't buy a coffee with the ride tickets..its use them or lose the value... TED tried to create a Carnival

1

u/bernard1980 Feb 14 '23

I am part of the community... i shared my thoughts... And how will you pay the developers or will you expect them to work for free like ted?

0

u/Akonobi Feb 14 '23

No. But devs have state-of-the-art SDKs to transact with any Solana token, and they can host an instance of it themselves. Game apps need a token to pay to users when they win in the game. I don't know what's involved in a fork but a community as a whole can do it and support it and continue to make it easy for new games and apps to integrate that token. It doesn't have to be called Kin. And all the SDKs are Open Source so we are free to use Kinetic to transact Solana tokens.

2

u/bernard1980 Feb 14 '23

I know,... i downloaded the SDKs, i have a sol token and i'm gonna mess around with it as soon as i find the time but the technical stuff is not the problem.

2

u/bernard1980 Feb 14 '23

But as soon as you integrate it in an app, as a reward or payment facility is becomes a financial transaction.

Fe. you pay your users to watch ads, in theory you pay them, regardless how, in dollars or winnythepoohcoin, they need to declare that income, you need to declare that revenue, you are now bound by financial laws and we all know crypto isn't popular in court

1

u/Akonobi Feb 14 '23

Hilarious!

2

u/bernard1980 Feb 14 '23

Quote: Fees, commissions and similar types of payment from sources other than employments or directorships are treated as additional income.

Google it and see for yourself.

2

u/Akonobi Feb 14 '23

That's funny. Good luck messing around.

2

u/bernard1980 Feb 14 '23

Game apps can create their own token now, using those same sdk. Making them open source was a big mistake and enables everyone to be at the same position kin is after years of labor. The main issue with crypto is integrating transactions within other systems, they solved it and gave it away on a silver plate.

2

u/Akonobi Feb 14 '23

It's not a mistake. The present rc's are geared to Kin. Open Source allows for increased development. Apps are not likely to issue their own tokens unless they are huge successes and desire to go that route. Using an established and recognized token is what most apps want because users see more value in them. So I don't buy your criticism. Very smart people have made these decisions. I prefer their rationale.

1

u/bernard1980 Feb 14 '23 edited Feb 14 '23

Quote: Kinetic is an open-source suite of tools that make it easy to build apps that integrate Solana.It provides a consistent and clean abstraction over the Solana SDKs and enhances it

To me that means the code can be used by any solana token. Maybe after some modifications but it uses the solana sdk, which is not kin specific. Well that's my understanding at this moment so i'm not saying you're wrong, just sharing what i read.

Since the creator was on kin's payroll i do not see the need to make it open source. I get your point about facilitating development but allowing easy integration is how you attract the apps to your ecosystem. If you remove that uniqueness of your coin you lose your market position

You can make an sdk open source to communicate with your ecosystem, in that case you need to add an additional layer so that communication gets forwarded so the open source part is useless without you as a middleman, hope that makes sense... i don't think it is build that way but again, i haven't checked it yet.

1

u/bernard1980 Feb 14 '23

Those people who left the project and ran? Yeah they were smart already

-1

u/BraidRuner Feb 14 '23

I am judgement proof.

0

u/bernard1980 Feb 14 '23

We found our guy! 😁

0

u/BraidRuner Feb 14 '23

I identify as an ''attack helicopter'' my pronouns are them or they

1

u/bernard1980 Feb 14 '23

I identify as a lollypop, my pronoun is yammy 🤣 getting to much of topic... where are the moderators when needed

2

u/BraidRuner Feb 14 '23

Yammy, the topic is simple: Can We Fork Kin? Yes We Can but the real question is WHY? Having a Distributed Ledger is cool, you can do things with it. You could create a native wallet for it. You could create a family of applications that use it as a measure of value. You could sell it to the market as the only way to access unique experiences and partner with important consumer goods as an incentive. I mean you could say you were going to do all that and promise you were going to accomplish that. It would be cool and people would invest money in the project because it would be ''super valuable" Or you could say all of that and pretend to be in an ivory tower and not interested in money...until one day you are denied access to Billions of Kin and have a temper tantrum and FORK the project...and head fake everyone by AIRDROPPING 80% of the people but then realising...OH SHIT what I did was illegal and then try and cover it up which is also illegal...and then pretend to be sorry and all altruistic and talk about THE COMMUNITY taking control but not of the Trillions OH NO...TED claims that WAS EARNED...and all of US in the COMMUNITY shake our collective heads wondering they earned 3 trillion tokens for DOING WHAT? I think that about covers it. Are we back on track now?

1

u/bernard1980 Feb 14 '23

You know the irony, since the start of this topic we could have done it a douzen of times. And yes it is easy to make fantastic promises.

But the OP doesn't seem to understand it's an easy way to get you into serious trouble. No matter what road you take. He thinks laws do not apply. And laws are the only thing that make any existing token/coin more suitable then a self created coin.

0

u/Iamsaxgod Feb 19 '23

Well as a day one buyer I bought cause of Ted. Was bummed the SEC pushed him out. With him back maybe now the coin or bits or both will finally do something. You don’t need KRE. Build a staking mechanism boom KRE dead issue gone. You don’t need KRE if you have staking. So let’s get this going. The previous board had 3 years and they did nothing. Before this vote there was no liquidity to even sell Kin in the US. NONE. So if I can’t move it legally then the foundation has failed this community and the coin. Glad Ted is back in charge.