Flare Launch Update

[Seoulite]

Hello all, sorry I haven't been around here much lately, but when there is nothing to do but wait I usually focus elsewhere to prevent spinning my wheels and getting frustrated with crypto. Once this thing finally gets going there will be much more activity I guess.

Anyway someone messaged me asking about the current state of affairs with Flare so I thought it would be good to put a simple update here for anyone who hasn't checked in in a while.

As of today (Sat 24th September 2022) the Flare network is still launched under observation mode. Control of the network is being transferred to validators so that the network launches decentralised. As far as we know this process is ongoing and not yet complete. When it is completed the network will actually launch.

The Flare Team has announced that they will publicly released the code base for the network as the next step before launching fully.  According to Hugo, the code base has already been given to exchanges so they can prepare themselves for the airdrop distribution. A date for the distribution has not been set, although a 'deadline' of sorts has been set for the end of January. In other words, the distribution will happen sometime in the next three months. 

The Flare Team has also proposed a change to the remaining distribution (not the first 15%, but the remaining 85%). The details are here. It is complicated and it seems there are pros and cons but for me I am not interested in discussing it until the actual launch of the network. We don't know the network activity, engagement, price, exchange situations, exchange listings, anything. Talking in the abstract can only take you so far, and to be honest I'm burned out on talking about hypotheticals and abstractions with this network.

As for why it is still delayed, the team will say that things are being checked thoroughly and carefully and there's no rush etc. I don't know what it's like to launch a project like this, so I don't know the details. 

The person who messaged me asked what my take is on Flare and are my hopes still high. So I'll include my thoughts below.

Like everyone, I am frustrated with the delay. Much of the initial 'hype' that I had has gone, but that's not to say it won't come back when something actually starts happening. I still have high hopes for Flare, I am still invested, not planning to dump or sell or anything. I still think Flare is going to be big. However as I said above, I'm burnt out on hypotheticals. Songbird was a nice practical introduction but even that basically stopped at the first hurdle. I had hoped we would be messing around with S-assets and stuff in the last year before the main net came up, but that hasn't happened. The main attractions of Flare like the state connector, F-assets, and layer cake are still mysteries to us all.

However at the same time I have been affected by the wider sentiment in crypto and the economy as a whole. It is obvious that the economic position for the next few years is not going to be good in the developed world, and this will undoubtedly put the damper on crypto a little too. Also the SEC/XRP case just never seems to end. I've stopped following it. There's only so many Jeremy Hogan videos you can see in which something HUGE happens followed by nothing changing that you kinda get desensitised.

So I feel like crypto is in cryogenic sleep at the moment. I expect BTC to bottom out around 15k (blood in the streets phase) before maybe it starts going again. But honestly I don't care about it. I will happy when Flare launches because I think over the next few years we will see a lot of developments and projects and stuff. But if the economic situation in the world is dire then crypto might've also lost a lot of steam by then. How many people are talking about DeFi when people are worried about affording to heat their homes or fill up their car?

Anyway, I'm rambling. TLDR is Flare is still coming and I'm still expecting it to be successful. But I just wish, you know, it would actually launch.