May we meet in Valhalla: Liquidation & Winding Down of WSC

Hello everyone,

After the announcement made a few weeks back, which discussed the practical and necessary steps to move the community to the next level, I learned of the many practical real world impediments and cost it would take for us to simultaneously achieve our grandiose goals and ensure that the future version of our “DAO'' can operate with sufficient regulatory certainty in the different jurisdictions that we all exist within. Multiple solutions and structures were presented by and to the group. Without going into details, the most expensive and demanding one from a regulatory perspective was projected (at a rough estimate) to cost $800,000+ (and even that, with no guarantee of regulatory viability), while the least expensive legal structure proposed was projected to cost a minimum of $100,000-$120,000+ (again with reduced flexibility and still no ultimate guarantee of viability). The first structure is obviously impossible for us, considering the current valuation of the treasury, but in regards of the latter, it would not be responsible for us and all the currently inactive holders to move forward – especially since the future regulatory landscape still remains unclear and since we would need to also set aside for additional non-legal operational expenses, which would mean that costs would only continue to pile up in the future.

In addition to the above, throughout this period, some time was taken to review conversations some of you have had recently, while core contributors of WSC decided to reach out to share their innermost feelings. Throughout both experiences, I learned that the feelings of a number of leaders of our community had changed. This led to the unfortunate realization that the diversity of opinion of the community creates a parallel challenge to executing even relatively modest plans on a consensus basis. The goal of years ago, to reach the mythical penthouse floor, sit down with Cohibas, and dance religiously to ABBA was perhaps a dream beyond this current moment.

TLDR: For all of the reasons outlined above, and after some tormenting deliberation, it is abundantly clear now that the path outlined in the previous announcement (to incorporate, set up the correct legal structures, etc.) will only significantly decrease, if not completely exhaust (80-100% of it), the treasury which has been resting patiently in the multisig, without necessarily providing any real certainty of future success or even viability. As a result, it is concluded with a heavy heart that a wind down of operations for our current community should take place.

As a community, there has been material value in our conversations, ideas, and our collective dreaming. The personal relationships built will be remembered and hopefully stand the tests of time, but it is not a negative to reflect with some sadness on unfulfilled hopes while finding comfort in the value of this experience and our journey. Many of us wish that our various fantasies had come to life, but, as much as so many of us tried, it doesn’t seem to be how life works out sometimes. More often than not, Goliath kicks the shit out of David, underdogs do not prevail, and the antihero goes home to regroup. And so here we are. More importantly, this feels like the most responsible action to take at this critical junction, for the community as a whole and to give to each their own baseline for going forward.

I understand that some of you may be disappointed and that others, including inactive or less active members, may feel like this news is sudden. The feeling is shared. Instead of ending this journey on a sad note, it may be good to leave on a more positive one, so let us remember the decadent victory speeches we gave, the loud, synchronized, Gregorian chants that astronauts in the ISS kept complaining about, the many devilishly ambitious ideas that we discussed, the laughter that we shared, and all the things that we learned, not simply as WSC members, but also as fellow human travelers.

In order for a complete wind down, the treasury would need to be liquidated (via a return transfer, back amongst all of you). As such, a contract has been deployed, which you can access through a website which will be posted on our server. It has been tested and audited, but the solidity engineers amongst your ranks are encouraged to review it before it is activated. After the links to the repository are shared, a three day review period is allotted, until Wednesday 8PM EST, for anyone of you to review it — more details about the contract and process are shared below.

After the review period, the crypto within the treasury would be deposited into the contract by the most recent signers of the treasury, which includes Alpha, Miner, and myself, and a website will be shared with all of you, where you’ll be able to head to, and connect your wallet, which will allow you to submit a blockchain request (through Metamask only) to receive a refund proportional to the amount of NFTs you own over the total amount of NFTs. (e.g. If you own 100 NFTs, the return transfer for you will be equal to = 100 / TOTAL_NUMBER_OF_NFTs, which is 3,334, less gas fees, etc.).

In regards to our server, it will gradually wind down in order to solely focus on supporting the claim process for the number holders that have been inactive for some time (more than 85-90%, as of last week). A new community might be set up further down the line, which would focus on getting to know one another in a more authentic way, but focus, for the time being, will be to ensure that the current process is structured smoothly for a few months.

Although we have not reached the mythical Penthouse floor, I want to underline that I have not seen a single community in our position hold on, congregate, and work, with the tenacity that we all have for so long. What we have shared is special, our tenacity is honestly exceptional and unheard of, and it is important that we take the time to appreciate and respect all the effort that we have collectively put in and for everything that we have done along the way in an attempt to turn our dreams into a reality.

Thank you for everything.

Sincerely,

PS: In relation to the contract, the most cost-effective way to deploy was to create a snapshot of the current NFT holders as of February 3rd and generate what is called a “Merkle tree hash”, which is a random string stored within the smart contract. The hash represents all of the current holders of the NFT, not any holder more, or less. In order for all of this to be verifiable and transparent for all of you, a GitHub repository was created, for you all to review, which contains :

1. The smart contract code, also verified on Etherscan, thus allowing anyone to audit it.
2. All the Ethereum addresses that are part of this snapshot, thus allowing the refund to be verifiable.
3. The hash generated that represents the above holder addresses, and
4. A script, which can be run by anyone, that takes the list of whitelisted addresses and outputs a hash. Anyone can then compare the hash generated by the script with the hash in the smart contract to prove that the only addresses that are allowed to claim are the ones which are part of the above snapshot, thus creating a transparent, verifiable, fair, and cost-effective claim process.