Let's talk about the elephant in the room

63

Good piece, nice to read. I think the Grin council should especially appreciate David a bit more. Despite any mutual differences. Furthermore, I am not much concerned. I see grin as a toddler who cannot even walk yet, so why do we expect him to be able to cycle already?

In addition, I think that there is also a cocktail, a toxic cocktail of macroeconomic developments that keeps cryptocurrency in its grasp. First, our own bear market is longer than we had anticipated. Second, Crypto is slowly changing to the Wild West from crooks, bad-idea money wolves, and downright fraudsters. Third, the ‘outside’ world, or in other words the people we want to bring to crypto is not at all interested at the moment. Although it was first because the traditional markets performed very well. Now it is because everyone fears for their health, job and ultimately prosperity.

Finally, I don’t worry about that either. There is a macroeconomic cycle in the price of Bitcoin or call it cryptocurrency if you like. I use that guide line and with that in mind, I sincerely believe that more than half of the poison cup is empty. We are far in that cycle. I just keep mining, especially buy BTC if the price allows it and I keep waiting quietly until I see the light at the end of the tunnel. Then Grin comes out of there like the giant, as everyone wanted to see it.

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64

If you follow the consensus rules, your node will be treated just like any node on the network. And we’d be happy to have you. The more the merrier.

This is disingenuous. You yourself told me the act of creating Grin++ was adversarial in its nature, and claimed that I was wrong to do so. This is just more virtue signaling.

It seems I wasn’t very clear, so let me expand. Whether you were being adversarial or not at the point of creation @david is subjective and completely beside the point.

I actually would have thought you of all people would get the point I was trying to make:
You created your own implementation with Grin++ and have since secured your own funding. You have quite a lot of autonomy. You have your own governance for how you accept contributions to your codebase, and manage your release schedule. You can focus and prioritise matters that you consider most important to your users. And Grin++ nodes are being treated just like any other node on the network. As long as consensus rules are followed, why would that not be the case?

You’re clearly talented, and very passionate about Grin. Of course I would have wanted to see you improve the Rust implementation. But who am I to tell you what you should be doing? (: You wanted to take Grin in directions that you were not able to build consensus for in the months leading up to mainnet launch. So I get your logic for choosing to go at it on your own, allowing you to iterate, learn, and explore much faster. Grin++ seems to be doing well as a result, it is an alternative standalone implementation that allows for different approaches to be tried, and something Grin (Rust) can draw learnings from. If something bad would happen to the Rust project, there’s a chance the C++ project would be unaffected, and vice versa.

So now that Grin++ exists, having her around adds to the network, and creates resilience and reduces centralization. The whole network is greater than the sum of its two individual implementations. And so similarly to this, if there’s anyone else that thinks the approach we’re taking with the Rust implementation is so wrong that they cannot stand by watching this happen, or simply that they want to experiment with Grin in ways that the Rust implementation cannot support for whatever reason, they are welcome to build out their own alternative. Regardless of whether that’s a fork or a separate implementation (Grin Go anyone?). I would prefer you contributing to Grin (Rust) as we could use the help, but I’d rather you do your own thing than leave altogether.

Peace out :pray:

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65

The claim was “we’d be happy to have you”. That was the outright lie I was pointing out. You were kind enough to take the time to explain to me that the biggest reason I was disliked by several in the core team, and the reason why they were avoiding working with me, was because I created Grin++, rather than contributing to the Rust implementation. That hardly sounds like being “happy to have” an alternative.

It doesn’t matter anymore though. It’s clear that the community recognizes that the core team, despite containing a few really great people, no longer represents it. That’s positive news, and will hopefully lead to a brighter future someday.

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66

Shame to see the dissension. I love this project.

Marveling at the speed of transactions and how simple everything is. I really hope these are just growing pains.

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67

I repeat that opinions are my own, and shouldn’t be attributed to members of the core team.

You were kind enough to take the time to explain to me that the biggest reason I was disliked by several in the core team, and the reason why they were avoiding working with me, was because I created Grin++, rather than contributing to the Rust implementation.

You’re not quoting me verbatim, instead it feels like you are putting a negative spin on what I told you in that call. I’d appreciate if you stopped putting words in my mouth. The point of the call was to mend fences with you, but it looks like it had the opposite effect. That feels like a fail on my end, and unfortunate. In any case, you’re right - it doesn’t matter anymore.

