Mini Doge

I'm not sure who in their right mind would want to take the helm of that. We are not talking about some community-governed foundation whose board simply needs replacing. We are talking about a network of legal entities scattered across different countries, with employees, contractors and commercial relationships, claiming to represent a decentralized cryptocurrency without ever having received a mandate from its community to do so. And what a legacy to inherit, holy cannoli. - The trademarks, man. With what in Italy we used to call a "supercazzola" masked as legal acumen and higher purpose, they claimed they needed to protect the Dogecoin trademarks from abuse and trademark trolls. Instead, they entered into (from what we can read on paper, on the SEC filings) lucrative commercial licensing agreements, and the resulting trademark licensing rights even ended up listed among the collateral for a $5.5 million loan taken out by House of Doge. This is in the SEC filings. The very thing they supposedly wanted to protect on behalf of the community became a commercial bargaining chip. - The promotion of disastrous commercial ventures. They used their channels to enthusiastically promote ventures such as CleanCore's Dogecoin treasury, presenting them as extraordinarily positive developments for Dogecoin. The treasury arrangement subsequently collapsed, agreements were terminated, financial statements were restated, and CleanCore sold basically all its Doge holdings. Yet I have seen NOT A SINGLE EFFORT from the Foundation to explain to the very same audience what went wrong. And some of the people involved in the Foundation also held positions in the companies involved in these arrangements, with financial interests documented in SEC filings. - The Italian football club. Through House of Doge, they associated the Dogecoin name with the acquisition of a substantial stake in @TriestinaCalcio, a historic but unfortunate Italian football club that subsequently faced technical insolvency, restructuring of debt, and the risk of judicial liquidation. Thanks also to the way this was presented in the press, people now believe "Dogecoin owns a football club" and associate Dogecoin itself with the club's financial troubles. This was all over the news in Italy's main news channels. The damage done was huge. - The community accounts. Accounts that built enormous followings through their association with Dogecoin and its open-source developers have been used for commercial promotion. The former dogecoin_devs account has now even been rebranded as Dogecoin Labs, a commercial venture. We still have no clear public explanation of who authorized this, whether control was transferred, and on what terms. These accounts were built on the credibility and work of people who were contributing to an open-source project, not building an audience for private companies. And that's hardly an exhaustive list. Just to mention one, even the financial accounts of the Foundation's UK entities are overdue. Now: I am not a lawyer. And I won't pretend to know whether any of these arrangements might have legal consequences in the various jurisdictions involved. That's for the lawyers and courts and judges to determine. But morally? I have zero hesitation in calling what has happened a grotesque betrayal of community trust, and of the trust of people who worked alongside some of these individuals for years. I genuinely struggle to imagine why any serious, independent person would want to inherit this mess and all the baggage that comes with it. The attraction for someone interested in controlling the remaining assets and commercial relationships is rather easier to understand. And that brings me to the fundamental problem with the idea of electing a new board. Why should the Dogecoin community have to rescue or rehabilitate an organization that was never elected to represent it in the first place? Dogecoin doesn't need to be rescued by a new board of "directors". Almost everybody around crypto is corrupted or tends to become corrupted. Dogecoin needs its independence respected. The Foundation's failure is not Dogecoin's, thankfully.

In case I haven't made my position on the Dogecoin channels clear enough. Honest companies will create their own channels and push their own channels, not take control of community-run ones. And to all the directors of the "Foundation" who allowed this and other things to happen: I am disgusted, about this and about many other things, like the shilling of private companies and the shilling of corporate maneuvers via marketing posts through all your channels. And I know that some of your old selves would be disgusted by it too. I am really not mad or angry; I hardly ever am. I am disgusted.

My intervention was among other things AGAINST the takeover of the dogecoin channels by Dogecoin Labs. They took control of community resources (the old dogecoin_devs X account that in the past was used by Dogecoin Core developers was renamed to DogecoinLabs) because the Dogecoin “Foundation” (a group with no mandate to represent the Dogecoin community and which pushed several disasters over the past years) gave them access to the channel. I am against all of this and disgusted by it. Do not try to frame my opinion in support of it.

X's own Authenticity policy explicitly prohibits: "Trading, buying, selling (either through monetary or virtual compensation) or soliciting access of X accounts, including the temporary or permanent transfer or sales of accounts" Since we do not know who is posting there anymore, but we know it is not the original Dogecoin devs, we have the "right" (in this wild west of bullies, of course, we have no rights) to know so that we can determine what is going on. The old dogecoin_devs account accumulated over half a million followers through its association with Dogecoin Core development. It has now been repurposed to represent Dogecoin Labs, a commercial venture. This is a simple fact, I am not sure how it can be event contested. So the question is: was the account simply renamed by its original operators, or was control transferred to a new commercial entity as part of any commercial arrangements? If the latter, wouldn't that potentially violate X's own rules? Do you know what actually happened? Because I haven't seen a public explanation. Source: help.x.com/en/rules-and-poli…

I am sure @billlee will peddle this to @elonmusk, but say what you want about Musk, Musk ain't stupid.