Spring is just around the corner. Finally.

I’m sorry. Yesterday, I said that Sayonara, Substratum would be my second to last post about Substratum. So, that would make this my last post. I lied. This won’t be my last post because Substratum CMO Christian Pope’s statements are too amazing to not write about. Pope, who is well known for referring to Substratum’s financially irresponsible misreporting of ICO funds as “a bunch of smoke and mirrors” recently took to Telegram to shed some light on Binance’s planned delisting of the SUB token.

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I hinted at the potential for Substratum delistings on exchanges four months ago, and it looks like it finally happened. Following a delisting from Kucoin earlier this year, Binance has announced that will be delisting CLOAK, MOD, SALT, SUB, and WINGS from its trading platform. Over the past few months, I’ve spent a considerable amount of time researching Substratum, so I felt the need to comment on the delisting of the SUB token, and express my thoughts about why it happened and what to expect moving forward. In short, SUB’s delisting from Binance is a black swan event – one that I doubt the project will ever fully recover from. I suspect this will be my second to last post about Substratum if things play out the way I think they will. Let’s get into it.

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Yesterday, ICON Foundation announced that the Seoul Metropolitan Government “issued mobile letters of appointment to its Blockchain Governance Team using ICON’s public blockchain” and that “government and supporting agencies are expected to take the first step in leveraging both public and private blockchain systems.”

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Recently, I published an article on CryptoSlate about SubstratumNode v0.4.2, where I performed a series of speed tests to gauge the performance of the network. The technical details about the test were included in an early draft, but were omitted in the final revision due to the lengthiness of the technical jargon. This article is meant to serve as an accompaniment to the CryptoSlate article for people who wish to know more about the test configuration.

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I’ve always been a proponent of shooting photos with a “real camera”. Over the years, I’ve owned and used a number of real cameras including a Nikon D200, Fujifilm X100, Fujifilm X-Pro1, Fujifilm X100S, and most recently a Fujifilm X-Pro2. I also own a vintage Leica M2-R, but that’s a story for another day. The point is I never saw my iPhone, the camera that is always in my pocket, as a “real camera” – at least not until a few days ago.

So, what changed?

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CCN:

Have you ever heard the expression ‘hope for the best and prepare for the worst’? Chinese cryptocurrency giant Huobi, a former ‘big three’ exchange, is doing exactly that. Although the exchange is a profitable business that still makes money every month, they are laying off staff and preparing for the worst amidst this current bear market.

A little known fact – Huobi had a Global Writers Program consisting of 90 or so freelance writers. The purpose of the program was to leverage freelancers’ skills and audiences to spread Huobi-related content for link building and other SEO purposes. There’s nothing wrong with that, especially considering the fact that we were given the freedom to express our real opinions. In exchange for our posts, we were compensated with a certain amount of Huobi Token (HT) that corresponded with our tier – writers with larger audiences received more HT. Here are a few examples of posts I wrote for Huobi.

• The Current State of Crypto Assets on Huobi Talk Ep. 33
• 5 Margin Trading Tips on Huobi Global
• Project PAI – A Decentralized Personal AI on the Blockchain

The program was initially very well run, and the associated Telegram group was filled with skilled and collaborative writers. Things started going downhill when the crypto market turned bearish. Writers lobbied for Huobi to move to a USD-pegged distribution for HT – something I had routinely inquired about since the start of the program. Over the past few months, HT has hovered between $1.00 and $1.30. For me, researching for, writing, and editing an article was often a 4-5 hour effort – this translates to a wage of $6/hour. FYI, minimum wage at McDonald’s pays 50% more and doesn’t require knowledge about blockchain and dealing with unpredictable payment schedules.

I checked out of Huobi’s writers program sometime in August 2018 after writing this post. It was obvious that Huobi was not going to move to a USD-pegged compensation model, and continuing to write for $6/hour while similar programs at other exchanges were (and still are) paying closer to $75/hour was a waste of time. A few days ago, I scrolled through the program’s Telegram group and noticed a few writers discussing the most recent payment cycle which was already over 40 days late. Let’s do some quick math.

• Huobi’s 24-hour trading volume was $231,391,548.
• Huobi charges a 0.2% fee for both makers and takers. VIPs receive a fee discount between 10-50% depending on trading volume. For the purpose of this calculation, let’s use an average fee rate of 0.18%.
• 0.18% of $231,391,548 is $416,504.79 in revenue per day, or approximately $12,495,143.70 per month. Keep in mind this figure doesn’t account for other revenue streams.
• The Global Writers Program currently has 90 members. With HT at $1.05, a calculation using the program’s middle tier (this is being generous) results in a payout of $5,670 in HT per article. Writers are split into two groups, so Huobi effectively pays $2,335 per article. With four articles per month (again, this is very generous), the cost of running the program is $9,340 – approximately 0.075% of monthly revenue. In reality, the figure is likely closer to 0.04% or less.

So, what’s the point here?