My original post above was not directed towards you, Grin++, or whatever misgivings you have with the core team. You already have your own implementation, and I’ve already expanded in depth on the degree of autonomy you have. Is there anything more to say here?

The claim was “we’d be happy to have you”. That was the outright lie I was pointing out.

Rather than agreeing or disagreeing with any of the points I raise, or making any kind of serious contribution, you’re highlighting one specific wording that you find provoking. This doesn’t feel like a discussion in good faith, more like nitpicking.

“If you choose to fork the codebase or build your own implementation, we will find a way to carry on with the project despite of this.”

Is that better?

It’s clear that the community recognizes that the core team, despite containing a few really great people, no longer represents it. That’s positive news, and will hopefully lead to a brighter future someday.

You are already well aware of this, but for the benefit of other readers: Our governance model is not democratic, nor is it based on representation. To this date, we’ve never been governed by “the will of the people”, and there’s a reason for that (but let’s save it for some other thread).

That said, the legitimacy of the governance model can always be put into question, and it is probably healthy to do so from time to time. I’m not so sure about our governance either to be honest, but I haven’t come across a better way to do it yet. I’m happy to consider constructive proposals.

In the meanwhile, those who feel this structure is illegitimate and want to do something about that can start new structures - the network will accept any alternatives that pop up, as long as clients can agree on consensus. This was the point I was trying to make.

The future is indeed bright. :pray:

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68

OK, personal issues aside, where are we on those:

  • standarized TX method (are we going with the QR codes?)
  • non-interactive transactions (is this even planned?)
  • official GUI wallet (or bounty for building GUI on top of it)
  • atomic swaps (I think it was planned at some point)
    What would be the most important thing that is about to be implemented soon from the perspective of regular user?
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70

Please explain why you are censoring my post. You guys are a joke

71

Your approach of handling this is doing the exact opposite of what you’re trying to achieve. I was mostly neutral on Core but I now sympathize with them more after reading your constant attacks. I strongly encourage you to try some more productive way of conveying your ideas.

P.S. someone probably flagged your post. Wasn’t necessarily an admin or any of the Core guys.

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72

It was flagged as inappropriate by a community member, and I agreed. It was ad hominem and highly uncivilized, in violation of the code of conduct.

73

There is nothing in my post that is against the rules. It should not be censored and admins have the power to reverse the censorship.

The core is not interested in others ideas, there is no way to be productive about it. They both claim there is no intent of centralization and shortly later explain that it is centralized. They have all the cards (or call it keys) and no concern for community.

75

You guys are a centralized joke that has no appreciation for your community and practice censorship

76

You basically called them incompetent or scammers. At least one of these two so it was rightfully flagged. I’ve asked you a couple of times to enumerate and explain the situations you think were unfair instead of labeling them as “obvious” and something that doesn’t need further explanation.

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77

That is not rightfully flagged to state an opinion that is backed by their actions and also an opinion shared by many members. I’ve explained many situations and they are recurring. Censoring here is one that is unfair.

78

Perhaps I missed something or I can’t recall it now, but the only thing I remember is you saying that only Tor was accepted from the community. There was never any explanation of WHY exactly you think X should be implemented.

79

Well, this discussion sure went South quick… lol :scream:

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80

Agreed, but whatever helps to fix the situation. I am glad that the community and the council finally noticed that the project went downhill and away from it’s roots. Grin was supposed to be digital money for everyone. We need official GUI wallet, standarized TX (as simple as possible, take Beam as an example, no fancy QR codes) and actual improvements that will make difference for regular users. Because right now, as it was mentioned before, this is an expensive hobby for selected few who are paying themselves huge amounts of money. Did Bitcoin creators pay themselves such large sunms? No, it was cypherpunk at it’s roots. People had stake in their own project and actually cared about the coin succeeding, both technically and economically. On the other hand, those are not the early days of Bitcoin, it would be hard to find someone who would build project like that for free. Beam has their treasury and also pays their devs lots of money, so Grin can do the same, but let’s not pretend this is not happening. But I agree that is starts to look more and more suspiecious. Perhaps words like “ploy to siphon out the money” would be to strong, but it seems that being out of touch with the community and being incentivised for extending the works for as much time as possible is something that works for the council. I have two suggestions and please consider them, instead of just ignoring like most things here (above someone asked vital questions about the project, that were completely ignored).

