TheMessage Launch Edition 001

1 – Utopia Trivia – How many threads mined Genesis Block #1 on the Utopia P2P Network? (Look for the answer somewhere in this launch edition of TheMessage)

(Keep Looking)

2 – “A Block Frozen in Time” – The Mystery of Block #5222

At approximately 21:32 UTC on January 11 2020, the Utopia P2P Network experienced it’s first “Frozen Block” phenomenon. Previously, the network had experienced blocks with zero mined threads, likely due to testing by the team, but never before had new blocks appeared to be suspended and invisible in this fashion. While it can be confirmed that mining bots remained operational on the network and a random sample of 12 of TheMerchant’s army of bots experienced no disconnects, all mining rewards were in a state of suspended animation–a freeze, as confirmed by multiple users. CRP transfers were also non-operational during this time. Approximately 22.5hrs later, the network grinded back into operation, producing a zero-thread Block #5223, a 430-thread Block #5224, two more zero-thread Blocks #5225 & 5226, before appearing to resume normal operation for the current 1.0.5499 version of the Mainnet Utopia P2P client with a 281-thread Block #5227.

For the record, the time stamps on those blocks in the Block Chart and the in the Mining History are below:

Block Block Chart Time Stamp Mining History Time Stamp

• #5223 21:47 UTC on Jan.11 zero-thread N/A
• #5224 22:02 UTC on Jan.11 22:02 UTC Jan.11
• #5225 22:17 UTC on Jan.11 zero-thread N/A
• #5226 20:10 UTC on Jan.12 zero-thread N/A
• #5227 20:25 UTC on Jan 12 20:25 UTC on Jan.12

Clearly this represented a serious network dysfunction not only because of the extended freeze in new Block creation and in Mining, or the unavailability of the CRP engine, but the Mystery Block turned out to be the inexplicably produced hidden Block #5224 which appears to have been produced by an army of 430 bots working “secretly” as it were, in a frozen span of network time. While there was rampant speculation by some Utopians that this dysfunction may have had to do with the much anticipated major update, TheMerchant reached out directly to the anonymous team, “1984 Group”, in order to solicit their insight on the disruption for the declared intent of publication in the launch edition of TheMessage. The statement from the team is quoted below:

“We really do not have insight about the freeze, we are working to correct the issues and the next update should correct all such problems. This is the reason why it is taking so long to release the new update. This is all that we can share at the moment.”

3 – Utopia Chat Lobby Policy Update – Read the Latest Guidance from Dr-Hack

Dr-Hack’s words are quoted below, between the asterisk lines:

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Utopia Chat Lobby exists so that new users can join and immerse in the world of Utopia. To ensure that users are not overwhelmed or swayed in early stages of understanding the ecosystem, we had to ensure strict moderator rules. One of such rule was recently enforced which mentioned no more channels invites / link or messages just promoting a channel.

Keeping Utopia interest, I am opting for a change in that rule as that best suits the ecosystem and its environment and would ensure more traction for the community. A guideline you may consider :

• – Channel Invites are allowed in Utopia Channel Lobby if they ensure that they are helpful and relevant to Utopia and its ecosystem.
• – Invite message is short (3-5 lines) and has only 1 channel link mentioned only once.
• – Image promotion is not allowed of any sort (same goes for stickers, if you notice they always get deleted)
• – Clutter will be deleted, For now 1 invite message after every 3 days is allowed.
• – 6 hour minimum gap from each invite / promo message.
• – Invite can not have any clearnet resource.Invite should not have the channel invitation button only rather invite should come with a message explaining what the channel is about.

Would like to Thank @TheMerchant for taking the time to discuss things out and to think about the betterment of Utopia Ecosystem…

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4 – “A Sociopath Among Us” – A Summary of Utopia’s First Livestreamed Community Event

NOTE FROM THE PUBLISHER: Many hours of meticulous investigative work were expended that led to this story in the form of user interviews, user surveys, and combing through previous chat logs in multiple channels in order to put the pieces of the puzzle together. However you will find the story takes an unexpected but ultimately most beneficial twist near the end. Rather than a celebration of how the author was able to achieve near certainty about the identity of the sociopath among us, ultimately he chose to make the story a celebration (and a warning) about how complete and perfect certainty can never be achieved on an anonymizing and privacy preserving platform as robust and powerful as Utopia. Please enjoy it for what it is, and be vigilant because of it.

