TokenPays hunt for Developers, DigiByte begging TPAY, and giving away part of a bank!
Alrighty, here goes! I really didn’t want to have to do this but when the main twitter account of TokenPay accuses me of emailing them, supposedly begging for a DigiByte and TokenPay partnership, I think it only fair I defend my honor.
Edit: Charlie Lee has commented on this, his update is at the end.
Edit: It seems TokenPay don’t know how coding works either (at the end), and they’ve forgotten they’re an open-source wallet somehow???
Now you might say “Well, people just won’t trust you with private information in the future if you’re going to call them out”, and that’s possibly true, but by the same respect the DigiByte community which is where my interests lay will know without a shadow of a doubt that I’m not lying about this kind of thing. If it means that DigiByte community trusts me more, but TokenPay does not, then so be it.
But because there’s no emails, I don’t even have the email details of anybody from TokenPay, I’m naturally pretty offended. I gave them the opportunity to apologize for lying, and TokenPay stating that I begged, they did the opposite:
So here we are today with an explanation about what actually happened, and why things are not always as they seem.
Yes, I’m well aware I’m not going to be painted in the best light for having to go through with revealing this all, I truly wish I didn’t have to, but as I’ve said it seems only fair I defend my integrity.
I have not now, nor will I ever beg to partner with anybody. There’s simply no need for it. I don’t care if you’re TokenPay, Binance, Coinbase, Visa, it doesn’t matter to me.
We’ve walked away from larger partnerships than TokenPay, no begging required, because it wasn’t a “good fit”, and I want to again reiterate that I have DigiBytes best interests at heart, I owe no allegiance to any other blockchain.
You can already spend DigiByte on Wirex, why would I “beg” another blockchain that’s 130 on Market Cap for a duplication of product? I’ve been insanely vocal about my dislike for crypto-creditcards (Which is basically the carrot that TokenPay are waving in front of LTC). It makes no sense!
So with that out of the way, let us begin:
I was contacted in one of our DigiByte Dev channels with the following image:
Seems harmless enough, we’ve been asked about worse. I thought I’d go and find out more about what they wanted to offer.
Now keep in mind I can’t force the DigiByte developers to do anything whatsoever, they do what they want, they work on what they want, when they want. DigiByte is not a company, not an ICO, not centrally issued, and there’s no “CEO” or individual who controls the direction of the blockchain.
So they invited me in to a group-chat:
You’ll have to excuse the fact it mentions “3 Members”, the other members have all-since left (But Derek is still in there):
So I’m in this group-chat because TokenPay have found DigiByte members in our Telegram Dev-channels and they’re now PM’ing me saying “Hey TokenPay needs help, can we help TokenPay like we’ve helped DOGE?”.
I’m open to helping, it’s not a winner-takes-all scenario in the blockchain space as I’ve stated many times, so let’s see what TokenPay need help with, and what they’re able to offer.
So this is Danny from TokenPay. Danny has posted that screenshot that he took, that he’s been sharing in the DigiByte Developer channel. Just to clarify he blanked out the top part there in his screenshot, not me.
We also have the Verge developers in there, the one’s who’ve been doing all the commits / code work:
So this lines up with the Verge team also stating that they can’t keep doing the work for TokenPay, and that TokenPay are in need of Devs. This is why they’ve pulled me in to this chat.
So what’s Danny (TokenPay) saying? Well I’ll zoom in for you:
TokenPay needs developers, ASAP. They need to overhaul their codebase to Segwit/LN + BTC Core 15/16 (Meaning 0.16).
Not the end of the world, DigiByte was once based off the older Bitcoin Core Wallet standard too, but we naturally upgraded (and often times are ahead of Bitcoin Core development), so I continue asking questions:
So yes, CryptoRekt is from Verge. Good bloke, I have no beef with them and even helped point him & Justin directly to the code they would need for DigiShield (MultiShield) to prevent earlier recent double-spend issues. Though, that can be a story for another time.
Now I’ve got to include a bit more info in the screenshot here so it includes confirmation that this was CryptoRekt stating this:
Now here’s the kicker, asking about their “offer”, this is me stating:
“I’ve been asked to come join this chat, to help you guys, and we don’t even have a clear outline of what TokenPay need help with or what TokenPay are offering in return for developer assistance?”
Seems like TokenPay are pretty desperate at this stage to me and just throwing out any words they can to get people to help. It’s OK, I’m not one to unnecessarily burn bridges, so let’s ask a little more about what they want:
Everything still all good, no begging from me or DigiByte here that I can see?
So they’ve been given a list of improvements they need to do, to get on to the Lightning Network. Although LN will work without SegWit, it’s definitely preferred. So TokenPay have apparently been told by Charlie Lee of Litecoin:
Here’s a list of things you need to do, improvements etc to get up to speed and using Lightning Network
Now at this stage I don’t know why Charlie has been telling TokenPay they need to be doing X, Y or Z. Again there’s nothing wrong with this, if TokenPay have asked Charlie Lee about Lightning Network or something, that’s not something anybody should really be surprised about. It turns out they’ve had a conference call about it:
Again, I’m not seeing any begging from me though?
I mean I’ve asked a bunch of questions about what they want help from DigiByte with but I see nothing that would even remotely resemble me begging?
It gets better though, because now you learn who wrote the tweet above where TokenPay state I was begging:
So it seems FUD BOT runs their social media? Like their Twitter! So you would expect whoever wrote that message at the start of this post, to know what happened, seeing as this person was *in* the Telegram chat.
Anyways, everything remains courteous and we mostly end the conversation:
So everything seems cordial. Great!
