Hi @Manadu This deserves a direct response, point by point as we hear your frustration. The price is down hard and we will not wave that away. But several of the specific claims are either wrong or describe how things work very differently from reality, so let’s separate the two.
“This looks like a rug.” A rug is a team that takes the capital and abandons the project. The record here is the opposite: team, contributor and partner tokens remain on their full original vesting schedules, with none accelerated. The Economic Engine is live and capturing value today, and the Obol Stack ships publicly on GitHub. Teams that are rugging do not keep their own tokens locked for years while building in the open. Disagree with our execution if you like, but “rug” is not an accurate description of it.
The market maker accusation. The claim that a market maker spent a year “dumping” tokens on loan to bankrupt retail misstates how these arrangements work. A loan and option structure exists to quote both sides of the book, not to run a one way short to zero. The market maker earns from spread and from the option, and it has to return the borrowed tokens regardless of price. What we can confirm, and already have, is that most market maker agreements expired on May 7, one year after launch, and we are reworking them toward protocol owned liquidity.
“Investors hold equity plus tokens; retail holds only tokens.” That structure is accurate, and it is how essentially all venture investing works. Early backers take equity or token exposure, or both, in return for early, illiquid, high risk capital. It is not evidence of bad faith, and it does not mean retail “holds nothing.” The token’s value case rests on the Economic Engine and Obol’s role in distributed validation, not on anyone’s equity position.
“You promised no one would sell, yet 22% moved.” We never promised that. No one can promise how independent holders will behave, and claiming we could would itself be misleading. What we said is that we expected conviction once the artificial lock came off. Our own data two weeks after the waiver shows roughly 78% of investor tokens still held, voluntarily. The 22% is not a number we are hiding. It is the inverse of the figure we published ourselves.
“No aggregator reflects the unlocked supply.” This is now live on CoinMarketCap, which reflects the updated supply and unlock schedule.
The three “options,” specifically option 2. Driving the price “to $1 in a single candle” and holding a band is a request to manufacture a price, which is market manipulation. We will not do that, and no legitimate project should. Engineering an artificial candle to front run an announcement is exactly the conduct that lands teams and tokens in serious legal trouble, and it would betray the very holders it claims to help. Option 3, a relaunch or migration, does not create value either; it relabels it. The only durable path is real usage and revenue, which is what the Economic Engine and Obol Stack are built for.
“Transparency is pointless.” Transparency is precisely what lets you build your own case. The on chain tracing in this thread is only possible because nothing is hidden. It was never offered as a substitute for performance. It is the precondition for holding us to it.
Governance. Governance was formally paused on March 20, with the full reasoning published here. Token holder votes have always been advisory rather than binding under the Association’s Swiss structure, and that was disclosed.
Market conditions are genuinely hard and the price reflects that. We would rather engage with the substance than the framing, and we will keep answering specific, verifiable questions here.