Sammy

Aptos, I'm done. This is where I give up. I'm giving up on being an Aptos-only guy because it has hurt me more than I realise. I am realising this after always trying to be on one side, thinking that maybe now things will get better, only to be proven wrong year over year. On August 19th, the @guiinuonaptos Lottery went live on Aptos. 106 days since the lottery is live and it has seen over 6850 tickets being sold, averaging about 65 tickets sold per day, and that in a market and ecosystem where you don't expect that much on a game that has real money involved and it's not on some testnet, but people playing with $GUI, and we couldn't be more prouder than this because take it back to 2023 and since then, GUI INU has done so much for the Aptos community that even today, the core supporters of the project have left Aptos yet they hold GUI because they want to support the GUI contributors and team. The number of tickets could have been easily inflated to 25,000, 50,000, or even more, but who are we trying to please with those metrics? We don't like washed fake metrics and will never do it; it is against our ethos because keeping it real has led us to make some of the hardest decisions we're making right now. Today, we are launching new games on the GUI eco, which will support multiple chains, including Solana and EVM, and we won't be exclusive to Aptos. That said, I will always keep AptoRobos, GUI INU, and Aptos Monkeys closest to my heart, and I won't ever stop working, because it doesn't matter where we are; what matters is what we do there. The support we are getting is close to none, and this has been happening for long, and I've sat and watched everything happen in front of my eyes while I felt like I am happy staying away from the drama where some of the supposedly big projects from Aptos are being invited with big grants, and they end up doing NOTHING but the ones that were always here have been given no support because the thought process is "where will these guys go, they have their projects so they are responsible for it, so not on us to retain them, and inviting new projects will add to the onboarding metrics we'd like to market as always, even if they don't do anything, aesthetically onboarding them will look good", but I always was a part of the drama even if not involved, because these things that happen hurt your projects without you even knowing about it. I could name several projects that were heavily supported both financially and socially, even via. Spaces that ended up doing nothing, and not even DeFi projects benefited users. Onchain metrics like revenue are good for projects, yet you only track them and do nothing that signals "users". But my fight is not against any projects; they are also trying in the same waters What was once a project that helped revive the vibes and community on Aptos is now a mere meme that only the community still wants to support, because either 1. We pissed them off by calling Aptos dead when it was (didn't hurt Bonk though, as Solana picked up on that meme and look at where Bonk is), or 2. They just don't want to support or retain the current set of builders, including us, because we don't align with the inflated metrics. What's hard to accept is that work must be done to acquire users, and that support must be provided to the projects. They cannot run the show alone when they don't hold treasuries like yours to define the marketing terms? In fact, the IBW 2025 event going on right now, we just skipped it because of the disrespect we got, and the sidelining we saw towards us last year, yet we never showed it here because we thought "these guys are having so many internal issues, what would they care about our feedback" because a few days after the event, the entire leadership changes happened, and since then, it's been too hard to do anything as a project on Aptos if you were already here. I am done trying to bullpost and will only work hard on the projects I am part of, because real support will come from ecosystem heads who see builders as they are, and whose work and passion can be understood by someone who has grinded to the same level. This may mark the bottom for GUI, because we will fucking make sure we reach a place where we earn back the respect, and we show people their place as well, because it hurts to see where we are and where we ended up by blindly believing, which shouldn't have been the case in the first place. And no, this is not just the token price prompting me to discuss it; it is one of the factors, as it should be. Aptos Foundation needs to do better in almost every department, be it the project due diligence or supporting them, be it the narrative marketing, or be it supporting the people who have been always here and created content, because NO, you cannot just after a long time say that the creators can go make content outside of Aptos, and then bring those followers from there to Aptos, because no, there's nothing to gain by doing so and for spending both time and efforts, and it's not my thoughts alone - a lot of other creators used to crash out in group chats when these things were technically relayed on calls and X Spaces and we used to think whether a mistake was made trying to bullpost Aptos, or be its supporter, or a builder. The answer to everything is the same, though, now that we see it. I am not someone who just came a few months ago to say maybe I don't know the whole picture, because I am here since the beginning and have seen everything, and thus it hurts further that I still decided to tag along despite everything that happened, and the price tanking at the same time, with us believers with huge bags having no other choice but to keep believing. Stop taking feedback through forms and private chats because they end up only being "heard" and nothing happens to work upon those. There is no hope left now. Aptos, please do better from here, and at least keep the ones that are still here happy.