This weekend I uninvited ProgPOW author Kristy-Leigh Minehan from ETC Summit, where she had been due to give a talk on ASIC resistance and also to participate in a mining panel.

I withdrew her invitation after finding out about connections between herself, Core Scientific and Craig Wright, Calvin Ayre and Coingeek. Core Scientific’s CEO is an advisor to Squire Mining, along with Craig Wright and Jimmy Nguyen. Calvin Ayre has a controlling stake (45%) in that company. Kristy has also spoken at Coingeek events on at least two occasions, implicitly promoting and validating them.

Craig Wright is a fraud, serial liar and perjurer, and Calvin Ayre is not much better. I cannot have the ETC Cooperative and the ETC Summit associated with such disreputable individuals and companies, so I chose to withdraw my invitation. It was not an easy decision, and was one which personally pained me. I have been known as a bridge builder and “judging” in this way is exceedingly rare. This was important enough for me to do so.

Kristy speaking at Coingeek events:

Kristy took to the ETC Discord yesterday, September 16th, where she spoke for several hours and provided further information on ProgPOW which, to my knowledge, has not been discussed publicly to this point, but which I believe to be hugely important for the Ethereum Classic and Ethereum communities to know while considering ProgPOW.

Here are screenshots of the entire conversation.

Some key dialog points for me, beyond not denying the BSV connections (just downplaying their importance).

Bob: … Would you speak at the OneCoin conference if they invited you? …

Kristy: Yes? If they told me to just speak on topics I knew, or educate them on blockchain, why not?

Bob: Would you speak at a conference held by the Mafia, if they wanted to talk about blockchain?

Kristy: Sure, if the mafia is holding a conference that’s public, and somehow they are not arrested and it’s all above board – why not. I’d accept a PR from Hitler if it was good.

And further, she believes that attending conferences in no way validates them, and is “just about teaching”. So Coingeek Toronto 2019 was about teaching, as per Kristy, and not about promotion of the BSV empire.

She also revealed that there were maybe as many as 40 people behind the “IfDefElse” facade, many of who would not be willing to reveal their identities, or to sign Contributor Licensing Agreements (CLAs), as I suggested was necessary to protect Ethereum from potential future lawsuits for unrevealed patent claims, trademarks or copyright claims.

Given these connections (from public press releases), Kristy’s seemingly complete lack of discernment about who she associates with, together with the unquantifiable IP risk of accepting code from a group of 40 individuals, only a handful of whom are publicly known, and none of whom (or their employers) have signed CLAs, I have to view ProgPOW as a serious risk to any project which adopts it, and would urge the Ethereum community to strongly reconsider whether it is wise to proceed unless significantly stronger guarantees can be given around the IP.

If the Ethereum community desires ASIC resistance, it would much safer to update Ethash in the open, with known individuals doing the work, and the Ethereum Foundation or other groups funding that, in my opinion.

Also, listen to Martin. ProgPOW is very divisive. I think there is a serious risk of an ETH split if this EIP proceeds. That in itself should be enough to stop it.

Really not sure why #progPOW is still planned for the hard fork. My understanding of Ethereum governance is that hard forks are only made if there is a wide community consensus around them. I think this is critical of Ethereum being able to become a base settlement layer. https://t.co/Zs9Da8VDdS — Martin Köppelmann (@koeppelmann) August 16, 2019

Bob Summerwill,

Executive Director, ETC Cooperative and long-time Ethereum community member