Sociopath – a person with a psychopathic personality whose behavior is antisocial, often criminal, and who lacks a sense of moral responsibility or social conscience.

What you are about to read, my fellow Utopian, is a curious case indeed. It is the case of one of us… who tempted by the anonymizing power of Utopia and the siren song of Greed, driven further by his own personal dysfunction, sought to undermine the integrity and therefore the joy of Utopia’s First Livestreamed Community Event, TheMarket’s CRP GiveAway Wheel of Random. First, allow me to set the stage for you:

Sunday January 12th at 14:00 UTC saw the kickoff of TheMarket’s first Super Round of “CRP GiveAway Wheel of Random”. This was a supersized version of a game of chance TheMerchant had been administering to distribute CRP rewards in celebration of the opening of his channel, TheMarket E95109799EC5047783C867F6AF6D4568. Celebrations began on opening day, January 1st, 2020 with uVouchers, 19 in number. Initially the number of participants was modest, but every day the list of players and happy Utopians grew. Because of disparities in peer connectivity, it became apparent very quickly that some users had an unfair advantage over others in redeeming these uVouchers. Furthermore uVoucher claiming was an anonymous process, preventing me from verifying for all players who had won how much. It is from this imbalance in a fair chance of winning and lack of transparency that the CRP GiveAway Wheel of Random was born. At first, the players simply trusted the administration of the game and the announced winners at TheMerchant’s word, since it was free CRP afterall. But this format did not live up to the high standard of transparency and accountability that TheMerchant is accustomed to upholding at TheMarket, so eventually near-instant screenshots of the winners as the Wheel produced them were sent out over the encrypted P2P network we know and love as Utopia, to the delight of the ever growing list of players. This sufficed for the remaining 10 days of celebration, however as we drew closer to January 12th and the big Super Round version of the game with 5x rewards available to win, two things became apparent. First, was that something unprecedented in TheMarket’s or indeed Utopia’s short history had to be done to make the Super Rounds even more engaging and rewarding for all involved. Second, was that more and more accounts fitting a curious pattern began to pop up in later rounds nearing the end of the 10 days of celebration. This suspicious activity culminated in the night before the Super Round, TheMerchant receiving a multitude of authorization requests from aliases fitting the same pattern. This pattern included not only lingustic and stylistic consistency, but also more importantly a pattern of absence. The absence of an account from public channels is not evidence of an extra account in and of itself, but when coupled with other circumstantial evidence, begins to paint a very convincing picture of abuse. As this individual continued to create more accounts in the days leading up to the big day, it was as if he were a shark that had sensed blood in the water (he won smaller amounts in daily rounds) and now could hardly control himself. Mr.Shark was in a frenzy, and now created his final batch of accounts in one last orgy of greed and personality dysfunction that I will confirm shortly. In any event, I wanted to give all accounts the benefit of the doubt at the time, so I simply sent all the last minute authorization requests a simple reminder by PM, “Be advised, signups are limited to 1 per human being.” (Remember that phrasing)

The hour arrived, 14:00 UTC and echoes of “HONOUR ABOVE GREED” could almost be heard across the inter-tubes, representing the official motto of TheMarket, which had also become the standard sign-in for player registrations to the game. TheMerchant triumphuntly and proudly sent out the livestream link for all to use, having succeeded in establishing one just for the big day. The energy and excitement was palpable–encrypted and routed in packets to and fro, but palpable nonetheless. As more and more of these suspicious accounts began to sign in, the mood began to shift. Some players expressed frustration in chat, while others held back their fingers, if not their tongues at home. TheMerchant asked everyone to maintain decorum and not to allow suspicions alone to ruin the game for everyone. One by one, the spins came in:

• ATM 5 CRP
• cat 15 CRP
• alumin 25 CRP
• cake 35 CRP
• ATM 50 CRP

Sensing the tremendous level of discontent from active and present players with having aliases who no one had ever heard of before seeing them on the Wheel, or interacted with, win large amounts of CRP, TheMerchant introduced a new eligibilty requirement for future rounds. Future aliases would have to be associated with at least one uNS record, which represents their alias in a meaningful way. All the user education previously conducted at TheMarket about the irrelevance of aliases, the necessity for understanding hash keys, the value of having uNS records attached and the significance of the reputational based system that such records help to provide came crashing down on all of us that day. Normally, TheMerchant always sends out the winnings right away, shy to let the players wait on their winnings after the wheel has stopped spinning. However, we were right in the middle of the Mystery of Block #5222. The temporary network dysfunction ended up being a tremendous blessing in disguise for the all players involved. Initially, TheMerchant was inclined to permit the likely abuse to go unaddressed in order to uphold the previously established, although flawed and subject to exploitation, eligibility requirements. But then it became clear that while the uNS reputational based system increases the friction of this sort of fraud, it doesn’t eliminate it altogether and he feared this individual’s dysfunction was so severe as to overcome this friction for future rounds.

