Concerns About Harmony's Future

Community
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Let’s rewind the tape. The CU whitelist for land was a promise made by the team when the original wizard NFTs weren’t selling very quickly and the project needed that early support. The team shared that info repeatedly in the months, weeks and days ahead of the land sale, along with making clear–again repeatedly–that more races and more land would be coming out to ensure everyone could get into the game and enjoy the world they’re creating.

The issues Wiz is raising here are pretty clearly not about funding–they’re about relationships, communication, building in a collaborative development dynamic, making decisions that benefit and strengthen the chain and ecosystem. Saying other projects could achieve more with less is missing the point entirely. At least by my read.

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Brother from Mars Colony here.

I wasn’t going to chime in, but a few people have subtweeted us about this and mentioned how it doesn’t make sense that we got funding while you guys at CU didn’t.

I get it. It sucks not to get treated equitably. I don’t know enough about how your conversations have gone, so I’m not going to act like I know the answer here. But I’ve had a few people lash out and shit-talk because feelings are hurt.

We didn’t ask Harmony for funding, they sought us out. We’re extremely grateful, but that says nothing of how we feel about other projects or where we stand in comparison. We’ve got our heads down and we’re building despite a war between the home countries of our most of our team, because we love what we’re all doing here. The politics of the Harmony chain haven’t been on our radar.

There’s more than enough to go around. I believe CU will succeed, and I hope you guys get the support you deserve.

We’re also planning a game the scale of what you’re planning for CU, but the only overlap here is our grand ambitions. We’re completely different games, and I see no competition between us. I want to see CU thrive, so I have another dope game to play, and I can celebrate the win of people who are passionate about the same space I am. If there’s something we can do to help, always feel free to reach out.

I hope this gets resolved. Much love.

Forward.

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Thanks for your response brother :pray:

Yes, I found it odd some people were thinking we were taking a dig at Mars Colony when in fact we love what you’re doing and a bunch of our team is actually very heavily invested in your project. I’m really glad Harmony went out of its way to give you equity swap funding. I simply was referring to how there was ample funding possible and provided to projects Mars Colony, and as you said they sought you out, while other projects are being ignored or seemingly intentionally avoided by Harmony like CU, which is definitely the case for those who have eyes to see; otherwise they would have sought us out as well.

With CU being one of the leading games being developed on Harmony, this still perplexes me. Regardless, we have plenty of funding to deliver a solid pre-alpha of the game but this sort of strange selectiveness is something I highlighted and what other projects see is happening as well. It’s in the ecosystem’s best interest to be fairer than it has been. I don’t think this is a controversial position and I don’t like playing politics. I just want to develop a great game and see it supported.

I believe in open transparency, fairness, and clear communication and am awaiting the Harmony team to discuss the concerns I raised for the sake of many projects and validators I am representing with this OpEd. I do not find Daniel’s PR response, while appreciated and better than nothing, adequate. Again, I want to emphasize that the focus should not be on CU; it should be on the many other projects in the ecosystem that I am a voice for. It’s not a comfortable position to take on but I’m a virtuous man with strong convictions and have a large enough of a voice where I feel the smaller voices will finally be heard and not ignored.

Keep on developing Mars! There is indeed no competition, but perhaps a bit of collaboration and partnership in the future once we have some of our products more developed if you’re interested, in the true kinship spirit of the word ‘harmony’. We’ll be in touch brother :slight_smile:

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Sorry new here but from the get go, feels like this would be a plea of criticism er tu backhanded shill…sorry again i have no idea.

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That’s not my read at all, I would say it’s clearly about funding while being veiled as a ‘community problem’.

A massive MMORG is being described which would need a budget in the millions and years of development, and at the same time saying the only reason they got this far is because they sold some NFT’s. There is quite the disconnect here. They agreed to the grant and milestones in the beginning, and chose to move ahead. And to be honest, a project that requires a budget to the scale they are ‘promising’ a tiny grant like this is should not really even be consequential to them.

Between the CU whitelist fiasco and lootswap shenanigans, I personally don’t feel this is someone who is in a position to criticize the community.

To your point about the whitelist. Regardless of whether NFT’s were selling slow or not (and that should not even matter on a serious muiltimillion dollar project), they permitted 10000 potential land sales to about 7000 available plots, just the simple math shows there was always the potential for the community to be excluded, which of course they were. It was an extremely bad decision. Where does this leave the community who have come to harmony recently? They have always had the opportunity to correct this, and still do if they minted more gen 0 land, but instead have chosen to dig their heals in.
Yes there will be more mints and characters (if they don’t run out of money first) but we all know that’s not the same. I’m nobody, but this is not the type of community model I want to see on harmony.

My advice to cu is put your head down, get to work, deliver on some of the promises, and stop fracturing the community because of your financial issues and bad decisions.

