Dear community,
In the past few years I’ve been actively contributing to the project by trying to help out with exchanges, and listings in particular. With the Omni project getting less support, the delisting of MAID on Poloniex which resulted in people from the US to lose access, and increasing KYC requirements on Bittrex I decided it was time to start working on a backup plan. Together with @Sotros25 and the Maidsafe team we managed to get ourselves listed on P2PB2B, a non-KYC CEX.
As some of you are probably aware, getting these things done in cooperation with Maidsafe has been increasingly difficult due to regulations in the UK. Exchanges require a certain amount of attention, providing testing tokens for integration, a certain liquidity and volume which often is being managed by a market maker that you need to provide with enough tokens. These are things Maidsafe cannot be involved in, so last year I decided to manage it for them, which cost me thousands if not tens of thousands of dollars. I’ve happily contributed this to the project and it’s community as I was in a comfortable position to do so.
Earlier this year P2PB2B contacted me that they where going to delist omni MAID because the volume had dropped of and liquidity was too low. As some of you may remember, the omni listing did not exactly go smoothly which in my opinion resulted in a lack of trust in P2PB2B from the communities perspective. These led me to a conversation with P2PB2B about a second chance on their platform. I got them to agree to delist omni but to integrate eMAID free of charge. I’ve already provided them with eMAID for testing purposes and we’re now looking into ways to convert the remaining omni maid on their platform to eMAID so users that have not withdrawn their assets won’t lose access to it but receive the eMAID equivalent instead. However, their policy does not allow them to sent out the omni maid before they’ve received the eMAID equivalent. As some of you might be aware, omni maid has to be burned in order to mint eMAID which makes this process a bit tricky.
Last year I started my own company which required a huge investment from my part, additionally, I’ve been working for free for the last year. This, in combination with the out of pocket costs I had maintaining the exchanges, resulted in me burning through my holdings at a rapid pace. I’m not longer in a position where I can upfront the 76k MAID required to make the swap with P2PB2B, or where I can continue to pay for transaction cost/testing tokens/marketmaking myself. and even if I had, I think that it’s unhealthy for an individual to carry this burden. I’ve already spoken with the Maidsafe team and some community members and mentioned that if someone doesn’t step up soon, P2PB2B will simply delist omni MAID without the eMAID listing resulting in people losing access to their funds if they’ve failed to withdraw from P2PB2B’s platform in time. Given our history with exchanges, I will do everything in my power to prevent this from happening, but I’m now turning to the community to help me support exchange requests.
I’m sure most of you are already aware of the importance of accessibility of our token on multiple exchanges but I would like to emphasize that P2PB2B is an important player here, even though not the triple A exchange we’re hoping for. With it’s low trading fee (0.2% instead of Bittrex’s 0.75%), accessibility to the US market and being non-KYC it does a lot of things right when it comes to things our community values. Additionally, P2PB2B has been great when it comes to communication as I’m in touch with them on a daily basis and they’re willing to look for options to make sure that omni MAID/eMAID do not lose access to CEX’s as there are signs of a potential Bittrex delisting too. Last but not least, I know some if not most of you here are against CEX’s and all for DEX’s. Even though I see where you are coming from, DEX’s do have their flaws in terms of liquidity providing, accessibility for less wealthy people or people less familiar with the crypto space. I see hard work is being put into DEX listings and providing liquidity to the pools and I can’t emphasize enough how much it’s appreciated. The work those guys put in to make that happen allows me to fully focus on CEX listings & maintaining them, which could eventually lead to higher tiered listings if done right.
I’m turning to the community for support in my journey of supporting CEX’s and P2PB2B’s transition from omni to eMAID in particular. If you’re in a situation where you can and are willing to contribute I’ve opened up 2 donations addresses:
BTC / omni MAID: No longer available
ETH / eMAID: No longer available
I hope to see enough donations to at least make the omni/eMAID swap happen and cover some of my out of pocket. Rest assured that any donation made will be 100% used for eMAID adoption on exchanges (and omni maid yto some extent if required) and maintaining these listings. I will continue to invest my time and money (where I can) to help progress the project as I, like all of you, have the project best interest at heart.