What followed, was 12-16hrs of grueling investigative work by TheMerchant, as he meticulously combed chat logs, player reports and player interviews to put the pieces of the puzzle together. While he ultimately achieved what he felt was a very high degree of certainty about which account(s) may have been fake/extra, and even which real user was behind them, after serious and gut-wrenching deliberation, a different path was ultimately chosen.

ALL PLAYER REWARDS WILL BE DISTRIBUTED EXACTLY AS THEY WERE CHOSEN BY THE WHEEL

CRP GIVEAWAY WHEEL OF RANDOM WILL STOP SPINNING EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY (Please see Story #5 Below)

ALL USERS WHO REGISTERED A UNS TO MATCH OR RESEMBLE THEIR ALIAS IN THE LAST 48HRS WILL BE REIMBURSED BY THEMERCHANT

USERS RECEIVING REIMBURSEMENT: SCHAT, HOTOFF, DRFISH, GOLDSTEIN

NOTE: If you registered a uNS for your alias and your name is not listed above, please notify TheMerchant by PM for immediate reimbursement

5 – “TheMarket’s CRP Brick Baking Meme Contest” – Details on Utopia’s First Network-Wide (Graphics Design) Competition

TheMerchant is pleased to present to you TheMarket and indeed Utopia’s first Competition: “TheMarket’s CRP Brick Baking Meme Contest”.

This contest, while initialy intended to complement the CRP GiveAway Wheel of Random, will now replace it. The advantages of a community-wide contest with CRP-based prizes over the simple game of chance it replaces are many. Contest participation is a more engaging and expressive/creative process. Rather than simply being present to sign-in and claim rewards, now Utopians are being invited and encouraged to take active part in a communty wide initiative. Each Utopian will be invited to make as many Contest Submissions as they choose to. Because prizes are based on effort and merit, rather than simple presence, and because Utopians are not limited to one submission each, there is no incentive or advantage to a user having multiple accounts and so the fairness of the competition is preserved.

CONTEST GUIDELINES:

What are the prizes to be won?

1st Place: 50 CRP and the joy of having one or all of your creations regularly featured in TheMarket by TheMerchant

2nd Place: 35 CRP

3rd Place: 25 CRP

4th Place: 15 CRP

5th Place: 5 CRP

Who is eligible?

Any and all Utopians who are authorized contacts of TheMerchant 0093DEFD354D78D4F035CF04A935DD211A9765B8779C68D30A9DA0B3EB06554F

What constitutes a valid contest submission?

A valid contest submission is at least ONE single, unique, user created graphic, which fits any one of three categories below:

Category 1: “A Brick of CRP” (1 Image)

Category 2: “An Oven Baking One or More Bricks of CRP” (1 Image)

Category 3: “Bricks of CRP Being Handsomely Displayed for Sale” (Up to 5 Images. See explanation below)

Category Explanations:

Category 1: A simple representation of what a beautiful Brick of (1000) CRP looks like to you! You are in charge of envisioning and creating what a CRP Brick may forever look like to all future Utopians, so make it count! Although you need to make it clear that each Brick represents 1000 CRP, it’s up to you how you do it.

Category 2: Show the world what mining Cryptons looks like in an easy to understand and fun way, by showing an Oven, which represents an army of mining bots, baking one or more Bricks of CRP inside, which represents the native coin of Utopia being mined.

Category 3: Here you are to clearly and creatively show, WITHOUT ATTACHING AN ACTUAL PRICE, Bricks of CRP for sale. Each Brick, just like in Category 1, needs to make clear that it represents 1000 CRP, and this category allows you to submit up to 5 graphics (Showing 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 CRP Bricks being displayed and available for sale)

What is the criteria for a winning submission?

