It’s pretty out of context to use
@CelestineSloths' The Great Rebellion event to paint
@zmanian in a bad light.
For anyone interested in the lore:
> Zaki commissioned the art and stealth-launched the collection
> His own cultural mark, personal project
> Lore and art inspo around modular culture, sloths=lazy, refs the Lazy Ledger paper
> Collection took off to $6k per and $15m mcap w zero mktg in 3 days
> Instantly became the cultural hub for the modular narrative
> Many founders and builders became Sloths
> Zaki wanted to expand the collection
> Bc founders and inspirational people wanted custom Sloths, not common floor items @ $4k
> Zaki: “custom Sloths will be issued to founders, original artist will draw, may be auctions for special events, will be at most 5 pcs per week”
> Community rebels, cuz inflation, roadmap not clear
> Zaki: “this is not a democracy”
> Community rebels further, situation becomes toxic
This is when that dm ss was leaked. It was between the Sloths cm at the time and Zaki.
At the time, we had one of the most vibrant and active communities in the space, and that level of activity naturally comes with toxicity during crisis moments. (which i loved tbh, it was fun organizing in tg dms and rebelling until fp dropped -70% and things escalated into death threats)
So did he burn anything down? No. That’s the important part. After three days of mayhem and intervention from many influential ppl, Zaki decided to step down as lead and let the community find its own way. The cm became the lead, took over the treasury, royalties, and socials. Sloths recovered back to its pre-rebellion fp, and things stabilized.
Zaki literally said “ok” and left his personal project in the hands of the community. I know he cared deeply about Sloths as a passion project and a cultural mark. I genuinely believe Zaki commissioning Sloths is comparable to wealthy families commissioning art during the renaissance. Patronage driven by cultural intent. More people should take initiatives like this for our culture.
We always expected more from him, to be actively involved in Sloths, even though he was also on the board of ECC, running multiple businesses, VC and advisor to dozens of projects. When we didn’t like his ideas, we effectively CTO’d him and he was cool with it.
So did we manage to find our way? No. It was fine for a few months, then another round of power struggles followed. The cm/new lead resigned, the fp dropped, the narrative faded, and funds were spent on projects that were eventually canceled.
Now we’ve reinstated the Second Monarchy, and Zaki is back as the Slothfather. He’s providing extremely valuable input on what’s ahead. Having someone like Zaki involved is priceless for the collection.
I sometimes think about what would’ve happened if we’d gone his way. In retrospect, it was the perfect time to expand, and doing it through custom Sloths for founders and inspirational people was a solid idea. Having Zaki as the leader instead of a random dude also had its own merits.
By the way, all those new ecosystem or narrative focused NFTs are still trying to do a version of what Zaki did with Sloths, either knowingly or without realizing how he left a mark on the NFT space.
So anyway, like I said, it’s super out of context to use The Great Rebellion in this Zcash drama.
This is the Zaki who runs the Bootstrap Foundation which owns ECC that just ousted their core team.
Does this history paint a picture of integrity
@zooko?