Still not seeing any begging from me?
So what’s this Derek is talking about a call?
Again here we’re never going to know 100% what was stated on the call, but, this is what I’m saying happened on the call (And so far it’s been pretty clear I’ve not lied, nor begged):
TokenPay are in desperate need of developers. They had one developer who was part-time who has since left, and they’ve been getting a little help from XVG but they need some more people full-time.
What proof do I have of this call? Well unfortunately no audio.
I do however have a screenshot of what took place on Skype:
So again, no begging, I’m only doing this as I mentioned there in the chat request because Danny asked us.
In Dannys words:
Now what TokenPay offered to get developers was TokenPay tokens, because they still hold a considerable amount of them (Yay for centralized pre-mines, I can’t stand them).
This upgrade from their older Core could be a good 6–12 months work for 1–2 very competent developers, depending on how far the code base has diverged, any bugs they encounter, it’s really hard to say! So it seems they’re offering TPAY in order to have DigiByte Core developers work full-time on TokenPay codebase… when the DigiByte Core developers could be off working on DigiByte-specific projects that benefit DigiByte?
Now the following is something that you’re going to have to trust I’m not lying about, or at least take with a grain of salt. So far of the two parties involved in this I think it’s clear that I’ve not been lying about anything else. I’ve not begged for DigiByte to be part of TokenPay’s platform at all as they stated.
TokenPay have no developers. Their sole developer who was part-time left back in March and they’re stranded.
This also matches up with Github commits:
There’s only commits from XVG devs to TokenPay, which again matches up with what they’d stated previously in the chats above.
So, was there begging?
Nope! No none anywhere, and you’ll simply have to take my word that I continued with the same train of conversation when I called Derek Capo on Skype in that 11 minute call.
I’m really disappointed that they made this all up about me / DigiByte begging them, but I feel it’s acceptable for us to defend our name in this instance.
This also matches up very much so about them being in bed with Charlie Lee / Litecoin, getting Lightning up and going, now with TokenPay having “given” their share to Litecoin Foundation in a bank, presumably so that Litecoin Foundation will give them development time that they need so much.
Now, let me just remind you:
Adding one more thing to this, it seems I’m not the only one who’s seen through Derek and TokenPay: https://twitter.com/ToneVays/status/1017917017532362754
You should definitely be wary, that’s all that I’m saying… And I’d like to think this has offered some much needed transparency on the matter.
UPDATE #1:
Charlie Lee has commented on this on Twitter:
Apparently he’s not had any call about Lightning Network with TokenPay. That’s only mentioned here on this Medium article, so I’m going to presume Charlie has read part of this post, at the very least the part where I hypothesize about what TokenPay need to do to upgrade their wallet.
I’m completely up-front about not knowing what this conference call TokenPay have supposedly had with Charlie, IF there was any at all. However, it seems very clear there’s been no truth to anything that TPAY are claiming.
As always, I appreciate Charlie taking the time to say hi through Twitter as he has in the past, and, I still personally have a lot of respect for him. Let’s be clear, this is TokenPay who’ve been causing troubles, and I sincerely hope that Charlie / Litecoin don’t get dragged down by TokenPay.
UPDATE #2:
It seems TokenPay have ‘stretched the truth’ even further.
Tread very carefully with TokenPay, and thankyou again to Charlie for adding his input.
UPDATE #3:
It has been pointed out to me that there have definitely been “calls” or aleast “discussions” between TokenPay and Litecoin, seeing as Litecoin Foundation and TokenPay are going “halvesies” in trying to get a branch of a local bank.
Litecoin are going to be giving developer time to TokenPay (Which they still seem to need seeing as of August there’s zero commits to their Github) and TokenPay give up their share in a local bank and have to buy another 9.9%.
Definitely something fishy when Charlie Lee is saying “I haven’t interacted with them directly”, yet he’s somehow obtained a share of a bank from Derek?
Now you might say “It was the Litecoin Foundation that has the share in the bank” which is true, but of course it’s Charlie’s face on the announcement that occurred a couple of days prior to this article being originally published (11th July). Seems fishy to me… Plus, Charlie is the Managing Director of the Litecoin Foundation, so I have a hard time believing they’ve never spoken about it and Charlie knows nothing.
Let’s just say that where there’s smoke, there’s usually fire.
It’s pretty blatantly clear that Derek and the TokenPay will lie through their teeth and can’t be trusted. It seems as though their ship is sinking fast, they have no lifeboats, and they don’t seem to care who they bring down with them on their way to a spectacular destruction.
UPDATE #4:
It seems TokenPay have forgotten they’re an open-source project. Their Core Wallet which they were asking for help with is on GitHub after all: https://github.com/tokenpay/tokenpay
Funny, I understand “tech basics”, like “TokenPay is an open-source project and has all their commit history publicly available, it’s what the Verge team were helping them with.”
In addition to this, you can see from their TokenPay Core Wallet README.md:
However I do need to correct myself. It’s now September, and I had incorrectly stated that TokenPay had not committed to their own wallet since their dev left in April. While that’s true, that it was when the TokenPay Dev left them, TokenPay haven’t actually committed anything since March, so I was wrong on that aspect (Out by a month):
Basically, there were a few other commits by CryptoRekt and JustinV (Both from the Verge team), but there’s been absolutely nothing from TokenPay since.
Again, this whole entire ordeal reeks of a scam, with Derek and the TokenPay “marketing manager” outright lying over and over again, and so I have no hesitation in saying that Derek Capo and the TokenPay team should be avoided at all costs.
