Good day everybody,

I hope you are all having a nice day, welcome to CryptoGod-1's blog on all things crypto. Today I will be writing about what has been happening recently on the NFT marketplace known as DaVinci, based on the Harmony (ONE) Blockchain. As some of you may be aware there was quite the disprution there recently and below I will try explain exactly what happened, what we can expect going forward, and why this should not spell disaster for Harmony.

What is DaVinci

The DaVinci NFT marketplace is a market which allows users to create, buy, and sell NFTs (Non - fungible tokens) minted on Harmony blockchain. Launched on April 6th 2021, it is based on Harmony, and makes use of the native token ONE for minting which is much cheaper than Ethereum based NFT sites. Due to the fact Harmony uses EPoS (Effective Proof-of-Stake) consensus algorithm it requires 99% less energy use than PoW(Proof of Work), which makes the costs around 0.01$ or 0.001ONE. On the Harmony blockchain each block is signed each 2 seconds, so the transactions in DaVinci´s platform give its users an experience similar to using a VISA.

Users can connect to the site with their MetaMask or Harmony One Wallets here - https://davinci.gallery/

The site has its own native token, known as VINCI, a HRC-20 governance and utility token for the DaVinci NFTs marketplace. It is designed to reward active platform users with a voice on the direction of the platform's future. VINCI has been created to give the DaVinci community the power to influence decisions and incentivize active participation in the platform. A total supply of 90,000,000 VINCI tokens were created with its smart contract, which can be found on the Harmony Block Explorer here - 0xb8e0497018c991e86311b64efd9d57b06aedbbae

What Exactly Happened on DaVinci

On February the 4th 2022 the two founder of the DaVinci NFT Marketplace made an announcement after a series of events had taken place which caused disruption and uproar amongst the community. The founders, known as Bruno and Kayawa, felt they needed to make a public statement on their vision and next steps to go further with DaVinci Marketplace, and also decided to address the issue which had taken place around the VINCI token.

On the 1st of February, the founds received 1million VINCI token between them after a three month vesting period. They both receive 500,000 VINCI tokens which vest every three months as part of the vesting schedule agreement. This will continue until they have split 10% of the total VINCI supply of 90Million between them, so 4.5Million tokens each.

According to the developers, a bug was discovered which meant an extra 11Million tokens were created and sent to a wallet. Both developers claim they followed standard procedures, with Bruno removing all users liquidity to protect the funds, and Kuyawa selling his selection of tokens from the vesting schedule.

The community felt otherwise though, as can be seen in the message below sent from the DaVinci DAO governors to their members. With 11Million new tokens available in one wallet for selling and swapping, it spread unrest and a lack of trust throughout the community.

Impact for Users

When the new tokens bug was detected and Bruno removed the liquidity, problems arose as may be expected. First and foremost, users had to question the validity of how a wallet could suddenly get these tokens, and why the general users were being hit because of it. The backlash on reddit was particularly obvious, with many users calling out the developers and questioning the validity of whether the Marketplace really was a decentralized one, or in fact centralized with two, or even just one, developer having the power to impact all users and their funds.

The general consensus was to disconnect their wallets from DaVinci, although its not as easy as it sounds. When users connect their wallets to a site such as DaVinci they sign an initial transaction. This signature gives approval for the site to access and to transfer funds as required. Basically, what this means is that your wallet may become compromised if the site itself is. Alarming for most if not all users regardless of their funds at that time. Below is a selection of screenshots from the Harmony Reddit group, where users contemplated how to remove their wallets, what the developers were really up to, and if DaVinci was ever a trustworthy site. One user, Rusty_Charm, claimed that the site has made no meaningful improvements since its release and is lagging behind most if not all other NFT marketplaces. He also made a statement that this was a soft rug pull from the developers, which feels somewhat appropriate seeing how the timing of these new tokens, and the fact other users were locked from theirs is very suspicious. A link to this thread is available here: https://www.reddit.com/r/harmony_one/comments/skh0gg/disconnect_your_wallets_from_davinci/

What Next?

The founders stated in their message to the community on February the 4th that they are committed to doing their best for the platform and intend to  work together with the daVinci DAO and community at large to create a "fantastic platform". They also stated how they are currently working on the  secondary market and making improvements to the user interface. They have also returned the liquidity to the pools, and resolved the 11Million Tokens bug. Is that enough of a response from the developers or are they merely trying to brush over what happened to their customers? While I don't personally make use of this NFT Marketplace, it would make me very weary in considering using it in the future. Potentially a new main Marketplace needs to rise up on Harmony. The Blockchain has many new Dapps in the pipeline, with https://harmonyuniverse.one/ giving a list of all existing and upcoming projects on the network. There are a lot of high potential projects there, and certainly there will be more Markets available through all these projects. https://www.harmonywhales.com/#/ is just one of the many examples out there.

I hope you enjoyed the read and learned something of interest about the what happened with DaVinci NFT Marketplace, and what other resources are available on the Harmony Protocol. Have a great day.

Peace. CryptoGod-1.

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