The $STORJ community buyout: what we are proposing, why, and how it would work

Announcements
1

To our token holders and network participants,

On Wednesday we released the indication of interest form for the $STORJ community buyout. The response has been real, and the questions in that thread deserve a fuller answer than a form can give. Here is what we are proposing, why, and how it could work.

Register here: $STORJ Community Buyout: Indication of Interest

What we are proposing. A community-owned vehicle that could acquire the Storj business out of Chapter 11, funded by $STORJ contributed by token holders, who choose to participate, and governed by the people who contribute. The indicative target remains at 10 to 20% of outstanding total supply. The likely form of the vehicle is a DAO or a similar structure with a governance token. The structure is currently not settled, and is being reviewed by legal counsel.

Today we are collecting indications of interest and nothing else. No vault is live, nothing has been collected, and there is nothing to send to anyone .

Why we are proposing it. In the open letter on July 26 we said the goal is a restructured company owned by the people who built it and the people who believed in it. You are the most invested participants in this network. The node operators and customers here are the ones who may be in a position to pay for it and to run it. Community ownership is the outcome that keeps Storj closest to what it was meant to be.

On how the company got here: a series of acquisitions moved Storj away from its core storage business and left legacy obligations the operating business could not carry. Chapter 11, Case No. 5:26-bk-00512 (Bk N.D. W.Va.), resolves those in one court-supervised process. That process is also what makes a sale possible, and we would rather the buyer be you.

How it would work. Six steps, at a high level:

1. Indications of interest, now. Voluntary, not binding, no tokens and no money.

2. If the interest supports it, management and council design: securities review, the jurisdictions involved, exchange questions, and what the vehicle actually is.

3. The proposal then goes to two audiences at once, this community and the bankruptcy court. Both have to find it workable.

4. If it clears both, terms and mechanics get published in full documentation for you to evaluate.

5. We stand up a vault where committed tokens can be deposited, with the paperwork completed at that step. We intend to move on this as soon as next week.

6. The vehicle submits its bid for the business.

Our working estimate for the full process is 8 to 12 weeks. The court sets the calendar, so we will publish milestones as they are set rather than predict them.

What we cannot tell you yet. Eligibility, terms, tax treatment, and what a governance token would confer. None of it is designed, and we would rather say so than guess in public. We also cannot tell you that the community wins. Other parties can bid for this business and the court decides. And we will not comment on token price, not now and not during the process.

What happens next. We will post our next update here mid next week: how much interest came in, whether it is enough to proceed, and what the vault would look like if it is. Another update follows the week after. If you see anything claiming to be an official buyout announcement before then, it did not come from us.

Security reminder, please read: we will NEVER DM you first, and we will NEVER ask for your private keys, seed phrase, or funds. The only official form link is the one in this post, and our only official email addresses are cbo@storj.io and info@storj.io. If you see a similar form or link anywhere else, treat it as a scam and r e port it here.

Questions and ideas are welcome below or at cbo@storj.io. We respond within two business days.

The Storj Team

cbo@storj.io

An indication of interest is voluntary and not binding. It does not create, waive, or affect any claim or right, and it is separate from the formal claims process. This post is not an offer or solicitation of any security or token, not a promise of any recovery or distribution, and not financial advice. Any participation by token holders in the restructured company will occur only pursuant to a court-approved plan, definitive documentation, and applica ble securities laws.

2

Surely you mean ‘CIRCULATING’ supply and not outstanding total supply.
There is an authorized portion of ~67% and currently there is about ~33% of the total float as circulating; so you’re up front asking for more than double valuation?
ie: $1.287 Million valuation raised vs. $4 Million at todays token price. Both are a level of insanity, however the former is far more practical. Valuation of this low margin business would seem to be only about $858k, a .03 STORJ price yeilding at best 20% profitability.

Please comment on total vs. circulating supply.

2 cents,

Julio

3

The form $STORJ Community Buyout: Indication of Interest is no longer accepting responses.

4

Maybe somebody with big pockets has made an offer.

5

I asked the team to check. Maybe a technical issue (like a limit of submissions).

6

It’s fixed, please try again. As I said - a temporary technical issue.

7

That looks like the same form as previously. Fill it out again or is it enough to submit it once? Maybe I am missing something and it might be a different form.

8

I think that filling once is a right move. This form the same, just the previous one hit the limit (I guess). So the voting is still ongoing.
Not sure, would it be de-duplicated though.

9

I still have tokens on an exchange and i dont want to move them for no reason. How can i prove it then, how much i have?

10

Could you please send an email with this question to the address in this topic?

11

For this buyout maybe you should consider the Shark Tank, Lions den or whatever show is still running now. Maybe one of the billionaires could save the company.

12

Storj has filed a number of motions, most importantly securing Debtor in Possession financing, and we are now awaiting a hearing to go through those motions and get formal approval. Therefore, we hope to update you nearer the end of the week.

13

In what year do you live atm? According to last published report there was only 26.3 mn tokens left by end of 2024. :thinking:

14

Why don’t you open another company, migrate all the services there, operators and clients, and let this one die? The code is open source. Would it seem like the competition opened a similiar service and we all opted to move to them. :blush:

15

Brand recognition but also they do have some enterprise clients and likely those are under contract. Would get messy to disolve and then pop up as a new company and try to get customers. Not to mention the various licenses and business tools that are owned by Storj Labs.

