SIGNATUM PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENT



Bitcointalk Thread

The community will undoubtedly have noticed that external communication and announcements has been sparse since entering PoS on the 29th September. The community contributors recognised that momentum had been declining at the later stage of PoW and saw it to be a necessity to evaluate what caused that loss of momentum as well as to establish how to turn it around. It was clear that the public perception was changing for the worse and as a result there was a need to analyse and change direction. We were also growing concerned with the recent absence of the founder Skankhunt (Signatumd) and Doctor. In unison, we therefore took the decision to take some time to properly assess the situation and what it would take for the coin to reach its full potential long-term. None of us were interested in short-term gains, but ensuring long-term value for the community, investors and potential business-partners. For that, we knew that Signatum had to change its direction.



The current Signatum team members all joined the project after it was created and launched by Skankhunt (Signatumd) and later led by Doctor (who joined in the first 30 minutes of the launch of the coin). We were all excited to see a new GPU-centric coin and we all felt fortunate to be able to make an actual difference, contributing to the development of a coin that had a strong enthusiastic community and that appeared to have had genuine ambitions. We all had one common goal; to do our part to make it a successful venture, given the framework that there was at the time. None of us received any financial contributions for our work on Signatum, but dedicated our spare time freely to help develop it, something we all enjoyed and still do.



Today we announce that it has recently become clear that both the founder/developer Skankhunt (Signatumd) and project leader Doctor, appear to have abandoned the project. We will not speculate publicly as to what their intentions were nor if they have done this before or since, as we do not have enough verifiable evidence to support a nefarious agenda on their part. Although it does appear, given the current information circulating on bitcointalk.org and current Discord, that the latter could potentially be the case.



In this announcement we will present to you with a timeline and statements of facts that we have gathered that is verifiable, and share these with you, in order to ensure that everything from this point onwards is fully transparent – a clear shift from how the project was previously managed by the founder and early developer lead Doctor.



Based on the community’s recent findings (the internal team included), we want to make it absolutely clear, that we who remain part of Signatum, had no dishonest intentions.  We are part of the community, targeted by The Doctor, for whatever reason.  Just as the community, we were also led to believe that this was a project with honest intentions. Taking the findings into considerations, we have therefore decided in unison to distance ourselves with both personalities; Doctor and Skankhunt (Signatumd). We all intend to do our upmost to ensure that Signatum has a prosperous future and will become a competitive altcoin in the long-term. The future we therefore present to you today seeks to establish a clear direction for Signatum, one that protects the community, the investors and attracts future business partners. We all sincerely hope that you will agree that this is the best direction for Signatum and we welcome you all to join us and help us execute on our vision for Signatum.



Today we therefore announce to you Signatum 2.0. Signatum 2.0 comes with a streamlined focus, a necessary organisational restructuring and a completely revised and optimised roadmap that seeks to establish Signatum towards a long-term successful path. The streamlined direction ensures that all activities are at all times aligned, so we can keep strengthening Signatum’s position in its key focus areas through all future deliverables.



Internally and externally we aim to keep a flat hierarchy. This is to ensure that all foundation and core member’s input is equally valued by everyone. Based on historical contributions and key skillsets, the Foundation and Core team will now consist of the following people and roles:



Squbs – Developer

Cryptovore/Dan – Business Development & Marketing

Eikcam – Developer

SonnyDaytona – Developer

Eskodhi – Developer

Ned Stark – Web Developer

John Smith – Public Relations Manager

Kasper – Community Manager & Developer



As part of Signatum’s new direction, we also want to increase the communication and transparency to the public. This ensures that you as an investor, community member or business partner are always updated on all the latest Signatum related. Please note that increased transparency is a double-edged sword, but we hope that the community will embrace this approach as way of influencing Signatum’s organic growth and provide constructive input. From this day forward we therefore will be delivering to you Weekly Product Development Updates and Bi-monthly public Q&A sessions. Watch out for updates on this site for when to expect these.



