BlockNet ITO Subject of All Kinds of Allegations , But Who Is Right?

One of the hottest projects and trending topics in the world of digital currency and altcoins over the past few days, has been BlockNet and their ITO. As you would expect, all of the actions involving BlockNet are being scrutinized by everyone, as there is a lot of financial wealth changing hands during the ITO sale.

It is due to these ‘investigations”, for lack of a better word, by certain people that every now and the, the cryptocurrency community is confronted with some details you might rather not see. Whether this evidence holds any merit is not our place to say, as we will just be presenting you the facts, and you will have to do your own research, and draw your own conclusions.

Source 1 : IRC Chat logs allegedly showing a connection between Dan Metcalf and Prometheus (a ‘notorious’ pumper in the altcoin scene)

While chat logs, either through IRC, Skype or any other means, are not the most reliable source of information, they are an interesting source to find out details about certain things. We are not claiming these chat logs have or have not been altered to paint a different image, as we are not here to tell our readers what to believe.

These chat logs can be found here.

Crypt Revival

For those of you who have no idea what Crypt is, CryptCoin (CRYPT) is an altcoin originally released in May of this year. CryptCoin definitely showed some promise, but according to the information we find here, some of the promised features were not delivered upon by the original developer(s).

These IRC chat logs  talk about reviving CryptCoin by adding Dan Metcalf to the developer team. According to Prometheus (or someone impersonating him, that; s impossible to verify at this point) , Dan Metcalf works for his “group” as a full time member. Furthermore, Dan Metcalf apparently developed Halcyon’s anonymity features.

The name Dan Metcalf is not only tied to Xcurrency (XC), but he also does a ton of code reviews, and has been a freelance coder for various altcoins over the past few months. It is not impossible he developed the anon solution for Halcyon, but there shouldn’t be anything wrong with that as far as we can tell. Your opinion might be different though!

Creating a group of developers to pump coins

‘Prometheus’ wanted, at that time at least, to create a group of developers working together on various coin projects as they present themselves. The plan was to accumulate as many cheap coins as possible, and once the features are being rolled out, pump up the price (and trading volume) in order to make big profits.

While we all know there are a lot of coins being created by the same developers or developer groups, somehow people seem to be outraged over this as the information is being shared. Pumping and dumping makes up 90% of the altcoin scene at this point in time, which is one of the reasons why altcoins have such a bad name in the world of digital currency.

UtilityCoin – A ‘Prometheus’ Pet Project?

These chat logs also tell us that “Prometheus’ is apparently the man behind UtilityCoin, which is one of the many coins making up BlockNet. Furthermore, ‘Prometheus’ states his team are building their own superNET, and the XC team is already on board. At the time of these chat logs, there were also talks going on with other developers.

Oddly enough, a few lines later, UTIL is referenced to be Metcalf’s project. So whose project is it now? Dan Metcalf’s? ‘Prometheus’? Or is all of this just pure speculation and BS to make UtilityCoin look bad? Make your own decisions and do your own research.

Granted, two coins are being mentioned which are also part of BlockNet. BlockNet is all about bringing developers together, so they can combine their services and create an entirely new platform for digital currency as a whole. If this is is the real Prometheus, it is worrying to have a notorious pumper having any influence over BlockNet, but nothing more just yet.

Source 2 : BitSwift Developer Knew Dan Metcalf Was Involved in Halcyon

Once again, more chat logs, which could be completely fake, or completely legit. Someone is mentioning to the BitSwift developer they found out Dan Metcalf was working on Halcyon in some form.  When asked by this person if the SWIFT developer knew about this, all the BitSwift developer said is “yes, I did”.

BitSwift is the third of many coin making up the BlockNet project.

While this chat log is only a few sentences long, it is odd how such important and harming evidence is captured in one small screenshot. Besides, what would the BitSwift developer have to gain from admitting or denying whether he knew about Dan Metcalf’s involvement in HAL?

In order to put Dan Metcalf’s involvement with Halcyon into perspective, I came across the following information :   Dan Metcalf of XDCoin (should be XC) has reviewed the code for Halcyon, to make sure there was no malicious areas that could be exploited further on, something that has been prominent lately in the industry.  Dan has also reviewed the PeerSend code.

Source 3 : Questioning the entire presentation of the BlockNet Project

Link to source

Spoetnik, a long standing member of the BitcoinTalk community, posted his thoughts on some of the ‘warning signs’ regarding BlockNet. Having an announcement topic with just images in it is, according to Spoetnik, s warning sign of a scam.

While this may hold merit in some cases, it seems a bit of a stretch to me, but I’ll let you decide.

Up next, Spoetnik claims he has seen the same approach with a different project a few months ago, which also only showed some images, and nothing more. According to Spoetnik, the same people could be behind BlockNet.

Generalization much? Not saying he is right or wrong, but still….

More arguments from Spoetnik involve the fact BlockNet is a closed source project. And , here is the best part, he “heard from someone else” that ‘fuck all has been released’. With the BlockNet announcement topic being self-moderated, it has to be a red flag, right?

Closed source is fine as they have been upfront about it from the start. Hearsay is not a valid source of information, so it isn’t evidence. Self-moderation on BitconTalk is a topic of debate, but it has become sort of a necessity as of late. Your thoughts?

While more and more posts and ‘sources’ of information trying to discredit BlockNet and Dan Metcalf will show up over the next few days, there are also some counter arguments to be made. As we want to provide our readers with all available information, we will take a look at the sources defending the BlockNet ITO as well.

Source 1 : Pre-emptive announcement from Synechist

As a result of all of the above, the BlockNet team had to respond. In order to do so, they created a pre-emptive announcement here. In his post, Synechist talks about the aforementioned logs not being the best source for any evidence regarding the matter.< /span>

Source 2  : Dan Metcalf’s public identity

Most of us are aware Dan Metcalf has made his identity available to the public quite some time ago.  As he has been involved with Xcurrency (XC) from the beginning, he has been delivering on developmental promises time and time again, giving him credibility in the world of digital currency and altcoins.  (Take a look at XC’s timeline and judge for yourselves)

Source 3 : Dan Metcalf openly admitting his collaboration with different coins

One of the things that has to be said is Dan Metcalf is one busy person. As he is not only reviewing various anonymity solutions for different coins, he is also actively developing these features for different coins on a freelance basis. If you would like further proof of Dan openly stating he works with several coins, you might want to check this PDF file.

While all of the ‘evidence’ is being presented from both sides, there is no way to tell who is right and who is wrong at this point. As I mentioned before, look at the sources yourself, and form your own opinion. No one needs to tell you what to do or decide.