Edit: This post was edited to remove some words that sound aggressive. The final section was removed to not call out a particular individual’s action.
Dear Astar community members.
I hope my sincere message reaches everyone.
I have taken my time to read through all the replies. I saw everyone’s suggestions and what everyone’s thoughts are regarding the lockdrop vesting period for Astar’s launch. I avoid commenting on these matters, but I have received reports of personal attacks on our team and community members. Furthermore, some members have spread misinformation about our team and Astar Network, potentially leading to some confusion.
I observed that the debate on this thread was full of emotions as people get the impression that their assets are on the line. I understand where this sentiment is coming from, and I will not deny that our communication was insufficient. We could have done a better job informing our community regarding our decision. So we wish to improve our communication channel with the help of everyone. I wanted to make my points clear and short before posting them, but I cannot avoid writing essays at this point.
I write this post in hopes of resolving the issue regarding our position on vesting lockdrop participant rewards.
For those who accuse us of being a scam or potentially turning into one
I want to emphasize that we did not receive any tokens from the community through our lockdrop or the Crowdloan. The lockdrop was done via a smart contract on Ethereum main net. We do not have any authority over the locks, and we never deceived anyone into locking their ETH. Everything was and is transparent as it gets. A decentralized but ensured timelock of assets is something that only the blockchain can do. We used this method to prove that the people were willing to put their opportunity costs for the future of Web3.0. We asked for your time, not your ETH. We believe that time and opportunity make the future, not ETH.
Furthermore, We took extra care in constructing a transparent and safe lockdrop contract because ETH has value, not Astar Network tokens. This situation is still the same; only we are now locking in DOTs. No Parachain slot means no tokens at all, vesting or not. We did not hold an ICO because we wanted to prove that our team was always about the long-term vision. We ensure that ETH stays in Ethereum, and DOTs stay in Polkadot, safe and secure so everyone can unlock their tokens regardless of our success.
For those who say that we change the rules too often or that we are not community-driven anymore
As I mentioned above, we prioritize our long-term vision above anything else. Our vision for Astar is to be the path-finder of Web3.0 and a true DAO. The token economics, lockdrop, staking rewards, PLO, the network name…, these are all our methods and strategies to achieve everyone’s dream. If we find a mistake in our method, we learn and adapt. We are not changing the rules because these were never meant to be rules. We only promised two points; that we will never receive your crypto assets (ETH, DOT) and build a decentralized internet for the future. We are planning on delivering all of them. The path may change; we will make mistakes, but we will never stop moving forward.
The Astar Ecosystem is a community-driven network, but the Astar Core Team is a community-centric organization. In other words, our decision is based on the long-term sustainability of the community and our vision. Therefore, if a community proposal does not contain any long-term benefits for the community or does not push us towards our vision, we will prioritize other options that can. We do not expect everyone to share our vision because that would be arrogant. Instead, we aim to show our vision to everyone, working with those who do see it. Until we become a true DAO, we will maintain our community-centric view.
For those who disagree with vesting lockdrop rewards
Lockdrop participants did not spend their ETH in exchange for ASTA. Even if you consider the gas price for locking and unlocking your ETH, the ROI of SDN and the price increase of ETH during the lock is much higher than the gas price you would have spent during the first and second lockdrop. Therefore, any argument that implies that the vesting period for lockdrop participants is a loss in value is simply incorrect and invalid. Especially when you consider that there are external investors who have the same vesting applied, this situation is even more difficult.
With this in mind, we can easily see that there is absolutely no financial reason not to sell ASTA, as there is no ROI in holding on to ASTA after the distribution. Therefore, selling ASTA tokens before the price falls is the only rational option for token holders. We call this dumping. When token dumping happens at an early stage of the network, the only people who see damage are the ones who kept the token and supported our network.
Now I ask the question, how can unvested tokens be a long-term sustainable strategy for Astar Network? Can you confidently say that your short-term gain will bring long-term prosperity to the network and the community? Our team and the community have concluded that unvested tokens are out of the question. This applies to everyone including the investors, not just the lockdrop participants.
For those who say that reward on Shiden is irrelevant
For those of you who don’t know what Shiden is, it’s a Kusama parachain and a sister network of Astar network. Shiden is not a test net. Instead, it is a blockchain with tokens that have actual value, and it’s also listed on the exchange. People who participated in the first and second lockdrop have already received their SDN tokens.
Thanks to our community members, before the launch of Shiden Network, we were aware of the risks of not vesting lockdrop participant rewards. However, we still decided to take the risk because we knew that launching Astar Network for Polkadot would take longer than initially expected. We did not want to make our earliest and most dedicated supports wait too long. In hindsight, we were not aware of the magnitude of the damage. Nevertheless, we learned from our experience, and that is why we decided to vest the rewards. So we can ensure that Astar Network can be a more sustainable network for everyone.
But when I read some people responding with “we didn’t ask for SDN,” it made me very upset.
For those who say that we forgot about longest supporters–the lockdrop participants
Our team has never forgotten about the lockdrop participants. You are our precious ecosystem members who shared our vision from an early stage. That is why we were planning on holding an exclusive event for the lockdrop participants after the successful launch of Astar Network. This was supposed to be a surprise announcement (since it would be awkward if we failed to get a slot), but I guess we’ll have to plan this event again.
Anyway, we never forgot about the lockdrop participants, hence why we always honor the lockdrop rewards for both Shiden and Astar Network genesis. But I ask the community members to understand that the lockdrop contract isn’t going to win us an auction. We cannot show favors only to the lockdrop participants in this pivotal moment of the network. We try our best to treat our first, second, and third lockdrop participants the same without discrimination.
For those who are still not satisfied with the vesting
As I previously stated, vesting is necessary to create a sustainable network. However, we can adjust the vesting period to make it fair for people who have waited for a long time. Our team had a brainstorming session and decided to change the vesting period depending on a fair value. We will be making an official announcement regarding this change.
This decision was tough to make, especially in our position where we have different stakeholders. Our decision may come off as being hypocritical to many. But I hope my words have provided you with our perspective and understand why we made this decision. Our effort in creating a sustainable network is not a lie, and this was always our focus. We cannot satisfy everyone, but we really don’t want to make some people left out too.
Finally, please do not harass the core team or the ambassadors, as they are working very hard every day and night. If you wish, you can contact me on Twitter instead.
I do not intend on offending anyone, nor trying to divide the community, but it was difficult to write a statement like this while trying to satisfy everyone. To prevent further disputes, I will not reply further to this thread, and I wish to freeze this topic until the parachain auction is finished. I hope you understand.
Having said that, our team will still respond to this topic, and we won’t close the topic right away.
This suits everyone.