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Respectfully, this is not about funding, first of all. Second, this actually isn’t true regarding spending years and millions to bring a product like ours to market. Vulcan Verse, a cross-chain MMORPG metaverse game, took about 1 year to get their Beta launched and spent perhaps $2M, if that, and that was over a long period of time that included VC funding from Merit Circle, etc… You are thinking in terms of traditional MMORPG games which are not comparable if you want an accurate assessment of development time and funding.

Again, you are missing the point or the concerns I raised. We do not need the $10K and in fact some of it is still sitting in our treasuries. We found our own ways to fund our ambitious project and are doing fine. Your attempt to attack our project and brush off the concerns of many projects and validators is something I hope Harmony does not do because it simply will not make them go away. If you actually care about the Harmony ecosystem being healthy and thriving, you will take what I wrote to heart and consider the implications if the voices of a large Consortium of projects and validators are not addressed.

If you believe what I wrote is fracturing the community then you are unaware of the state of the ecosystem. What I am attempting to do is improve the ecosystem and unite it, and that includes making sure the Harmony team is demonstrating fairness in its decision-making process, hence my call for the core team to hire leads in communications and strategic business development. Nobody likes looking at their shadow side but if you don’t it will take over and lead to self-sabotage. The same holds true with any organization that is a de facto entity in itself.

Please do not suggest we have financial issues when we do not. In fact, I would say we are one of the most solvent projects on Harmony at the moment. We were not asking for money in this thread but using our experience as an example to highlight a broader issue. I will keep doing whatever I can to improve Harmony as its success and the success of CU are interrelated.

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You can’t say the emphasize isn’t on CU when you keep circling back to how CU is being seemingly intentionally avoided, that CU is being one of the leading games being developed, it’s CU this, CU that.

There are tons of projects that are working their hardest to even get considered a grant and yet just because you guys set your standards so high that you deserve to be approached and be in front of the queue?

I don’t echo the whole you’re standing up or acting as a voice for other projects, you can circle around but ultimately you only raised these concerns because it leads back to money.

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I had said it takes millions and years to develop an MMORG, you say I am wrong and use vulcanverse as an example which took millions and years (over a year for beta)… what?
I suggested financial issues because you stated “The only reason we are still able to move forward to developing it is because we used the $ONE proceeds from our 2D Wizards NFT sale to fund our team of developers.”, which is some very thin capital on a project of this scope.
CU doesn’t have the capital to complete this project, which is of course a financial problem. Maybe it will gain the capital, who knows.
you are missing my point, between the CU and Lootswap ‘things’, CU is one of the more divisive projects on harmony due to their treatment of the community as a whole, and the point is I don’t think CU is best model to spearhead any community reform. one of the other “Many projects and validators” without this baggage would be better suited.
I don’t disagree with the sentiment, but this seems disingenuous, 3/4 of the original post is about CU and CU money.

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I think I need to be a bit more direct and clearer and address a couple of elephants.

I knew and could see this coming months ago. I didn’t want to say anything as most likely will be labelled negative.

Harmony team, there should be a space where we can chat and ask difficult questions and by dialogue, we can achieve consensus. No that does not disturb the Harmony’s ecosystem it helps it.

I have set up a pre-DAO DAO space/organisation and run it of 10ys. The same discussions the same problems and everyone was complaining. Don’t get me wrong there have been plenty of good times and events and experiences but I’m focusing on similar challenges atm.

Let’s ask questions/chat:

Such us, if this is a social experiment it worries me that it will fail or at best float in the background of Web3 if fundamental issues are not addressed.

What is happening now is not necessarily an ego thing rather than a cultural thing Happy to expand on this.

DAOs are too cumbersome and slow… let’s chat…

And the big elephant in the room money. No one will do anything without getting paid. Again, a cultural issue but this needs to be addressed. Yes, people volunteer but ……

So, in an essence, I agree with CU’s core concerns.

However……

Let’s take our project for example:

I know it will make 1-2mil turnover within 6 months however, I need the original allocated 50K and another 250K not when targets are delivered but now in the wallet so I can pay the DAO govs and 2-3 devs pay for marketing pay servers set up a validator node etc. I also need 10h per week basic salary extra from the budget for myself at £100ph to pay my bills so I can focus on the project instead of looking for another project work.

I also know that in 3-4ys this will be worth 2bil+ (done properly) and it is not an if, just simple when and who will do it first. Solana is already on their payment system and they are taking it seriously with core team dev support.

I also believe that what I am proposing will create a massive boost to Harmony as it will be a candidate to be the Network for payments.

Now if I put all that in a well-structured proposal to ask the above-required money no matter what the potential or how good I or my team may be, I will receive a simple reply with links to look at the funding guidelines.

Will that piss me off? Yes, it will mainly because I spent days writing it and no one even bothered reading it.