16

I am one of those small customers who has been here since the very beginning of the entire Storj project. My journey started with hosting nodes, which is something I have continued doing throughout all these years and still do to this day. Hopefully, the whole thing will not “burn down,” and I will be able to continue doing so…

Apart from that, however, I am also an enthusiastic developer with around 38 web projects under my wing. Most of them are community-oriented projects that I provide to people completely free. I simply enjoy working on them because they allow me to learn many new skills that I can then apply in my main job. I also like helping people find more open alternatives to various commercial solutions. Not only that, but I, personally, bear all the costs associated with running these websites and applications, with no external financial help.

For many years, I found the idea of being able to send all the large amounts of data generated by these websites, as well as regular backup snapshots, to some form of decentralized storage extremely appealing. When Storj finally reached a technical stage where connecting to it through S3 became sufficiently easy thanks to its compatibility, I gradually began reworking and migrating everything. Since then, whenever I create a project or application that requires any kind of S3 backend, I delegate it to Storj.

And this brings us to the heart of the matter. It is EXTREMELY true that the recent experiments with minimum charges shook my confidence in Storj as a project more than once and made me question whether, under such conditions, I even wanted to remain here as a small fish. I suddenly began to feel as though someone in management had lost their mind and decided to wage war against small developers like us - developers who chose to be progressive rather than boringly follow the mainstream by selecting one of the ordinary S3 providers people commonly use for these “for fun” projects and who instead tried to promote something new.

Believe it or not, I do not want any credit or recognition for this, but as far as I know, I must have brought you at least twenty paying customers. It happens quite often that people examine my backends, notice the Storj integration, and ask whether I would recommend it and what I can tell them about it. Once I begin explaining the benefits of decentralization, the available possibilities, and so on, the overwhelming majority of these conversations end with that person registering and beginning to experiment with Storj as well.

I have countless examples like this. Of course, we are not generating billions for the company, as major corporations and huge businesses presumably would. However, anyone with even a basic understanding of marketing knows how incredibly valuable personal recommendations are. In most cases, they are among the most powerful forms of promotion available.

That is why your experiments with minimum charges felt like a genuine cold shower to me and forced me to consider whether I wanted to continue supporting such a project at all. I had spent all those years diligently operating, maintaining, and expanding my nodes. I then took my support to another level by beginning to use the project extensively wherever possible - only to receive a virtual punch in the face from Storj, effectively telling me that I was not wanted here because people like me were uninteresting to Storj and perhaps even looked down upon. Really don’t know…

That is why I ultimately welcomed the decision to reconsider the policy. As though all of this were not enough, I am also one of those fools who tries to use the project in the way it was originally intended, meaning that I pay for everything in STORJ tokens - tokens that you have never appeared to care very much about, as you continue to demonstrate repeatedly.

Were I in a position to decide, I would place far greater emphasis on their practical use and give people many more options and reasons to use them. Storj has wasted an enormous amount of potential in this area. Perhaps one day someone will join the company who sees it similarly to me, but that person does not appear to be there yet.

Obviously, we all understand that removing the option to pay by credit card would exclude numerous customers. I would not remove it. I would simply expand the utility of the token far beyond offering some percentage-based discount (and I have plenty of ideas for how that could be done).

Overall, it is therefore a good thing (at least for now) that the minimum charge for payments made using tokens has been removed, since that is the payment method used by naïve idiots such as myself. Had this not happened, I swear on everything sacred to me that you would have lost one loyal supporter who has been with you since the absolute beginning. I may not be a big fish, but I both support and use the project across its full range of possibilities. As a bonus, I occasionally bring someone new to it as well…

Whew, I ended up writing quite a lot. I do not intervene in public discussions here very often and tend to remain more of an observer than an active participant. However, I primarily wanted to open the eyes of everyone on the Storj team to the fact that it is not all about the big fish. I fully understand their importance, but there are also useful little cogs in the machine that can contribute quite significantly to the overall result.

It is therefore entirely in your hands whether you value people like me or choose to give us the middle finger. This was the closest you have come to doing so since the project began. The next time you introduce changes to your pricing policy, I hope this has helped someone see the situation differently and think more carefully about it. We will see.

I apologize for the lengthy essay, but I simply needed to get this off my chest. I am now disappearing back into observer shadow mode.

17

Respect, friend and your thoughts are relatable to many, if not, the sentiment of all. Very well stated indeed, it’s this cathartic energy and honesty which may have real impact, making a difference, during times like these.

Regards,

Julio

18

I have some tokens (I filled out the form), and would probably be willing to buy some more tokens, but not before this goes forward. I don’t particularly want to buy a bunch of tokens, see this proposal go nowhere and then have to sell them for a lower price.

19

Just a heads up that not a single member of the team that wished to implement the $50 minimum fee remains at Storj. We sincerely regret how close that got to implementation.

Storj is still full of fantastic, dedicated, distributed systems engineers who want to build something great for everyone. That being said, we are living by the motto “every dollar must be profitable”.

20

We would appreciate If you share more information about well payout at normal timing, or they will be delayed because need judge approval on next hearing 24.08 as i understood.
Because now we are in the middle of ‘don’t know’ and at this situation people doing lot of stupid things.