SIGNATUM 2.0’s DIRECTION



Signatum 2.0’s streamlined focus will be:



A decentralised, open source, community driven digital currency, focusing on e-commerce utility..



Elaborating on each keyword in this statement, this therefore in full means that:



E-commerce as a driver

E-commerce is where we truly believe Signatum can make waves. From day one, its focus has been on delivering real-world utilisation. With the heightened focus, we strive to make Signatum as accessible and usable as possible. E-commerce partnerships will therefore become crucial to Signatum. This is clearly evident through the Roadmap items; SignatumPay, Marketplace and the SignatumExchange.



Open Source

To include the community in the development of Signatum, it will therefore be an open-source digital currency project. Anyone is free to make updates on Github and do a pull request. Once the new website is live, there will be further details on how to ensure that it is as easy as possible for developers to contribute to the development of Signatum’s open source project.



Decentralized Ownership

This is a significant departure from how Signatum was previously managed. Ownership and access rights will in the future be completely dencetralized – everyone in the foundation team will have access to everything Signatum related. This means that the community can rest safely, knowing that the digital currency’s future is never at risk.



Community Oriented

Community contributions have always been highly valued. Signatum will focus on collecting feedback and ideas from the community that will help strengthen Signatum’s position and direction. All the best ideas will be collected and considered. To be better positioned to give Signatum coin-holders a voice in the development of the project, a new item called SignatumVote will be added to the roadmap (more information coming).  That also means that the community will have to respect our combined opinion and judgement at all times.



Speed & Privacy

Speed and Privacy are key concerns for coins-holders and as such it is also a focus area for Signatum. Speed is necessary in order to ensure that e-commerce partners can receive their transactions as fast as possible, as well as to ensure that end-consumers’ usability is as good as can be. Privacy will to some degree be a key priority of Signatum, although it recognises it cannot currently compete with the leading altcoins on this aspect, such as Monero.



SIGNATUM 2.0 ROADMAP



The roadmap has been adjusted to support the streamlined focus of Signatum. This ensures that no development effort are wasted and all that all deliverables contribute to strengthening the coin’s market position. No longer will you have to live with a fluffy hastily developed roadmap. Now you will actually understand what the purpose of each deliverable is.



You will notice that the Roadmap has two phases. The first phase aims to take back the control of Signatum, as Doctor and Skankhunt (Signatumd) left with most of the access rights. Several attempts at getting in contact with both over the past two weeks, have failed. We therefore see it to be necessary in order to safeguard the community, investors and yours and Signatum’s future. The second phase aims to develop Signatum into a competitive altcoin, strengthening its market position in relation to the statement presented earlier.



To ensure that people around the world can quickly and easily get a complete and accurate overview of this newly established direction, specifications and content for a brand new website are currently being completed. This will make it easy for you, regardless of whether you are a community member, investor or potential business partner, to understand what value it brings to you. To make Signatum as accessible as possible, the website will cover every major language in the world, where English may currently be a barrier.



The old Bitcointalk Announcement Thread has now also been closed and a new self-moderated Announcement Thread has been created. You may find the link for it here. This will in the coming week also receive a facelift. This will give everyone a clear and accurate overview of Signatum’s newfound direction and purpose.



The current Discord channel will be abandoned, and a new one has been created. This gives back the foundation team full access rights, ensuring that the new roles can be streamlined and that we are not at risk of being closed off by Skanhunt (Signatumd) and Doctor. The link for the Discord Signatum 2.0 channel you can find here.



SIGNATUM 2.0 FORK



The blockchain keys are currently at the mercy of Signatumd and Doctor, who have not been seen for an extended period of time. Rest assured knowing we did everything in our power to reach out and establish a dialogue with them. They have however been fully unresponsive, despite of some team members having their personal contact details (phone).



The fork is absolutely necessary in order to safeguard your investment and Signatum’s future as a digital currency. Let us be absolutely clear; nobody, and we repeat nobody is forced to take part in the fork if you feel that this is not right for you. However, we cannot guarantee that Signatum’s current blockchain will survive due to the absence of the founder Skanhunt (Signatumd) and Doctor. Nor are we confident that even in the highly unlikely event that they would return, that they are the able to lead Signatum into a successful prosperous future.



