GIDAY.ETH

I still hold 3.9M Kaspa I got from DAGLabs and Rust fund. (After I liquidated 1M about a year ago.) I'm holding way more Kas than most people who accuse me of being spiteful, lol. One day they'll realize I'm doing what's best for the project.

Dear $kas community, this is a farewell. I have a lot to say. I'll start with the ugly, move on to the bad, and end with the good. ---------- I often envisaged telling my story in Kaspa once it was concluded, but I never imagined it would end with betrayal. In the span of two days, three people whom I considered friends and colleagues not so long ago have posted ugly, unfair, and misleading comments about me, with the clear purpose of undermining my integrity, the breadth of my contributions, and my character as a whole. I want to respond to these accusations, and I want the reader to notice the common thread -- poor communication. The accusation common to all three posts is an insinuation that I am trying to squander the title of "core". Yonatan said that I "misrepresent [myself] as Core dev", Michael talked about the fact that I am "perceived as a builder", and Eyal (who wrote the ugliest thing a someone I know in person ever wrote about me, by a far margin) states that "the question remains if he can embrace humility and contribute as any other dedicated Kaspian does, without the perceived status of a "core" member." So here's the thing: I do not present myself as a core dev. Haven't for a long while now. I correct people who address me as devs. I ask conferences and interviewers not to list me as a dev. When asked what I do for Kaspa, the short answer is "education and narration", and the longer answer will mention that I used to be a core contributor, and now I occasionally help when asked. People who have been around longer know that I always preferred to introduce myself in ways that do not affiliate me with any particular group or effort. Stuff like "Knows a bit about Kaspa", "unemployed at Kaspa", etc.. Even my X bio has had "ex $kas core" in it for weeks now, ffs. Moreover, I was always approachable and receptive to comments about how I present myself. And Michael knows that. For example, he mentioned "going on to represent Kaspa’s L2 design efforts way before they were clearly understood and communicated [...]". Maybe he should have also mentioned that he brought it to my attention in private. I agreed that the optics are misleading and immediately posted a clarification: xitter.gq/DesheShai/status/18998… He acknowledged it as sufficient, said that we are "aligned", and even commended me for my readiness to accept criticism and adapt. This is an example of a phenomenon that is very rare in this post: resolving a disagreement by talking about it and reaching a solution together. Michael knows very well that, even when our relationship was very strained, he can always message me "I think you should post more explicitly that you do not consider yourself a core dev", and I would have done so gladly. I have receipts for that. He could have told me that he wants to post a clarification himself, but at least let me have a look and help him make the clarification balanced and fair. That is what made it so hurtful. Not the statement that distances me from "core", I think we've quite established that I don't really care about it. Michael's portrayal of the situation cast me in a very unfair light, making me out to be conceited, self-centered, and oblivious. Moreover, it was just unnecessary. Anyone with eyes can see that I am actively distancing myself from the core team. I changed my cover picture, added a very explicit "ex $kas core" to my X bio, and pretty much stopped answering dev questions altogether, moving forward to do my own thing. The videos I make carefully avoid any attribution to "we" or "us" that could indicate that I am a part of the dev process. I don't know what drove Michael to make this post, but I do not think it was malfeasance. Michael is not a vindictive person. What I do consider deliberate sabotage is Yonatan's reply. I hate to say it, but Yonatan is a vindictive man who is not above sabotaging those he feels have wronged him. He knew exactly what optics he was generating describing me as an "influencer and Youtuber", in a comment to a post that claims that I "don't know cryptography". What is Yonatan vindictive about? I stood up to him for the forceful way he facilitated the change in the X account. Not the decision to make the change, just the way it was facilitated. Yonatan's conduct hurt people, broke the community clean in half, and alienated passionate and long-standing community members. He could have achieved the exact same result without any of this, but he refused to communicate. I pressed on that, and got ostracized for it, and I have been facing vindictive behavior ever since, both private and public. This latest stunt is just the last in a sequence of deliberate unkind acts I have patiently gritted my teeth through while looking the other way. Eyal's post. Well, what a load of crap, which is what I'm used to from Eyal. But I have two unique grievances. One is how hypocritical he gets: The guy talks about my "vocal, aggressive, and often impulsive style" while writing a diatribe about me that is tenfold more toxic, vehement, impulsive, and cruel than my entire bibliography combined. Imagine writing a post like this about someone who is supposed to be your friend, who you know is already down, and post it publicly. And what was even the purpose? Is humiliating me supposed to be helpful? What did he try to achieve with that? But what I find truly insulting is the way he ended his lovely description of me: "albeit private conversations". This is not unfair wording, or biased framing. That is a simple lie. Eyal did approach me about my style. Once. I admit, I reacted poorly at first, for reasons that don't matter right now. But a few days later, I apologized and asked him if he still wanted to have that conversation. He said he is busy (getting ready for a conference) and he'll get back to me in a couple of days. That was more than two months ago, and it was the last time we ever interacted. I am sure that Eyal knew very well how inaccurate, unreasonable, and downright demeaning some of his statements were. Maybe that's what he wanted. I again stress the common threads here: failure to communicate and lack of integrity. A lot of people asked why we don't solve this in private. My only answer is that I tried, but there was no cooperation. That being said, what stung the most was that none of these people congratulated me on my wedding. ---------- Like every cake needs a cherry, every recent Kaspa shitstorm needs a Junny. Some background: A while ago, I was given a monthly grant from KEF and Kasmedia to write a book about GHOSTDAG and Kaspa, based on the stipulation that the grant would be paid for a period of one year. Halfway through, both Kasmedia and KEF decided to pull