The Current State of STONE

Hey Stoner's, it's becoming very clear that along with the entire Cryptocurrency space, the sentiment in our social channels seems to be in a lul. We want everyone to know that we value each one of our supporters and appreciate everyone who has not abandoned the project, especially through the bear market. We know a lot of investers have suffered extreme losses on many coins and hope that this update will help clarify expectations and reassure the community about STONE. We will go over a few items that we want to share in order to maintain transparency including team updates, a STONEm platform update, a situational overview with suggestions for the community and a fundraising effort.

Team Update

Since we announced our white paper one month ago in August 2018, a lot of unfortunate events have taken place. We've lost one of our full time core devs due to personal circumstances and have also lost our main front end developer for the hosting platform. The unfortunate news from our Core Team developer came this weekend, our best wishes go out to him during this tough time.

We learned about two weeks ago that our front end developer could not continue to assist, so CryptoTYM commisssioned a second front end developer. We were progressing well until one of his family members became ill this last week and he could no longer assist with STONE.

However, all is not lost. The front end developers delivered the work they completed at NO CHARGE and CryptoTYM is still working diligently on the platform. We also have 2 community members who have come forward and offered bits of their spare time to assist with the project.

That said, we are still looking for a front end developer who is versed in Angular 2-6 and PHP MySQL and is willing to work for collateral. If you have these skills or would be willing to assist with the project please do not hesistate to out to CryptoTYM.

STONEm Hosting Platform Update

As stated, the platform has been regularly progressing. Keep in mind there is not an official budget for this project. Due to the current price of STONE we are not able to sell from the post-mine to raise funds. This means the project will remain very slow going until we can gain support from the community, either with development or from fundraising to pay for accelerated development. That said, you will find an update of the STONEm platform progress below.

Completed:

Angular framework implemented
PHP MySQL database
Main navigation
User creation and login
Hosting API framework

To Do:

Pop up windows for MN creation
Shared masternode calculations
Daemon API integration
Masternode creation
User wallet database creation/management(similar to tipbot)
Add coins

CryptoTYM is planning to release a video of the User Interface so that users can have a preview of what to expect in the Beta version. Again, it should be noted that these efforts are currently unpaid, so they cannot be of the highest priority.

STONE Situational Overview - Sustainability

We feel it's necessary to go over what the current price means for STONE development and the impact neglectful and unconsious selling of STONE will have on progress. Currently the highest bid for STONE on Crypto-bridge is 90 sats with a very small buy. This price makes STONE's valuation only $15,444.04 USD and a single node is only worth 0.0013515 BTC or $8.83 USD.

Unfortunately, there's community members selling at the bid driving the price lower and lower every day. This creates a very bad situation for development because we are unable to commission talented developers or pay our current team.

Mining and profitablity
Based on the current numbers, a 1080ti costs 80 cents a day in power(.10 per kwh) and only mines 71 cents of STONE per day. This means anyone mining STONE and selling direct to market is taking an immediate loss of 9 cents per day per 1080ti. Compare this to mining Raven where $1.04 is earned per 1080ti; a profit of 24 cents. We recommend one of two options for miners:

Mine another profitable coin like Raven, sell and buy STONE.
Mine STONE, consolidate and hold for the long term.

Masternode Hosting
We know that masternode hosting does come at an expense. At 90 sats, STONE masternodes only generate 401 STONE per month valued at $2.84 cents, where most hosting platforms charge $5 per month. That means hosting a STONE masternode means a direct loss if coins are sold to the market bid. We highly recommend holding until the platform is complete as the platform will only accept STONE for hosting and shared masternode services.

Instead of selling at market prices we recommend holding your STONE if you are worried about servicing a masternode and not obtaining immediate ROI, then we recommend using a free hosting provider with a referral code. Here are 3 options you can use that will get you at least 2 months free:

Vultr $10 FREE - https://www.vultr.com/?ref=7358034
Digital Ocean $10 FREE- https://m.do.co/c/6a9081c1f9a2
Google $300 FREE- https://cloud.google.com/free/

Keep in mind that any of these services will run more than just a STONE masternode per server. You will be able to run more than 3 masternodes up to 10 masternodes in some cases!

Fundraising

As highlighted in the update HERE, Stone Core Team members used 25k STONE to list the STONE on Crex24 because of fears of losing an exchange would leave STONE with only one remaining listing. In a bullish move, the Core Team paid 600 sats per STONE which is more than 6x the current market rate. At the time this was 2x the market rate which was a clear positive statement from the Core Team about the valuation of STONE and the overall dedication to the project.

The potential valuation for STONE far surpases the 50k USD market cap at the time(and the current 15k valuation) seeing that direct competitor GIN Coin is valued at $10,000,000 USD(200x STONE @ 50k valuation) and another direct competitor Kalkulus is valued at $473,927 USD(10x STONE @ 50k valuation). As you can see, STONE is severely undervalued, even in current market conditions. We understand that the platform is not yet completed, but it is a double edged sword because a lower price only delays progress.

That said, we alotted 25k STONE for the initial stage of platform development and are willing to offer it out to developers or sell to trusted community members or the core team to speed up progress. We'll have more announcements soon about the fundraising. If you would like to participate, do not hesitate to reach out to CryptoTYM.

Recap

We covered a lot of topics here, so we have listed a recap below:

Unfortunate circustances with core members have delayed progress of the platform. However, we're still working diligently to complete the first development stage of STONE.
Due to the decreased market value of STONE, it is difficult to move the project forward, we recommend holding STONE until the market recovers.
We are hiring core team members, especially those who are able to code Angular 2-6 and PHP. Please forward all inquiries to the STONE team.
We recommend one of two options for miners: Mine another profitable coin like Raven, sell for STONE or mine STONE, consolidate and hold for the long term.
If you are struggling holding STONE masternode rewards, please use a FREE hosting service via a promotion: Vultr, Digitalocean, or Google.
Selling STONE at these rates is destructive to the future of the coin and also completely unprofitable. It is recommended to evaulate your position and STONE's market cap in order to not take substantial losses on your investment.
STONE is undervalued anywhere from 10x to 200x based on competitors in the same sector. This is not factoring in STONE's dedication towards integrating Shared Masternodes on launch and the future 1 click buy to host masternodes.

Conclusion

Some of the things discussed will seem like there isn't much hope, but rest assured the team is here to stay and the project will continue as planned. Even if it takes a long time to complete, it will be completed nonetheless.

As always, much love to our dedicated Stoner's, we appreciate you and the value you bring to our community.