It has become evident throughout our research, that Signatum’s current code is highly outdated and provides nothing unique or revolutionary, as originally stated by Signatumd (Skankhunt) and Doctor on the original website. The fork seeks to change all of that, basing the core code on a much more up to date Bitcoin source code.



By listening to the community we have also recognised that there is a strong desire to re-introduce PoW as well as incorporate Masternodes. Rest assured that your voice has been heard and that both will be included in the fork.



Segwit will also be included in the new code, ensuring faster transaction speeds as the blockchain grows. This safeguards Signatum against the eventuality of heightened market awareness and utilisation. Further to this, atomic swap and bloom will also be added. More information regarding these and their benefits to Signatum will be released in upcoming weekly development blogs.



There is currently no cap on maximum coin supply. This means that in the current state, Signatum supply will continue to increase at a rate of 5% per annum through PoS The current, which has not proven to be particularly popular in the community. The supply of approximately 137,000,000 coins, also effectively renders it impossible to add Masternodes or re-introduce PoW in its current state. Earnings for both would ultimately be rendered too low for anyone to be interested in either, especially considering the decline in demand and coin valuation. We have therefore taken the necessary steps to reduce the circulating supply, by introducing a 4:1 swap on the fork. This means that if you hold 100,000 coins today, you will receive 25,000 coins on the new blockchain in exchange. Theoretically, this should not impact the value of your coins, as market cap will organically readjust to accommodate for the change in circulating supply. In theory this means that your coins will be worth 4x current value on the new blockchain. The total coin supply will be reduced from the current 137,000,000 to 34,375,000.



We are also aware of the fact that there are currently no financial incentives for any members of the Signatum team to attribute long-term value to the currency. We have also noticed that his has been one of the main concerns of the public as well as us in the Signatum team. We want to make absolutely sure that everyone can see, that we are fully committed to the long-term value-generation of Signatum. To address this, an incentive for the Signatum team has been added. Each Signatum team member will receive a fair share for their work on Signatum thus far, and well as for their long term expected contribution towards making Signatum a competitive and successful altcoin.



A share of the total circulating supply will also be set aside as a treasury fund. The treasure fund will be utilised for further development on Signatum, and most importantly to be able to pay for the listing fees on key exchange sites when the new blockchain has been created.



The total swap supply will be 34,375,000 coins, with an additional 28% split across team members (20%) and the treasury fund (8%). As the coin supply is projected to increase year-on-year that ownership share and treasure fund will over time be diluted significantly to around 4.5% after 20 years.



CURRENT EXCHANGE SITUATION



We also recognise that although YoBit has served its purpose in filling in some of the vacuum in the market, that there is still a desire and need for Signatum to be listed on an exchange with more volume. This is not only to increase the trading volume for Signatum, but most importantly to make Signatum more accessible and to increase the general awareness. Rest assured that we are in contact with more exchange sites and will keep you updated when there are news on this front. We expect that now that we have a clear direction and purpose as well as a strong foundation team, that getting listed on exchange sites will be easier that it previously has.



CLOSING WORDS



We want to thank you all for your continued support, loyalty and belief in Signatum. We all firmly believe that this new direction, will lead to much more long-term sustainable growth and set Signatum on a course where it can challenge key altcoins.



Yours Sincerely,
The Signatum 2.0 Foundation Team




ROADMAP

PHASE 1: REGAINING ACCESS & CONTROL



    Rebooting Discord: Skankhunt and Doctor remains the only ones with full admin rights of Discord. A new Discord server has been released along with this announcement.
    Projected Delivery: Now.



    Relaunching the Block Explorer: The block explorer has not been working since Doctor and Skankhunt abandoned their project. A new explorer will be released along with this announcement.
    Projected Delivery: Now.



