Bitfi Responds to CCN Article Regarding Apollo Currency

POMPANO BEACH, Fla., April 1, 2019 (Newswire.com) - Bitfi today announced that it has found numerous material and factual errors in an article titled “Warning: This John McAfee-Pumped Cryptocurrency Has Major Red Flags” (published on CCN: https://www.ccn.com/warning-this-john-mcafee-pumped-cryptocurrency-has-major-red-flags).

It is Bitfi’s mission to accelerate the adoption of digital assets, and when articles are written to sway public opinion but do not meet basic journalistic standards it causes harm to the entire industry. The Society of Professional Journalists in its Preamble Code of Ethics states: “public enlightenment is the forerunner of justice and the foundation of democracy. The duty of the journalist is to further those ends by seeking truth and providing a fair and comprehensive account of events and issues. Conscientious journalists from all media and specialties strive to serve the public with thoroughness and honesty. Professional integrity is the cornerstone of a journalist's credibility.” Yet, we are alarmed by the content and quality of journalism that we are seeing in many mainstream blockchain related publications. 

Without even getting into the claims and statements of the above article, it is clear that CCN never even reached out to Apollo (APL) for comment and relied only on the statements made by their competitor which were published as fact. Furthermore, even if relying on those statements, a publication has an ethical duty to verify if the statements made by whomever they interviewed are true (other than statements that are clearly labeled as opinions). Where and how was this done? Imagine seeing a piece like this in the Wall Street Journal.

In addition, Bitfi works exclusively with blockchain technologies, has integrated Apollo (APL) into its wallet, and has made numerous public announcements about the unique features and technologies that make Apollo (APL) a very high-quality project. Bitfi would not recommend Apollo (APL) to its wallet users if significant due diligence has not been performed. We have done weeks of work analyzing the Apollo (APL) blockchain and surely this is more effort than the time it took to write the CCN article. 

Now, Bitfi will address every claim and accusation made in this article. Bear in mind that Bitfi has never at any time received any compensation whatsoever from Apollo (APL), which is precisely why Bitfi is able to provide unbiased information: 

1) “The latest dubious crypto token is called Apollo, an “all-in-one” cryptocurrency with supposedly-private transactions. However, according to crypto development firm Jelurida, Apollo’s so-called privacy features promoted are not so private after all.” 

This is entirely inaccurate. Apollo (APL) only had IP masking and API level private transactions with Olympus 1.0 and this was made clear in all Apollo (APL) announcements where it was clearly indicated that full database level privacy would only occur with Olympus 2.0. This is easily proven by the mere fact that Apollo (APL) required every user to accept a written agreement from Apollo (APL) prior to using any privacy features: 

Yet now Olympus 2.0 is live and fully operational. Using a previous technology to use as an argument against an entirely new technology is deceitful at best. With Olympus 2.0, Apollo (APL) has all of the claimed privacy features which will be discussed in more detail below. 

2) “To prove their point, Jelurida built the “snake-oil” project – a modified version of the Nxt Blockchain Creation Kit Software adapted to connect to the Apollo blockchain and display all transactions from it, ignoring any misleading ‘private’ flags. The Jelurida team’s findings weren’t surprising. It was possible to track all information regarding transactions, like addresses and amounts – which clearly shows there are no privacy features within the Apollo coin.”

Here is the snake-oil site that was built to prove this point: https://www.jelurida.com/apollo-snake-oil. It doesn’t work. It doesn’t work because Olympus 2.0 is live and operational and because all transactions are completely private. Has CCN tried using this to see if they can see private transactions sent on the Apollo (APL) blockchain? Surely not, otherwise they would have seen that it is not possible to “track all information regarding transactions.” 

3) One of the arguments that was posted in the article from the competitor is the following: “Imagine if some company back in the days when you made your antivirus software would have copied/ cloned your work, renamed to Mcfluffy, claiming to do tons of stuff and market it as a game changer knowing that actually is just a bad copy without the support of devs that made it!” 