So, I don’t propose anything atm and continue working. Anyway, its my business and I don’t expect Harmony to see it the way I see it.

Will this be a correct reply from Harmony? If you consider they are a small team and inundated with funding requests and have to maintain the Network. Yes

So, I will not complain that I am ignored.

Is it sustainable? NO

Here is another frustration as I see Harmony spent way too much on Gamifying Defi. I got nothing against the gaming industry but it looks like they are putting their eggs into one basket and it looks they are ignoring other projects on the network.

Though I can see the why, adoption, however, there are more avenues for adoption Harmony.

Maybe I am wrong, let’s discuss.

There is no reason to feel left out because Harmony is not talking to you.

Regards to having project and development managers yes ok however you don’t want to have high paid business gurus that only talk and have 30ys experience in the blockchain (exaggerating a bit lol) but are 25y olds Yeap I have met them!

I feel these people should come from within the wider web3 community and at least some should have a good understanding of business, ecosystem and socio/cultural behaviour.

Finally, what type of ecosystem are we building. There is a talk about basic salary. There is confusion!

There is and will be a lot of arguments because people want to be paid.

Instead of a few getting paid, is it feasible to aim for everyone to get $500-$700 a month. I know it is counterintuitive however that will help a lot of people and free their time.

This is social change and from this base, no more complains! The individual has the opportunity to do something in the ecosystem. No matter how strange this sounds event that people who do nothing will be paid.

Some that are officially paid to do work or already have a healthy business portfolio can opt-out or donate their payment.

Anyone who wishes to grow can apply for grads, VC financing etc all the usual,

Or spent their time studying or just be hands-on solving problems or chat in the social channels and slowly grow their income or investments or anything basically.

Question to the projects that are getting funding do you actually think what you can offer back to the ecosystem while growing?

I think looking after the wider stakeholder ecosystem and responsible social and corporate governance needs to be part of any future proposals. It should not have to be implemented right away just the seed to be planted. Even a one-man/woman band project should be considering this.

It can be as simple as considering spending 2-3h a month talking to community members or running a validator node, anything basically.

I believe this way ecosystem culture is embedded and grows with each project instead of being an annoying add-on because it is a legal requirement that frustrates CEOs and project managers as it adds extra workload.

Eventually, we will achieve decentralisation (especially when each successful project runs a node) and a functional economy where mega-rich can exist but with a new fairer ecosystem culture.

Ok that is it for now

This will be £100 ph x 3h = £300 + VAT thanks lol :laughing: !! just joking.

PS

Never, ever forget we got free money to make something happen because Harmony believed in us!

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DAOs are too cumbersome and slow… let’s chat…

I don’t think DAOs need to be cumbersome or slow…But In fact most DAOs here are not really DAOs at all.

An organization with a treasury is not a DAO, if they lack autonomy.

DAOs should not need external funding, because DAOs are Autonomous, it’s in the name,

I thought the whole point is that a DAO can sustain itself and pay members via token emissions.

So I think it’s not a DAO if it requires funding from the Harmony team because if it cannot sustain itself, there is no autonomy. I would describe them as PseudoDAOs, or not even that, just organizations with a treasury.

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I understand what DAO should be thought do we know the socio / economic implications and implementations?
Rightly or wrongly we as humans have evolved various companies of which some like flat organisations and LLPs resemble DAOs.

Trying to set rules to how something functions without evolution it’s like try so do deep sea scuba dive but don’t learn how to swim or understand the danger.
It like me insisting that the Spread Shard Hopping Blocks network concept is the next solution without understanding the mathematics behind existing technologies.

We have a concept and trying to make it happen while learning how to make it happen.

Harmony kindly giving free money to set up a DAO and I think they have to have a bit of saying so that a culture can form from an open dialogue.
As I said we are not ants
Another thing about DAOs they need tech to run and the tech is not there yet so we end up with endless voting and not enough participation at which point many govs get bogged down with too much work.

Anyway, I don’t know all the ins and outs of DAOs but her is what I think it will happen if we don’t act seriously and without structure.

DAOs will be pushed at the side when the big corps pump the big money on blockchain tech and small networks will die or operate at the fringes just about surviving.
No one course know the future but certain actions lead to certain results.
I do not want to be there to prove my above statement right I want to make things happen that avoid that statement happening and making Harmony the network of networks.

Decentralisation will come after various iterations and evolutions as it is a natural occurring phenomenon but can’t be forced.

Hence my suggestion to see how RnD departments operate understand the socio / economic implications and study more while doing the work.

On another note I went to the local Chamber of commerce I said I got funding for a DAO based tech asking for matched funding. The reply was in one sentence including the word “unstructured”
So far, my experiment idea is to start with a Boards of non-executives but with treasury to do things and steer the company without slowing or interfere with it. The more the company grows the more it funds the DAO the more culture it created eventually merging those together in a functioning autonomous system with ai that can help making decisions.