    New & Improved Website: the .io and .download domains server access remains restricted to the founders. The new .org domain brings Signatum in-line with other leading altcoins and gives us back full access. At the same time achieving a complete reboot that improves Signatum’s public appearance. You can look forward to a streamlined and clearer focus, elucidating the benefits of Signatum and its purpose.
    Projected Delivery: Q4 2017



    Rebooting the marketplace: The marketplace is currently at the mercy of the founder and Doctor. To ensure that the access is handed over to the new Foundation Team carrying Signatum forward, the marketplace server and domain will be changed and the marketplace will be completely rebooted.
    Projected Delivery: November 2017



    Signatum fork: Current blockchain keys are not retrievable. The fork is necessary in order to give the new foundation team full access and control, ensuring the long-term survival and success of Signatum. The fork will include a complete overhaul of the blockchain code, which is currently highly out of date. This will include features such as; re-introduction of PoW, Masternodes, Bloom and Segwit.

    The full details on the coin swap process will be communicated by November the 29th.
    Projected Delivery: December 2017.



PHASE 2: BUILDING FOR THE FUTURE



    SignatumData: A dashboard where core network and trading statistics will be available, thus enhancing transparency (Trading Volume, Number of Signatum Addresses, Coins Staked and more) to potential ecommerce business partners. By understanding the value proposition in integrating Signatum as a payment solution, they can clearly discern the tangible impact on the size and subsequent expansion of their consumer base.
    Projected Delivery: Q1 2018



    SignatumVote: Allowing community members to propose ideas for development and for all Signatum coin-holders to vote on them. The coins collected through voting will form the basis of funding of the idea. There will be a screening/vetting process for ideas so as not to flood the client.
    Projected Delivery: Q2 2018



    Android Wallet: Ensuring that you will be able to access your funds from anywhere in the world, at any time, as easily as possible. Making real-world utilisation smooth.
    Projected Delivery: Q2 2018



    Electrum: With the Electrum wallet you will no longer have to download the entire blockchain and you will be able to gain access to your wallet from anywhere in the world, using your secure 12 word password.
    Projected Delivery: Q3 2018



    SignatumPay: Enables greater ecommerce availability, helping to build real-world utilisation of Signatum.
    Projected Delivery: Q3 2018



    Zerocoin Protocol: This adds total anonymity, so you never have to be worried about reduced fungibility – all coins, regardless of their previous associations, are all valued the same. You will never have to worry about anonymity and traceability again.
    Projected Delivery: Q4 2018



    SignatumExchange: A decentralised exchange will enable greater and easier accessibility of Signatum and will make further development efforts needed to make ecommerce integrations easier, faster and more efficient.
    Projected Delivery: Q1 2019








Skankhunt42, The Doctor – Key Issues & Events Highlighted



* Please note that this timeline of events may still be incomplete. This is built on the basis of the knowledge that we hold collectively by the Internal team thus far.



July 18th: Signatum officially goes live with an ANN thread on Bitcointalk around 00:00 CET. The self titled “The Doctor” appears to have been been the first miner on board Signatum and immediately takes on a key role in the project. We can verify he was already part of Signatum on Bitcointalk and Telegram within the first 30 minutes of launch.  His involvement prior to this, is not known to us and cannot be verified.



End of Juy: Another individual, titled “Crowetic” becomes involved in the project on a Marketing level, a decision taken by The Doctor, who repeatedly claimed that they go “way back”.



August the 14th: Crowetic and a group of other community contributors attempt a takeover of the Signatum project, and fail. This ends with a public relations bloodbath that has since haunted Signatum.



August 15th: The Doctor gives an interview on the YouTube channel Bitcoin Official with another questionable character, Adam Guerbuez, in order to address the takeover attempt.  We have no idea why he chose this approach or his motivations behind it, but it was not received well by the appointed internal team and the community as a whole.  He sets the tone for the future and cements himself as the official voice of Signatum.  As a result he is seen as the leader of the project from this point onwards. In this interview he admits to using “an exploit” and/or DDOS of the Burstcoin project and generally in speaking has a tough time keeping a professional tone. Events leading up to this point implanted serious doubts internally about The Doctor’s competency to lead and his clear inability to make key decisions.