This whole Grin Council VS Dave debacle is pointless. Clearly both parties have some issues with each other and despite most community (not only in this poll but also on Telegram and Discord) would prefer Dave’s vision of the project, he clearly does not want to do this by force and Grin Council would not be happy to work with him for whatever reasons and creative differences. While I would be happy to see fork by Dave and I guess most people would follow it (just like they followed ETH fork with ETC becoming obsolete), this is out of the picture for now. So we, as a community, need to work with what we have- highly centralised group of people called Grin Council, who seem to have some great ideas, but also seem out of touch and seem to not understand what the project really needs, and take most of the comments disagreeting with them as hostility. Yes, some people are going too far with what they are saying, but I guess this is because they are trying to prove their point - Grin Council is going away from the project’s roots and Grin is no longer cypherpunk attempt to create easy money for all. At this stage it is just like Beam but with donations instead of tax and less stuff delivered and way smaller community. The money spoiled everything, perhaps? Or maybe lack of Igno’s leadership? It went downhill and it should be our common goal to fix it. So please, devs, do not use the governance argument, and haters please do not write pure hate here. Let’s be constructive and try to change the situation together, let’s try to figure out what is important now.

My ideas:

  • immediately change the monthly fees to bounty fees, so everyone is paid for what they delivered, not the time it took. This will incentivise people to apply for the money more fairly. Set up bounties for GUI wallet and all the other stuff.
  • define basics that the project needs and that were not delivered yet, and halt the payments till the basic things are delivered: official GUI wallet, standarized TX, etc. This will make people concentrate on what is really important.

And I used phare “people” because I don’t mean only the devs or the council. If someone else creates great GUI wallet - great etc.

And if you are new to this topic, please read everything from the beginning. Lots of important stuff was said by both haters and admirers of current state of things. This is pivotal point for green. Lets act together and be heard.

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81

I suggest we also provide data when we accuse someone of something. There have been many accusations in this thread none of which had any actual data to back them up.

Both of your ideas incentivize shipping a low-quality code to optimize for delivery. That’s maybe something you want as a scoring function in a startup but is definitely not something that makes sense for a cryptocurrency where security and clean code should be prioritized over delivery dates.

I also want to clear up something regarding the 10k per month requests. Sure, I agree that it would be more cypherpunkish to take only what you really need. However, let’s not forget that this is actually a normal salary for a programmer in the US - even if you’re not that good. Furthermore, for some that are not anonymous, there’s some sort of responsibility/stress that comes with such role due to the code handling a lot of money which could, in case of a fatal flaw, end up with the community/investors blaming them for the failure of the project.

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82

Where are we on the official GUI wallet and standarized TXs anyway?

83

Official GUI wallet:
We are nowhere. the effort has not been started yet as I can tell. One of the arguments was to develop the infrastructure for third parties to do a grin GUI wallet on top of GRIN. This has occupied a lot of the efforts of developer Yeastplume last year as I can tell.
On a personal level I definitely think focusing on having a good core infrastructure is a really good idea. It doesnt pay off right now in any way but it will hopefully in the future.
The other few developers on Rust grin have focused on other things, you can particularly look at the github to have more details.
At this point in time I would support an official GUI wallet. Grin needs new users. otherwise the mid term risk of things really going shit is non negligible in my opinion (emission schedule, aggressive competition of Beam and so on)
It seems the limited resources that we have do not allow right now to have a fast paced development and the current grin developers dont have UX/GUI skills and it is good that they also develop the core protocol as it will be definitely important too for long term sustainability and developer onboardings. so a GUI wallet would likely be made through a bounty if any at this point. The only alternative I could see on this for the short term is Antioch and his demand for funding (currently for enabling the ability of lightening network on top of grin). But I think he is a protocol developer before all, so it is probably unlikely

standardize TX
There has been discussions on this I think amongst the devs and more or less everyone agrees that things need to be changed and more standardized.
But no concrete course of action has been taken yet, or at least I dont remember or havent seen final decision on it. hopefully others will intervene on this

84

Thx for the updates! Perhaps standarized TX will make things better with the exchanges too. And maybe more people would be eager to build on top of Grin, for example the wallets. I would say those two things should be short term priority now, because no point in building even the best protocol if there are no users. And to have users we need standarized TX and easy wallet. Also Beam is not the only competitor - Litecoin is the one to be afraid here. Remember the days when people thought Grin might get integrated with Bitcoin? Those were the days!

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