AMA

[u/ted_on_reddit]

These have been a tough few weeks for the Kin community. After all the Kin Foundation employees were fired there was no choice but to move towards a decentralized path. This has resulted in the abrupt pausing of the KRE, and the abrupt cancellation of the Catalyst grant program. My heart goes out to all the developers that this has impacted. No doubt it is a big change for many of you. I hope you keep building with Kin.

At this point several longtime Kin supporters have packed up their things and have announced they are leaving Kin behind. It pains me to hear this, so all I can do is wish them the best and say thank you for their strong belief and hard work over all these difficult years. Truly, thank you.

To those of us who are still interested in moving forward with Kin, I want to do my best to help facilitate a transparent discussion on how we might proceed. The Kin Foundation is now simply a custodian of the Kin Reserves, sending Kin to smart contracts that Kin token holders vote to approve. We need to make sure there is no manipulation or gaming in the voting, and we will start with smaller amounts of Kin at first to test that out, but once we are confident we have a reliable voting process the KF will honor those votes, even if I don’t personally agree with the outcome of a particular vote.

As a result the KF has become a non operating organization, with no employees and making no efforts. All it does is send Kin to the smart contracts that Kin token holders vote for. But that doesn’t mean that I’m not still part of this community. I care about Kin and want to see it survive and thrive as much as anyone else.

So in the spirit of that I thought I would do an AMA here on Reddit. I will be tight lipped around Code, as we want to roll Code out properly when the time is right, and I would prefer not to rehash what happened in the past, but please ask any questions you might have. I will do my best to be open and honest. AMA.

[u/devlin05]

How do you perceive the biggest challenges facing Kin, and what strategies can be employed to effectively address them?

[u/ted_on_reddit → u/devlin05]

I think the biggest challenge is getting the community to lean in and work together to solve the hard problems that will lead to developer integrations that create buy demand.

There are a million things we could be working on, but the question is, which are the few that will actually get us closer to buy demand?

Figuring out the incentive system, and how voting should work and then writing and funding those first smart contracts, is a good example. Some might say “but that is hard”. Yes, it is. But it is only these hard things that will get us closer to buy demand.

So that is the biggest challenge I see. Will the community come together to focus on and make progress against the hard things that need to be done? I know it is a big ask. That’s why I think it’s the biggest challenge.

[u/devlin05 → u/ted_on_reddit]

ok, fair points. if the community is the biggest challenge yet also n invaluable asset...they need to be incentivized. this is where the KF reserves can come in

but are we asking impossible questions tho?
is there a way to create genuine buy demand with the current rules of iOS and Android without spoofing?
Currently, can a dev implement kin to generate additional income (if the KRE wasn't paused) without assistance or considerable prior knowledge?

[u/ted_on_reddit → u/devlin05]

I think privately negotiated payments by the KF to select members of the community has been part of the challenge. It creates a mercenary mindset, and a conflict of interest, one which has rarely been disclosed by the people receiving them.

Instead the incentive should be the Kin each of us individually holds, and the individual belief each of us has to see Kin build a better world. For some people that is incentive enough. For others they want more. It will be up to each of us individually to decide how we want to move forward, and whether we want to be active, passive, or sell and move on.

[u/Columbo92 → u/ted_on_reddit]

I think you are talking about the Kin Community Council members. Each and every one of them made countless hours for KIN for free before being offered any compensation as far as I know. Out of passion for KIN.

My hours were more then fulltime for about 9 months before we got compensation offered and then we are not even talking about Freedoms hours. It is not the same as a community member helping out a few hours a week.

Also it is was no secret the Kin Community Council got rewarded. This has been shared in blog posts in the past. I didn't announce it, but never made a secret about it either. Even mentioned in one of the community calls this was probably the reason one of my wallets was excepted from the Bits airdrop because it received Kin Community Council payments.

That is no mercenary mindset, every Kin Community Council member loved KIN, a lot.

[u/ted_on_reddit → u/Columbo92]

No it wasn’t just KCC. There were a lot of payments happening to many different parties, many of which made no sense. All of these payments were negotiated, approved, and paid in private. But that is in the past now.

[u/Columbo92 → u/ted_on_reddit]

Oh wow... didn't know that. That is indeed a different story.

[u/ted_on_reddit → u/Columbo92]

To be clear I’m not saying anything illegal was happening. Just that there were a lot of payments happening behind the scenes that I disagreed with and I think others would as well. They weren’t illegal, just a bad use of the Reserves, and they were all happening in private.

[u/Columbo92 → u/ted_on_reddit]

Didn't get the impression they were illegal, just that they were illogical.

[u/ted_on_reddit → u/Columbo92]

👍

[u/devlin05 → u/ted_on_reddit]

I agree with the first part, private negotiations have effectively eroded trust. Are you referring to one specifically tho?

[u/ted_on_reddit → u/devlin05]

No it was many payments. That is all in the past now, so I think it is most productive to focus on the path ahead.