A failed project leads to an unexpected alliance, big ideas — and a new tribe.

In some comics, the main character almost never chooses her powers. Circumstances — and fate — play a big role.

Likewise, we didn’t start out planning to create a new crypto project, but fate played out very differently than we expected.

Decentribe began due to our shared obligation to a community that had come together around a now-defunct crypto project called Ethorse.

This is our origin story.

Ethorse: A Stillborn Dream

In 2017, an anonymous team of developers gathered to create an interesting DApp called Ethorse. Its purpose was to allow players to bet on the short-term price of cryptocurrencies in a series of decentralized “races”.

How Ethorse Worked (According to the Original Development Team)

Excitement about the project was high and the original development team raised 4,000 ETH in a crowd sale launched during the height of ICO season in early 2018.

Fast-forward 1.5 years later and the excitement around the project had waned. The crypto bear market was taking its toll, volume on the Ethorse DApp had significantly diminished, the community was angry, and the development team was ready to call it quits.

One day, the situation came to a head when the Ethorse development team withdrew the remaining funds (~3,600 ETH) from the ICO contract and quietly (through a message posted to Telegram) announced to the community that they would no longer continue development on the Ethorse DApp.

The Ethorse team promised to be transparent, trustworthy and dedicated (see below). They weren’t.

What the Ethorse Team Originally Promised to Investors in December 2017

With the original ICO funds deposited into an exchange, and (presumably) divided among the original development team, it appeared that the Ethorse project was dead.

A Community-Based Development Team Forms

As members of the community (and investors), we believed that the original Ethorse concept had promise. But, we felt it needed some additional time, dedicated development and patience to bear fruit.

So, we contacted the original development team and proposed a solution: We would take over active development of the project if they would continue to support the DApps we developed with the original ICO funds.

They agreed to this proposal, and we started work. We called this new Ethorse-linked project Ethouse.

A few months later — after 100s of hours of work (we didn’t receive any Ethorse ICO funds in exchange for our efforts) — we had delivered on our promises: a greatly improved crypto racing DApp, and additional price prediction games that would provide crypto enthusiasts with additional opportunities to make bets on short-term price changes.

We went back to the original development team and said: “We’ve lived up to our end of the bargain, now we’re ready to collaborate to bring these new DApps to market using the ICO funds you raised.”

We never received a response.

The original development team stopped communicating with us.

The ICO funds we were promised to market, audit and expand the reach of the DApps we created remained in the original development team’s wallets.

Ethorse (now Ethouse) was finally, and fully dead.

A New Vision and a New Tribe is Born

After this hugely disappointing turn of events, we had a lot of internal discussions about what to do.

Should we give up?

Should we abandon our work?

Or, is worth it to keep moving ahead, with a new vision and approach?

How would we raise the funds required for a new project?

During our conversations (and debates), we talked about just how much the crypto landscape had changed since Ethorse’s launch in 2017.

Blockchain gaming was coming into its own.

In-game economies were being developed featuring non-fungible tokens that have locked up (potentially) tens of thousands in ETH.

Decentralized financial (DeFi) applications were expanding, with people using their ETH assets to invest in new projects and much more.

We realized that with all of this activity, there was a blue-sky opportunity.

By combining blockchain gaming with NFTs and DeFi, we could greatly expand the original Ethorse vision.

We would provide multiple opportunities for gamers, those interested in prediction markets, NFT collectors and others to participate in a fully decentralized economy that could deliver fun — and profit — to all participants.

That’s when we decided to push forward — and Decentribe was born.

The Decentribe Credo: Decentralization, Transparency, Accountability

Our experience with the failed Ethorse project had a tremendous impact on us.

We were very concerned about the lack of accountability and transparency exhibited by the original Ethorse team.

Just because a team is anonymous, doesn’t mean that they shouldn’t be accountable to the community — especially if the community’s funds are being used to drive a project forward.

The original development team refused to be accountable and — like too many teams behind failed ICO projects — decided to take the community’s ETH, attempt to erase history, and run when things got tough.

The Ethorse Reddit (as of September 1, 2019). The forum has been set to private and posts are no longer publicly available.

We don’t want to repeat those mistakes.

We won’t repeat those mistakes.

Our guiding principals are illustrated within the name we chose for the project: Decentribe.

Decentribe = Decentralization + Community + Accountability

The project’s name combines two words: decentralization and tribe.

In everything we do, we are guided by four principals:

Decentralization : Using tools, techniques, and technologies that are as decentralized as possible and distribute benefits to the many, rather than the few

: Using tools, techniques, and technologies that are as decentralized as possible and distribute benefits to the many, rather than the few Accountability : Ensuring that the community has a say in how the project is implemented, including when it comes to how funds raised for the project are distributed (translation: the community will decide whether the majority of funds raised for the project are distributed to the Decentribe team— not us).

: Ensuring that the community has a say in how the project is implemented, Transparency : We are an anonymous team, but that does not mean we won’t be truly transparent about what we are doing and where we are going

: We are an anonymous team, but that does not mean we won’t be truly transparent about what we are doing and where we are going Community-Building: Our quest to build a strong, global community, seeking not just financial success, but a shared commitment to mutual aid, positive energy and creating new economic models built on the blockchain

Decentribe is Inclusive

Finally, while we started in the Ethorse community, we are not remaining limited to those who originally invested in that project.

We have already reached out to other decentralized communities that share our vision of empowerment, transparency, privacy, and respect, to join our tribe. (More on this later.)

We Didn’t Ask to Be Here, But We Like Where We’re Going

Like so many characters in comics, we didn’t ask for responsibility, but we’ve chosen to embrace it.

We are committed to helping the Decentribe community move into a promising new era. One that combines the power of blockchain-based gaming with decentralized finance.

We’re looking forward to seeing what the future holds.

We hope you’ll join us.

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-The Decentribe Team