To the Pillar community,
First, thank you for your continued support. Our community has been with us even as so many other projects have failed. They are actually using the wallet and enjoying it. I’m glad to see the recent developments and enthusiasm for what the team is doing.
I started the Pillar Project to give people more choice, more freedom, and more power. It wasn’t by accident — I’ve been writing about people owning their own personal data for two decades now. I think quite a few of the people who supported our coin offering believed these were important goals and they were, still are, truly behind the mission.
Unfortunately, the environment changed last year. I am astonished at how aggressively regulators and lawmakers have moved to rein in cryptocurrencies, tokens, stablecoins, and the principles of decentralization and independence. I have tried to fight them as part of the Pillar Project. Now I feel the time has come for me to move on and try something bigger, something more directly aimed at the forces trying to hold our entire industry back.
I’m leaving the Pillar Project so I can focus on building something new. I know the project is in good hands. The Pillar team has built the world’s easiest-to-use wallet, management has things under control day-to-day, they don’t need me any longer for thought leadership. Even though I will still be in the blockchain industry, I will continue to be a vocal supporter of Pillar and what the Pillar dream stands for.
Under Michael Messele’s leadership and Drew and Vitor’s vision, Pillar has reduced expenses and focused on shipping software. The team is now delivering at a steady pace. They are hitting milestones laid down on the Pillar Roadmap Drew published in January.
The Pillar Wallet is getting increasingly sophisticated, and the team talks more and more about “The personal data locker” and the “Pillar meta token,” two key concepts from the Gray Paper. They are well liked by the Ethereum open-source community and have recently launched one of the first Wallet Connect implementations, making it far simpler to send ether to smart contracts and dApps. They are making progress on digital identity and recently participated in several hackathons, promoting the Pillar platform as an identity provider. The biggest news is the first installment of the Offers Engine — the long-awaited in-wallet exchange — is finally available.
Michael and the team at Pillar are focusing on the Pillar ecosystem. I am in touch with Michael often and continue to have a great interest in the project. I am HODLing all my Pillar tokens! It takes time to build important things that change the world.
2030 is also doing well. After getting its FCA license, 2030 is staffing up to be a strong tokenization and fundraising platform. Other parts of the portfolio, like ID Works and Asset Management, are also moving quickly, going to market. The 2030 team continues to raise money from investors and look for good companies to partner with. They are making great strides in tokenization, building a regulated fundraising platform, and working with innovative startups who want to become part of their portfolio.
I am working on my plans for my new project, which I hope the Pillar community will support. I will announce my plans to the community when they are more settled. Meanwhile, please follow my blog and newsletter at www.cuttingthroughthenoise.net, and you are welcome to join our little Telegram group, which isn’t nearly as active or interesting as the Pillar Telegram chat, but I’m there.
I look forward to seeing the Pillar team deliver on the promise and dreams we all share.
David