3rd September: The web-wallet officially goes live.



10th September: The first reports of web-wallet issues are reported on Discord.  The Doctor, true to his nature, is very evasive and sparse on information but tells everyone through Discord to withdraw their SIGT from the web wallet.  He provides no background information other than there were “issues”.  In the following days, users report issues with their wallet and lost coins – although minor quantities, it was still very disconcerting to the team.



We are now aware that The Doctor “claimed” to Sonny that the web wallet, hosted on The Doctor’s servers, had been hacked by Vietnamese hackers.  The responsible, trustworthy and reliable individual that Sonny is, offered to compensate users for their lost funds – a total of 300,000+ SIGT.  But the kicker to this event was that The Doctor offered Sonny the 300k+ Signatum’s in return for BTC – yes Bitcoin!  Need we elucidate further the only conclusion that can be inferred here, we think not.

30th/31st August: Cryptopia wallet withdrawals and deposits becomes unavailable. The Doctor and Skankhunt provides little to no information on a solution nor a timeline as when to expect the issue to be resolved.  Over the next 20 days, The Doctor remains largely quiet on the subject, although briefly highlighting that Cryptopia is working on solving the issue.  Investors’ coins are locked for 20 days or more.  During this period he remained resolute in claiming that Cryptopia never contacted him about the issues, but we now know that was more false information disseminated by the The Doctor.



18th September: Cryptopia announces on its market page for Signatum, that it will delist the coin.  Cryptopia’s withdrawals are communicated to be working on the same date, and that customers had 30 days to withdraw their SIGT or they will be lost. Cryptopia states that the wallet issues are related to Signatum’s outdated LevelDB.



On hearing the news that Cryptopia will delist Signatum, Doctor logs in to the official Twitter account for Signatum and makes aggressive tweets targeted at Cryptopia. He goes as far as to threaten Cryptopia with a lawsuit. These tweets have since been deleted.



19th September: The Doctor announces on Discord that Signatum’s LevelDB has been updated to the latest version. He states that this was in order to prove that the outdated LevelDB was not the issue that caused the wallet problems on Cryptopia.



27th September: Skankhunt (Signatumd) delivers his last comment to date in the channel #General on Discord.



28th September: The Doctor informs people in #General that PoS is triggered and works. Without making any formal announcements, he tells the community in #General on Discord that he is away in Thailand on work. He provides no timeline on when he will be back nor highlights that he will be away for an extended period of time. This is the last day he is seen online on Discord and Telegram. The information that he is away is communicated to us by Signatumd (Skankhunt).  Signatumd says he is away for a week.  Later he updates the team that Doctor is away until November, although he does not state when nor the reason why.



29th September: Skankhunt (Signatumd) delivers his last comment in the #Internal channel on Discord, only returns later after several attempt to get in contact with him.



2nd October: The last day Skankhunt (Signatumd) is seen online in a while.  He disappears from Telegram (he has previously always been there – never been absent from it before) and Discord.  This is also the last day he has been seen on Telegram since.



6th October:  Skankhunt (Signatumd) appears within 1 minute of a text sent to an anonymous source on another cryptocurrency project (as we cannot be 100% sure the two are related, we will not name the other project so as not to taint it based on suspicion).  He says in the Internal Discord channel that he was offline from Discord because he had not noticed that he had closed the browser tab.



10th October: The last time Skankhunt (Signatumd) is seen online on Discord.



22nd October:  It becomes obvious that the included nodes on the qt-wallet, has been closed off on purpose by Doctor, as he changed his firewall to drop connections on those nodes. Users will have realised that they therefore have syncing issues if their nodes are not updated.



Further to this, £300 worth of BTC were withdrawn from the donation fund, which Doctor claims was to pay for server costs related to nodes and block explorer. Although no invoices were provided. We are unable to verify the validity of his statement, as no access were ever given to anyone else in the Signatum team.



Due to cryptocurrency being a fast paced industry, we reserve the right to be agile and to optimise and change the roadmap as necessary.