Have been quiet for a while. Frankly, am struggling with the mixed feeling about @Backpack .
On one hand, I admire the exchange and still hold my conviction it is so far the best one I have used. The cross-collateralization convenience is a killer. Not to mention compliance and brick-by-brick improvement.
However, as a @MadLads , I am deeply disappointed at how we are treated recently. The community has been supporting this project for years. In return, we are discarded like a piece of paper, or even worse. Before TGE, I had thought the team doesn't want speculators to cause volatility, thus @armaniferrante downplayed the importance of the community. Until today, I realized that they want to build a $BP token community badly, so Madlads community is a debt that has to be get rid of as soon as possbile.
I am a community person. I still believe @MadLads is the best community on Solana. It will be criminal if the community is abandoned and dying out just because the team that founded us doesn't want us anymore. Even as a refugee or orphaned community, we still need to survive and prosper.
In addition, backpack team will also face a reality-check of what matters, product or community/reputation! Until yesterday, I have been advertising the exchange to my VC and Family Office friends. Yesterday, they all sent me the news about the team betraying our community with no more words. I feel like being heavily slapped on the face.
Anyways, I will still hold my NFTs, still tell people that I am in a good community, still use the exchange lightly when necessary. But I WON'T recommend anyone to trust and invest in the exchange or buy $BP token. After all, fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me!
The problem isn't the low Backpack allocation itself, it's everything around it:
>no clear big-picture plan for MadLads
>holders made to jump through hoops just to be included (loyalty, medals, staking, wallets, etc)
>1% allocation for your most loyal community signals they're no longer part of the plan
>everyone who held a MadLad looks bad now, damaging the pfp's public perception
>many people bought MadLads specifically to position for the Backpack airdrop and got punished for believing
>farming holders for metrics creates expectations that a $200 allocation clearly doesn't meet
>regardless of who is right, the holderbase is upset and the floor is collapsing. The absence of a clear response from Armani and the team is making it worse >"MadLads got airdrops before, stop complaining" is conceding defeat. Should we just watch the floor and perceived value die because NFTs as a sector are struggling?
Everyone knows MadLads were a great mint and hold.
But it's also a fact that the Backpack drop didn't treat them as the core community.
It treated them as a debt to be ticked off before moving on.
And now Mad Lads looks like a project that served it's purpose and is left to die.
As a long-term holder and believer, I hope the team recognizes this and acts on it.
MadLads should be the Solana blue chip and the face of Backpack.
Loyalty cuts both ways.