Huobi’s lack of respect for its writers is very unprofessional. This is even more apparent when considering the following message which was sent from Dominick, a Huobi staff member, to the program’s Telegram group on January 25, 2019.

First and foremost, I appreciate your hardwork during the time as Global Writers. As with all programs items shift and focus change to other key metrics. Unfortunately, the Global Writers program has been switched into a social media ambassador program. We will give you task to do and sometimes payment will be given and sometimes it will be upon you to do them to win possible Huobi merch. HT will not be the main incentive unless you can show or present to me how what you did had a direct effect on business. Just wanted to give you a heads up. Thanks again for your hard work. Please like and follow all social media channels. Huobi Global on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn, and Reddit. To participate in this new program thanks! Questions? Feel free to ask me on PM

Instead of fulfilling a financial commitment that is now over 40 days late, Huobi announced the cancellation of the Global Writers Program and proceeded to ask writers to shill on social media in exchange for “Huobi merch”. As expected, several writers brought up concerns regarding the status of the overdue payments now that the Global Writers Program has been shut down. In response, the Dominick said the following.

I am going to leave this group for awhile i will be back after CNY. I can’t read these comments anymore too negative. Enjoy.

Yes, that’s right. Instead of doing his job, Dominick has chosen to leave the group for two weeks because writers asking about extremely overdue payments is “negative”. I never thought of Huobi as a world-class exchange, but I used to have respect for the company. Unfortunately, bear markets have a strange way of revealing true intentions, and it’s clear that Huobi is only interested in raking in profits from trading fees without fulfilling financial commitments to the “small fish”.

What a joke.

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According to a screenshot shared in a Reddit post by u/vdjalov, Exodus, one of the most popular desktop cryptocurrency wallets, has removed support for Substratum’s SUB token. Substratum community member @BitcoinHeinze was able to get a detailed explanation regarding the removal from a member of Exodus’ support team. Exodus’ full response can be found below, but here are a few key points to take away.

• Exodus fully expected to continue supporting SUB following its recent smart contract update.
• The Substratum team was unable to maintain a consistent level of communication to ensure a smooth implementation of the new token into Exodus’ cryptocurrency wallet.
• Exodus deemed SUB’s updated token as “a buggy asset to manage”.
• SUB holders who have tokens locked away for the AMPX airdrop should NOT send them anywhere. Exodus does not control your private key, so just import the key into another wallet that supports the updated SUB token like MyEtherWallet.

Here is Exodus’ full response to @BitcoinHeinze.

Hey Markus, Thank you for reaching out to us with your question. I’m glad to hear Exodus is your favorite wallet! Allow me to give you more background on this: SUB has been on Exodus for a long time now, they did indeed change their smart contract address recently; our original intention was to simply upgrade the contract and keep SUB as a supported asset. Unfortunately, the smart contract change did not go as smoothly as we expected and SUB is now a buggy asset to manage. We have extremely high-quality standards and we cannot allow an asset to cause significant damage to user-experience. It is for this reason that we have decided to delist SUB from Exodus on the next release. This is not a decision we ever take lightly and it truly breaks our heart whenever we have taken this step in the past, but we think this is the right decision to make. Those who were simply holding SUB in Exodus and not interacting with it much would likely not have noticed any difference in their experience while using Exodus. However, users who were using the Exodus built-in exchange to trade SUB, those sending and receiving SUB, or even customers who wanted to audit their balance were experiencing issues that compromised their ability to seamlessly use Exodus to manage their tokens. This is unacceptable and we take responsibility for not taking action much sooner. We try our best to work with asset teams to resolve any issues. In this case, without consistent communication or a solid fix from the SUB team, we had to come up with a temporary solution so you can move your SUB tokens out from Exodus. We advise you to move your SUB tokens out of Exodus before February 14th since it will no longer display in your wallet. Something very important I need to communicate is that Exodus as a company does have any control over your assets, and our decisions as a company can only impact the design of our Graphical Interface, and never your assets. This means the delisting SUB will only make it invisible within your Exodus wallet, but it will still be there, on your address and subject to management using your private key. Some people have brought to our attention that SUB is planning to launch an airdrop for people that hold their SUB on their current addresses until late March. If you want to benefit from this airdrop, you can safely leave SUB on your Exodus wallet and move it later using a Technical Ethereum Wallet to access your address via your private key, we will always be here to guide you on that 🙂 I hope this will help explain the situation and our decisions. Please let me know if you have any followup questions.

All my best,
-Rodrigo

A few key points.

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I can’t believe it’s been almost six months since TVK’s visit to Tokyo. Not sure how this photo ended up like this because a Seijo Ishii supermarket in Minato-ku is the exact opposite of dystopian.

Last week, ICON announced the start of pre-registration for the network’s P-Reps. Since the election of the network’s P-Reps is a community endeavor, detailed information regarding the registration process can be found on ICON’s newly launched community portal. P-Rep registration marks an important milestone in the ICONSENSUS roadmap, and it’ll be interesting to see what kind of candidates come forward to participate in the P-Rep election.

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