High Performance Blockchain (HPB), a project that aims to combine hardware with software to create a next level-performance blockchain, has left investors fearing for their holdings after three co-founders and half the team quit, leaving the project in the hands of the “community”. Managing Director Danny Rowshandel announced on Saturday that he, along with three co-founders half the roster of full time employees, had left the company due to a difference of direction and communication problems, with the token price crashing 40% as a result.
Another token bites the dust. I hope that there weren’t many people hodling this. One more example to show that hodling random sh*tcoins can just inflict huge losses. pic.twitter.com/QdRFZhCxly
— Devchart (Andre) (@devchart) November 9, 2019
“Community Driven Organization”
Rowshandel posted a lengthy message to members of the HPB community in Telegram which began in worrying fashion by stating that the HPB Foundation would be moving forward as a “Community Driven Organization”, which, as anyone who has been in the space for any length of time will know, is crypto-speak for “the team is abandoning the project and leaving bagholders to pick up the pieces”. This new direction, according to Rowshandel, represents a “transition from a centralized organization to a decentralized one”, which sounds nice and fluffy on the surface, but in reality simply means the team are washing their hands of the project. This fact is addressed in a much more straightforward way later in the post when Rowshandel describes the mass exodus of the project:
During the past months, I have slowly become aware that my vision towards the development of HPB is no longer aligned with the organization’s strategy, use of funding, and manner of conduct. Recent decisions within the organization were driven without my consent and were also not communicated to me prior. Therefore, I have decided to step down from my position as the Managing Director of Global Business Development. Besides myself, HPB’s three other co-founders and half of the full-time employees have decided to leave the organization.
Partnerships Set to Go
If token holders were in any doubt as to whether the departure of over half the team, including the very people who established the product, would have a negative effect on the operations, Rowshandel also seemed to confirm just that:
The…Committee Board will reevaluate all partnerships with external service providers. During this period, a few partnerships with external service providers are suspended.
All in all this leaves the project teetering on the brink of complete collapse, and rumors of an exit scam running rife, although the remaining HPB Foundation members quickly posted an update on their new ‘Community Governance’ structure, which they stated was to “better facilitate the long-term development of the HPB”, making it sound as if it was a strategy they had been planning for some time and simply couldn’t wait to put into operation, rather than a cheap and easy way to hand over responsibility of the dying project to the community. Amazingly, not that all holders were seeing it that way:
Awesome , i fully agree ! The only people selling now are those who don’t understand what they’re invested in. Easy money picking up bags like this !
— cryptoclearbear (@cryptoclearbear) November 9, 2019
I like this will grow the community HPB
— Nelson Labbé (@Nelson85356542) November 9, 2019
Clearly some are still in stage 1 of the Five Stages of Grief. Countdown to complete project closure in 3…2..1..
