Hello Patrons.
From Captnocap:
This article will go over the state of The Gas Station as where it was, where it came, and where it is going.
The Gas Station started in August of 2021 with the idea of launching a cross chain bridge between two networks, being Binance Smart Chain to Polygon. We funded this idea with our GAS token which launched on Binance Smart Chain early aug. 2021.
We grew from here when the NFT market exploded and added on our collection of Non-Fungible Patrons. Our patrons were not only just another set of JPEGs on the market, but held the promising utility of using our Bridge at free of cost. The funds raised from patron sales were for funding token liquidities, bridge liquidities, and funding for partnerships.
During this time we were looking to roll out our latest app frontend when the developer who was responsible for doing so vanished & was never heard from again. This was our first setback. We had to run plan B and throw together something for the user to use as a dashboard.
In early October 2021 we rolled out the idea of fuel tanks, where users could stake their GAS tokens to earn more GAS tokens, or stake other precious assets to earn GAS tokens passively. This is also when we got our first partnership with Crystl.Finance
By the end of October we had constructed what the ecosystem would consist of and how it would operate. Funds raised by tax + minting costs would fuel the ecosystem, and reward those who stuck around long term. Holders would be able to use services for free while also earning dividends from the use of non-token holders.
During the months or October — November we were on the constant search for a front end developer to build the app we had a design for. We finally found one that was open to working on the project with the payment schedule we had built for team members.
During the month of December we released our app, with intentions of launching the bridge the same month. We launched multiple tokens on multiple networks to accelerate funding & visibility for the project.
We hired on multiple new developers during the month of December and hopes were high to get the ball rolling.
We were grandiose in our deadline for December for the cross-chain Bridge.
Come in the New Year.
After assigning various tasks to our Development team, I spent most of my time continuing to build connections with various projects in the space, and expanding on the possibilities for The Gas Station, such as a in-house launchpad, bulk locker / token sending services, etc.
The developers we had hired on during the previous month started to slowly vanish. We assigned multiple tasks to developers to complete on a timely basis week after week and little to none was ever accomplished on time.
We slowly started to phase out these Developers as it simply just made the project halt.
Our front end developer simply stopped responding. & we had to make a move.
With this we had to act, and act fast, as time was ticking. And our next deadline for the bridge launch was nearing.
I stepped away from the project management side of things and started digging into front-end development. We had a beautiful design that was built by our designer that had been completed and nothing that was actually coded from it.
After several days of pulling hair I was able to get a working user interface for the bridge to be plugged into.
We had lined up advertisements with etherscan for our bridge for march 1st, and therefore we had made this our deadline for getting the bridge up and running.
But as was stated, we were back down to the original starting developer with everything on his shoulder + myself juggling between getting the front-end development completed alike the design, along with continuing to build partnerships, communicate with the community, & get tasks completed by the pit crew team.
We missed the deadline.
We did not think that it was going to be far off however. The lead developer was working day in and day out to get the bridge up and running with the implementations we had in place to align with the ideas of the project.
It was met with various trouble shooting issues, some of which took a lot of time to overcome. And with only one developer, there is no one to feed problems off back and forth & find a solution.
As time continued the motivation fell off very hard.
I, myself, had to step away from it all for a while. The combination of multiple overdue deadlines, unreliable development, failed partnerships, amongst personal life events unfolding all at once was the driving force.
So that is what has happened.
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In terms of where the project goes from here:
Me and the original lead developer have intentions of finishing what we have started. However, we are no longer going to be setting deadlines, or posting public updates on the status of development.
We will not be hiring on more developers, as a lot of them give false promises to the work they are assigned and makes everyone else sit on their hands. For those who may not know: The majority of the work done here has been largely under-paid / unpaid & volunteered time. This is an open source project, and has always been. Payments to development is a direct correlation of development being completed & the project being successful. This is a huge driving force as to why many developers just simply would disappear.
We will not be going forward with some of the ideas we had in place previously due to them being too grandiose in thought and execution is far more complex than just stating how it needs to be.
There will be a cross-chain bridge. It can support multiple tokens. Users can add funds for liquidity on the bridge. Funds raised from taxes will fund supporters of the project.
Fuel tanks will not be restocked with rewards until further notice.
Our repositories will be public when the development is completed. The web repository has always been public.
NFT Holders will still have access to use the bridge free of use.
GAS Token holders will still have access to use the bridge free of use.
Rare & Legendary NFT holders will still be able to earn the fees generated from the bridge.
Crypto is in a weird space right now. Motivation is low across the board, community can only exemplify this by spreading FUD. Please, be as positive as possible. Innovation takes months to years, not weeks to months. We admit our public promises of deadlines was a big drive in loss of motivation.
A big thanks to those who have always believed and continue to do so.
-Captnocap
