"And Ben, I'm coming for everything you care about. FAFO"
A while back a formerly prominent member of our community sent me a message demanding 250 ETH to "settle" the grievances he had with some of the decisions we made with the direction of the business, and threatening several actions if this demand wasn’t complied with.
After consulting with our counsel, a decision was made to ignore this clear extortion attempt, and continue to push forward on my duties to continue building the company. (This is not the first time this person has sent a demand like this to a project founder)
Since then, because he didn't get his way, this individual has unfortunately done everything in his power to to drag my name across social media. Sharing private DMs in an attempt to spin a picture that quite frankly exists only in his mind.
One of these DMs contained a disparaging statement I made about a fellow founder which I do regret as it was based on bad info I received. I have since been in contact with this founder to explain, and apologize, which was accepted and understood.
Now, however - among this disgruntled former holder's social media tirades, he has escalated beyond defamation, and crossed into the territory of both direct and indirect threats to myself and my family.
This is not ok and if it continues, appropriate action will be taken on our behalf.
Not agreeing with some decisions that were made is one thing. As you all know I am extremely accessible to chat, and have been since the start of Killabears.
However threats to myself and "everything I care about" because you didn't agree with some decisions made from a business standpoint is beyond inappropriate.
We take feedback from the community very seriously. That doesn't always mean we implement it.
Our focus is on building this business in a way that sets it up for long-term success based on our past successful track record of building businesses.
With the way the markets have been behaving over the past 6-12 months, this may not be openly apparent to some, but I can tell you we are executing from the standpoint of a very long term vision we have with the bears and the ecosystem as a whole.
Not every decision is right. Mistakes will be made. Just as it is with all startups in the early stages. When this happens we simply make adjustments based on feedback, data, and strategy, and move forward.
For the community members who continue to support us, we sincerely appreciate you.
The amount of work our team have put in, and continue putting in as we work to build and navigate through this new and experimental industry is something I'm incredibly proud of.
It's unfortunate that I even had to respond to this publicly, but I wanted to set the record straight.