Your chances of winning the 1st place prize INCREASE with the following factors, in decreasing order of importance:

Entering a submission that includes graphics/images in ALL THREE categories, with the maximum of 5 images in Category 3, and 1 image in the first 2 categories.

Entering a submission which clearly shows effort was made and more than 5 minutes were spent in creating your image(s)

Entering a submission with very handsome/professional, good looking images as the result of your efforts

Entering a submission which shows creativity was used in how best to represent the subject of your graphic

Entering a submission sooner rather than later in order to encourage other submissions and increase community engagement

How may a submission be entered into the contest?

All eligible Utopians are invited to enter their submissions by entering a reasonably sized and clear copy in chat at TheMarket E95109799EC5047783C867F6AF6D4568

If your account is an authorized contact of TheMerchant, he will confirm your submission by PM within 12hrs or upon the deadline, whichever is sooner.

When may a submission be entered into the contest?

Contest Start: Submissions will be accepted beginning on January 14th at 14:00 UTC

Contest End: Submission deadline will be on January 26th at 14:00 UTC

When and how will the winners be announced and prizes delivered?

All winners will be announced immediately after the deadline, on Sunday January 26th at 14:00UTC.

All winners will have their winning submissions displayed for all to see and appreciate during the winner announcements.

All winners will have their CRP prizes transferred to them immediately after they have all been announced and congratulated.

Transfer records of the prizes being delivered to the winners will be on display at TheMarket directly afterwards.

TheMerchant wishes all Utopians much fun in this competition, please begin entering your submissions as soon as possible!

6 – TheMegaphone – Introducing TheMerchant’s Latest Creation

TheMerchant is pleased to present to you his latest Utopian Creation: TheMegaphone

TheMegaphone is a personal “echo” feed that is intended to serve as a template for Utopians of a twitter/instagram replacement that is fully independent, encrypted and censorship resistant. It is a Public Channel with Read Only w/Privacy Mode access type with the following description: “TheMerchant’s Personal & Uncensored Voice, Amplified & Protected by Utopia! Whether on politics, life, or the universe itself; turn on TheMegaphone!”

TheMerchant’s first “Echo” has already been carefully prepared and will be sent if and when TheMegaphone reaches 10 subscribed Utopian “Amplifiers”. (Say goodbye to “tweets” and “followers” for good)

Join now and be among the FIRST Utopian Amplifiers to receive the ground-breaking first Utopian “Echo”: 3277D61A3CF7BAEE951C0C6607532FB8

Utopia Trivia Answer: Zero (Genesis Block #1 On the Utopia P2P Network had no mining threads associated with it at all)

7 – Personal Note from The Publisher

Readers may be wondering, “How does the human being behind TheMerchant have time for all this, doesn’t he have to go to work in the morning like the rest of us? Doesn’t he have a job?” In case you haven’t already figured it out, this IS my job now. Back in the second half of 2019, when I first learned about the glorious P2P ecosystem of Utopia and the motivation and goals of the team behind it, I was inspired. But it wasn’t until I got a taste of what they had been building in secret over the past 6 years that I became obsessed. I became obsessed by the drive to align my inspiration with my way of earning a living and so I dropped everything and made Utopia my life. Over these past months I have forced myself to learn and to grow in ways I never imagined possible. To make my vision a reality, I have taught myself a limited but very functional amount of computer language and programming as well as server management and troubleshooting; I have put my blood, sweat and tears into this project. But a business cannot be built on effort alone. I have also invested everything I own into building, maintaining and optimizing the “oven” I now operate in the majority mining operation on Utopia. So when I declare to you that I feel I have earned my current position on the network, it is because I know what I have gone through and how much I have sacrificed in time, energy and resources over these past months. My hope and full intention, is that TheMerchant, TheMarket, TheMessage and now TheMegaphone will become touchstones of my beloved Utopia P2P ecosystem for many, many years into the future, God willing. I hope this personal message helps you better understand who I am, where I came from and where I hope to go on Utopia. Please join me on what I hope will be a grand adventure:

Here’s where to find “The Rabbit Hole” for those who may be reading on the surveillance landscape of the clearnet: https://u.is

TheMerchant: 0093DEFD354D78D4F035CF04A935DD211A9765B8779C68D30A9DA0B3EB06554F

TheMarket: E95109799EC5047783C867F6AF6D4568

TheMessage: BE91B84B9565C8429D214EBB10753E83

TheMegaphone: 3277D61A3CF7BAEE951C0C6607532FB8