There are of course many other possible scenarios

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I’m going to publicly support wizzardblizzard’s concerns. Tranquil Finance has expressed similar concerns on Harmony’s funding process.

Project X funding is a huge untransparent mess and major reforms needs to happen going forward.

Why should builders keep investing in Harmony if they are not part of the “favorites” that the Harmony core team chooses?

This is very concerning and shows unfairness of the Project X funding process. Tranquil Finance is one of the largest projects with the huge traction and like CU, funded by our strong community and grassroot support. Harmony Core has never took initiative to reach out to us on Project X funding.

It is only when we publicly voiced our concerns that they reached out to us.

Before anyone brings up the 1BTC incentives, I want to clarify that this is not funding for our project; we don’t get any funds to continue development. Tranquil Finance is also contributing half of the incentives so this is not free for us either. Due to recent price action, we are funding 2/3 of the incentives of the 1BTC market and have over 90% of the all the 1BTC bridged, which is above and beyond our original commitments with Harmony on these incentives.

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Project-X required that we (investment teams) speak with projects at EthDenver.

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image1510×656 72.2 KB

For more detail: Notion – The all-in-one workspace for your notes, tasks, wikis, and databases.

Project-X was an experimental investment vehicle by Harmony. Harmony investors (the teams which were formed) laid out their criteria/thesis - at their discretion - for the projects in which they decided invest from the Harmony treasury with the goal of expanding and growing the ecosystem.

Here’s an example thesis put together by myself and @frwrdslosh prior to our arrival at EthDenver. We used this as our guide (not absolutely requirements) for our investments:

Project-X Thesis (Daniel + Mikey): Notion – The all-in-one workspace for your notes, tasks, wikis, and databases.

Could we have been more communicative about Project-X? Absolutely, though hindsight is always 20/20. We live, we work, we learn, an we adapt.

But once more, as we discussed on our previous video call last Wednesday, those involved in Project X were required to meet teams in person and that is why Tranquil was not sought after for investment opportunities.

Next Steps

If Tranquil or Cosmic Universe wishes to continue a discussion into possible investments, we’re very happy to walk each team through Harmony Venture Network. And Harmony is happy to co-invest with an outside lead investor.

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You are certainly not a nobody and you make a valid point. It may be perceived as a little hypocritical to complain about fairness while not providing an equal opportunity to the Harmony community to invest in your project. That being said I am still a big supporter of CU and I believe in the project. The potential should not be overlooked, least of all by the Harmony team. But I am disappointed in the way @wizzardblizzard felt the need to belittle other Harmony projects, especially the one he “will refrain from mentioning” to get his point across.

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I’m a big fan of CU and an investor as well. When I think of Harmony gamefi projects with huge (DFK level) potential CU and Defira are among the first of a small list that come to mind so its disappointing to hear that both projects feel neglected. I also agree with many of the concerns you have laid out and I believe they should be taken seriously and addressed by the Harmony team. However, I wish you didn’t feel the need to speak disparagingly about another up-and-coming gamefi project as if to say “how are you funding this project and not us?” This was unnecessary and your post would still have the same impact without it. Perhaps a little humility and self-reflection regarding your own efforts towards equality/fairness (i.e, your whitelist) is in order. That being said I wish nothing but the best for CU and I hope Harmony recognizes and appreciates the value you bring to the ecosystem. :blue_heart:

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For the record, I did not belittle any Harmony project. I believe I’m on good terms with almost all projects I’m aware of. I didn’t want to name names because it was unnecessary to illustrate my point. We’re actually quite invested in the projects I was referring to because we strongly believe in them.

In any case, I appreciate Daniel extending a helping hand and having a meeting with me soon which he proposed. I am sure the Harmony team wants to do whatever it can within its means to strengthen the ecosystem and have greater communication with other projects as well to take temperature checks and see if there is any feedback they believe can improve Harmony. These convos aren’t easy for anyone, but as long as everyone wants what’s best for the ecosystem, they will lead to something very fruitful.

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Maybe you did not mean to make it sound that way but its certainly not a stretch of the imagination to interpret it the way I described. From what I can tell others saw it as a dig as well (which likely warped my own perception). I’ll take your word for it though. No hard feelings, my friend.

I’m happy to see you did not write this post in vain. Looking forward to the future of CU.

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This post sums up my thoughts quite well.

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CU and DeFira should move to other chain, they’re just wasting their effort in Harmony tbh

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Honestly I hope Harmony team makes it a priority for promising projects like Tranq / CU to obtain some support, whether it be the harmony venture network you spoke about or something else. Reason being other projects will need to step up and fill in the massive TVL hole when DFK moves to AVAX subnet. Tranq / Defira in particular is shaping up to be the strongest project after DFK.

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