Good evening.
For some context, I am currently in the UK on a training course and the upside to this is that I have quiet evenings to myself where i can post to my hearts content. (or as long as I can stay awake!) I made some notes before I left home on some of the new projects we had recently invested in and the one I was most excited about was that we had finally managed to invest in Yield Nodes. If you are up to date with the news I can almost hear the sigh!
We looked at YN over 6 months ago, we researched a lot and saw some good things. Real people with real faces, lots of communication and updates, good socials with active members. They had anywhere between 2000 and 4000 masternodes, it's own token and DEX and proven good results going back a few years.
They even had 'audits' although as far as I am aware there were no real auditors there so I passed that off as a select group of investors going on a jolly to Malta but as they were so open about their location and let people look through contracts and blockchain data I thought there must be nothing to hide.
For those of you that do not know you have to put in a minimum 500 Euro initial deposit that is locked for 6 months. There was an expected 5-15 percent earning each month and if it went below 5% for 3 months you would be able to withdraw your initial deposit. After your 6 months is up you would be able to set a withdrawal within the timeframe and your payment would be on the 8th of the month.
We had our documents signed and ready, we were just waiting for the time to be right for us to lock up a sum of money for 6 months. That time was 6 weeks ago.
I was looking forward to writing about the 5.3% we had made in our first month and writing updates and progress reports and how eventually I would take these profits out in Bitcoin.
Instead of that we had an email.
Dear YieldNodes Partners,
Due to the important and explanatory occasion I, Urs, am writing to you today.
Due to the current "crypto winter" and the general problematic economic situation (war in Ukraine, high inflation, high energy prices, weakness of the Euro etc.) we are forced to hedge our virtual assets with real and sustainable assets and to provide and manage them in a decentralised way.
Therefore, with immediate effect, we will restructure YieldNodes into YieldNodes Pro to ensure hedging by real assets and to ensure that our shared values are preserved in the long term.
The repeated blocking of exchanges like Binance and Changelly (of which are both still blocked) and the difficulties in lending our assets show us that it is time to implement the DECNOMY strategy as soon as possible and tie the value of our coins to real assets.
The general selling pressure has a negative impact especially on the prices of assets that are only based on monetary values and we currently have hardly any chance to cash out our profits from the Master Nodes. In addition, there are constant attacks on our coins, combined with the insubstantial statement that we are a scam. All this leads to the fact that we must immediately realign our strategy in the direction of DECENOMY.
We have shown through transparency, openness and real audits that we do a decent and good job as a team. However, we see that this is repeatedly undermined by players on the market who only want to gamble. We can only counteract this with real assets and applications that give all our partners the necessary security that they can trust DECENOMY and thus YieldNodes even in times of crisis.
We will implement this strategy through YieldNodes Pro. As many know, this has always been our plan, we are only bringing it forward because of the current situation and are starting the immediate implementation.
We currently have enough reserves, which we are now using to activate YieldNodes Pro. In doing so, we will integrate the existing and still to be developed real assets into our DECENOMY network and make them available to our partners via YieldNodes Pro directly or pooled as an asset.
It then went on to tell you about these assets. There was a huge backlash and more explainations in emails and videos since then.
Needless to say everyone's funds are now 'locked' for a year while they try to transition from Yeild Nodes to Yeild Nodes Pro incorporating some of their real world assets and the profits they generate into building the project back up.
This is today's email.
As you can imagine, it has been a tough few days here following the announcement and the video.
Please understand that to save everyone's funds and commence the restructuring process, we had no choice but to make the decision that we made and as sudden as it was, it was the hardest decision we have ever had to make.
Had we kept going this route with the continuous sell-off and sell pressure on coins topped with the locked-up assets in Binance, there would have been no recovery possible.
That said, we have always been very transparent with YieldNodes being high-risk.
Everyone signed a risk disclaimer and got the risk disclaimer on top of every email communication.
Furthermore, in every email, I pleaded not to use funds that would put your livelihood at risk. (and every Video)
Yet here we are… Many over-committed and now find themselves "drowning".
Of course, we do understand. This is a dire situation. It's sudden, it's shocking and it's heartbreaking.
There is more, including a timeline for these changes, they are working hard to make things right and that there will be regular updates.
What do I think?
My first thoughts were 'well we have lost that then' and to be fair I was gutted, it is a lot of money to us. As I have had time to think about it, it does seem like they are trying, as they could have just shut shop and ran off with the money that is left.
What can I do about it?
Not a lot really, it is just a case of wait and see although they are talking about opening emergency withdrawals, I am not sure yet how that will work. I am also torn on staying in and hoping for the best or getting out if I can. I will update as things progress.
As always thank you for reading and please feel free to comment.