their funding. The payment was cut, and so was the work. Junny tried to downplay the quality of my product by describing what I produced as "two chapters in a rough draft state". In reality, I wrote about 40k words and created about 150 illustrations, which total in 200-250 pages. The reason for Junny's mistake is that he was looking at the new book website, which I created after the deal ended. I am in the slow process of migrating the book from the Kasmedia platform to the new site while heavily editing it. So far it only contains a half of what was published. So it only has about half of what was published. Having said that, here are a few posts from that website. You tell me if they merit the description "rough draft": shai-deshe.gitbook.io/unders… shai-deshe.gitbook.io/unders… shai-deshe.gitbook.io/unders… I think the work speaks for itself. But what's more important is the unpublished part. You see, I completed one part about abstract blockchains, and another part about abstract blockDAGs, and then came the most important and sensitive part: how GHOSTDAG is efficiently implemented in Kaspa. This is a complicated subject with a lot of interconnected moving parts, making it very challenging to find the correct order of introduction. As I worked on it, I kept having to reorder things. Up to this point, I would divide each chapter into small parts and post them as they are completed, but here I decided to go with a different approach: write the entire thing and publish it at once. And writing this thing is hard work. I'll let the work speak for itself. It has missing parts, it was not reviewed by anyone but me, and it needs quite a few layers of polish. And still, it is the best damn documentation of how GHOSTDAG is implemented you could find, and the only documentation of reachability queries: kasmedia.com/article/underst… Just imagine if we had this level of documentation for all central components of Kaspa. How it would benefit productivity. How easier it would make being a builder on Kaspa, especially a new builder. That was the plan, and it would have been very close to completion right now if KEF had just. let. me. finish. So does Junny's description align with reality? You decide. And Junny, if you are reading this: you are the worst person in the Kaspa community. You are a blight. So many bad things that happened can be traced back to the terrible business and conversation culture you brought into this community. The best thing the Kaspa community can do is to have you exiled to St. Helena, and they would have had they known how divisive your business practices are. Keep writing your cutesy little slander tantrums, keep trying to convince people that I "don't know cryptography", that I can't write a book, that I'm a KOL. These posts won't help you, you know. You will never be a real boy. ---------- Now, for the community as a whole. In the last two months or so, I made extreme efforts to steer clear of controversy. Despite very unkind comments made about me by Yonatan, Michael, Junny, and others, I decided to lay low and keep doing my thing. I thought the Kaspasphere was big enough for all of us, that if I ignore them, they will eventually relent. But then this three-pronged attack happened, and I just couldn't take it lying down. "Surely," I thought to myself, "the community will understand, and not stand for this injustice". I was wrong. Seeing the reaction to this character assassination made my heart sink. Seeing so few people saying "guys, what are you doing? This is insane", calling them out for the injustice. What I saw instead was people I cared about being indifferent, community members whom I spent hours and days of effort on -- answering their questions, writing posts they requested, slaying FUD -- lambasting me, mocking my appearance, belittling my work, analyzing my personality, etc.. The community ate me alive. And this is why I do not want to be associated with this community any longer. Because if I'm something, it is a man of principle. And it is against my principles to belong to a movement that eats its own. ---------- OK, that was the ugly. Let us briefly go through the bad so we can reach the good. So what does this practically mean? Essentially that I will not volunteer any of my time or resources to help Kaspa. All related X activity (including any heated discussion the current post might beget) will cease. I will not represent Kaspa on any media or platform. Interviews, AMAs, FUD slaying, educational posts, all that stuff. I will be leaving almost all social channels related to Kaspa. I am the owner of the main TG group. Due to F2A annoyances, I will not be able to leave it in the coming week (without deleting it). I will mute the group and after the week is done, transfer ownership to @LiberatedPotato and leave. I am not going to disappear from the Kaspa ecosystem or abandon any project I am involved with. I still enjoy Kaspa as a technology, and I dedicated many years to building my expertise around it. That's not a resource I am going to let go to waste. I'd say that Kaspa used to be my life, but now it's just my job. Want me to slay a fud or write a post? DM me, we can discuss prices. My content making will remain unaffected. And yes, I will still be producing content about Kaspa as I wish. I still adore Kaspa as a technology, and have a lot to say about it. ---------- OK, time for the good. First and foremost, I still have every faith that Kaspa will be a huge success. It is a uniquely good project, the only one of its kind, destined for great things. All these petty squabbles will be forgotten by history very soon, but Kaspa will prevail. I agree with Michael's assessment that Yonatan is one of the three brightest visionaries in all of crypto. My own assessment is that Michael is one of the three brightest devs in all of crypto. With these two guys at the helm, Kaspa is going places. Especially if they work on their communication issues. And it definitely doesn't end with these two. The Kaspa developer community, especially the Rusty Kaspa team, is packed to the brim with raw talent. So no, I will not be selling. While the ungratefulness of some people sank my heart, it was lifted by the kindness of others. What carried me through this is the absolute barrage of support messages and posts. It is humbling to see so many people lining up to share my impact on their lives, or rage with me, or offer advice, or tell me about themselves, or just express simple gratitude. Some people sent photos of their cat. This support didn't just lift my spirit, it is a constant reminder that I can still do great things. It is empowering to know there are so many people across the world who feel for me, appreciate me, and like me as a person. This inspired me to create a TG group for people who want to be in touch. We can be our own small community (assuming anyone joins): t.me/+91AxjMfbecdlNjE0 Bye $kas, it was fun (until it wasn't)