Well, the raise was done in BTC and Maid. Those who contributed are the ones who bought BTC and Maid and decided to speculate on it. We gave Harmen much more than he needed (even at the $500k value it had at the time) so he had the luxury of being able to sit on it and know he could complete the project despite crypto swings (still massive props to him for actually doing that). We did that for three reasons, to support the SAFE network, to support Harmen’s idea and to try to make money for ourselves.
I’m not sure I understand why the fiat value should be central given the coins haven’t moved and the project hasn’t really ever started. I didn’t think of my investment in fiat terms at any point. I invested >10BTC and 200k maid (I think?). I’ve no idea what that was in fiat terms at the time really. If BTC had swung the other way to $100, SAFE failed and Harmen was refunding, having kept the BTCs, I would not be claiming I wanted a % of the fiat value back either?! That would be unreasonable.
Harmen isn’t obliged to do anything here. He could easily just decide to ignore investors and many people would do that in his position. He earned this win with his intelligence/savvy and integrity. It is his decision to make ultimately and he’s already proven that he’s pretty good at making decisions, so I trust him to make a good one here that keeps everyone happy. I don’t think it’s actually that hard to do when you’re sitting on nearly $20M lol.
Harmen has the chance to make everyone happy and leave Decorum in a GREAT position and there’s no reason this can’t be a big win-win, with everyone chuffed at the result. He was quite vocal in saying that $500k was more than he needed back after the ico. He could offer to buy back up to half his coins here at 80% of the relative remaining BTC value (let’s say, 200BTC for 25M PDCs, keeping the MAID out of it too) and still be left with >$10M in BTC/MAID (20x what he said was too much originally and 5x what MaidSafe originally raised in 2014 for the core network if I remember right?!). This would also leave him with [up to] half the PDC supply and all the liquid selling pressure absorbed with the price of it now inflated. As the only significant seller left in the market he can now basically set the price if he can create any speculative or utility demand for the token. This is a great incentive for many of us to keep some PDCs as the price could rocket with any demand at all and the project would have sustained funding if it ever got off the ground. With 300BTC Harmen would have plenty of resources to create demand for the Clikes when launched. The project needs to succeed eventually to justify its existence, so owning half the supply is also potentially huge for helping sustain its own success.
With BTC just starting this ‘price discovery’ bull run that $10M in BTC will also likely be back at $20M before the end of the year too. If the network is built and PDC manifests then that 1M Maid would also be worth millions alone. In the worst case scenario the BTC is still worth >$1M at the very bottom of a bear market. He could even afford to put $500k into fiat or usdt to offset some risk without it having any real impact on the size of his crypto holdings at this point. Doing this kind of ‘stock buy back’ equivalent would inflate the price of PDC which should make anyone invested in the project very happy to see and would leave the decorum project with the same value on the books of circa $20M in assets.
I’d be surprised if 25M coin rebuy cap would even sell out given how few people pay attention (just look at the 10m MAID abandoned on poloniex after delisting).
I don’t know about anyone else’s situation, but I could really do with this atm. I wasted a lot of BTCs supporting other safe projects like n-99 and safe-fs. That was my fault ofc. I didn’t throw money at those projects because I was convinced they would be successful though; I did it (in no small part) to support development in the ecosystem. I feel VERY grateful to Harmen that he did not throw the money away like so many others did. There’s no doubt that he deserves to be in a very good position here because he has made some very responsible and shrewd choices! Since the money we sent has just sat there and swelled 40x in the meantime, perhaps we too deserve a chance to get some of it back though, now that it is soooo much more than is needed or than we would choose to invest if the project were raising today rather than 5+ years too early?
I don’t think it’s unreasonable to suggest that Harmen is in a position to create a generous win-win that’ll keep everyone happy here, including himself and all stakeholders. He isn’t under any legal obligation to do so, but given the situation and length of time that has passed I think he does have a responsibility to those who supported his idea/project and put the coins in his wallet. This is quite a serious amount of money and will have serious effects on real people’s lives, so it’s not a decision to take lightly either way. Keeping the money in crypto was shrewd and deserves to be rewarded, but it seems like 300BTC, 1M+ MAID and 25M PDC would still be an amazing situation and having very happy investors with an inflated coin value, after 5 years of not really being able to do much, would be a brilliant win for all. Decorum can basically keep the same value of assets on the books here anyway.
No investor expected to have to wait >5 years at the time of investment and the fact that Harmen has been able to sit on our money whilst waiting does put him in the position of having to decide on the fairest way to deal with that money now that it has swelled by 40x in value and he still hasn’t been able to deliver a product. Our contribution was always Maid/BTC though, it was never in USD and a focus on that is unfair, it should be a % of the crypto value being returned from the unspent address imo. Not 100% ofc, but a % nonetheless. As I said, if BTC had gone the other way and Harmen kept the BTC but abandoned the project I would not expect a % of the fiat value to be refunded, I’d also expect that to be of the crypto assets being held.
Anyway, very happy to see Harmen is going to offer some kind of buy back. And whatever the terms I’m extremely grateful that he has been so sensible and shown such integrity, maturity and restraint with his handling of the funds. Anyone holding any PDC should obviously count themselves very lucky and be very grateful that Harmen has lived up to (and beyond) reasonable expectations. I wish I had been half as responsible with my own BTCs as he has been with the ones I gave him!