This is especially curious because one can also imagine that back in the day, Satoshi Nakamoto invented the blockchain and then numerous companies (including the competitor making the accusation) cloned his work, renamed it to Jerulida “claiming tons of stuff and market it as a game changer knowing that actually is just a bad copy without the support of devs that made it.” This is an argument against any blockchain project other than Bitcoin because they are all essentially different variations of Bitcoin. 

4.) “Apollo’s selling point is quite straight forward: they’re the best cryptocurrency out there – for some unexplained reason.”

While all marketing contains some hyperbole, Apollo (APL) does have numerous and significant reasons that make it a really cutting-edge project in blockchain with many world-first innovations. For example, the fastest blocks with transactions that are 1 - 2 seconds, adaptive forging, an updater that eliminates hard forks, and the first in the world to launch database sharding. Some reading this will certainly attack the updater function and claim that this means that Apollo (APL) is centralized. However, the updater is used via consensus and a greater number of people will need to participate in the consensus mechanism for the update to happen. This eliminates a lot of messy situations. For instance, Ethereum’s switch to proof-of-stake will almost certainly require a fork which causes some chaos, but Apollo (APL) will never fork. Having said that, if decentralization is the most important criteria for an investor then absolutely nothing is as decentralized as Bitcoin and there is no reason to own any other project if highest possible decentralization is desired. 

5.) Several competitors have remarked that it is impossible for Apollo (APL) to safely execute 2-second blocks and that it would make the blockchain unstable. 

However, Apollo (APL) has successfully developed an infrastructure that has created the ability to do that safely. This infrastructure is based on the Updater, Chain ID, and Time Synchronization with nodes. Chain ID allows to create separate chains which validate other chains. And Time Synchronization synchronizes nodes much faster than other blockchains. There is no question that Apollo’s 2-second blocks are stable and safe.

6.) “More troublingly, as Apollo states on the one-pager, the coin should have IP masking and public-private transaction options.” 

Bitfi feels that scam accusations are very serious and hurt the entire digital asset market. In addition, in a space that desperately needs more education, misinformation or sloppy journalism being disseminated causes significant harm to all investors because it frightens new investors from entering this exciting market.

Therefore to get to the bottom of these accusations, Bitfi would like to offer the following: 

A) $10,000 USD (can be paid in Bitcoin) to the first person who can identify any Apollo (APL) transaction sent with privacy features (which includes coin mixing) with any tool that exists.

B.) An additional $10,000 USD (also can be paid in Bitcoin) would be paid to the first person who tracks or identifies the IP address of the account that sent funds while using Apollo (APL) privacy features. 

About Bitfi 

Bitfi is a global payments technology company that is developing new technology for holding and securing digital assets to surpass cold storage. Its wallet does not store private keys, making it the world’s only wallet that cannot be seized. www.bitfi.com 

About Apollo (APL) 

Utilizing a community of world-class developers, managers, marketers and researchers the Apollo community, backed by the Apollo Foundation, has accomplished its goal in becoming the World's fastest, most private and most feature-rich cryptocurrency. Apollo was developed for the sole purpose of offering every mainstream cryptocurrency feature on one untraceable platform. www.apollocurrency.com 

Forward-looking statements 

Except for statements of historical fact, the matters discussed in this press release are forward-looking and made pursuant to the Safe Harbor provisions. "Forward-looking statements" describe future expectations, plans, results, or strategies, and are generally preceded by words such as "future," "plan" or "planned," "expects," or "projected." These forward-looking statements reflect numerous assumptions and involve a variety of risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond the company's control that may cause actual results to differ materially from stated expectations. These risk factors include, among others, limited operating history, difficulty in developing and marketing products, intense competition, and additional risks factors. 

Media Contact:

Email: [email protected]
Phone: 828-357-7004
bitfi.com

Source: Bitfi