Addressing Apollo Foundation Dumping Claims

Specifically, this article will directly address two inaccurate accusations brought up by a blog post and its anonymous author, these two accusations are:

1. The Apollo Foundation has not been transparent with its wallet address
2. The Apollo Foundation has been secretely selling

We would like to cover each of these accusations in depth, starting with wallet transparency.

Wallet Transparency -

One of the boldest claims of the article in question is that the Foundation has been hiding its funds from the public eye, this claim shows one of two things:

1. How little research its author put forth

2. The maliciousness of the author’s intent

It is important to note that the Apollo Foundation has always made its only wallet public from the very beginning. This wallet address, having contained the allocated 6 billion owned by the Foundation, has always been public knowledge and the Foundation’s wallet balance has been permanently displayed, publicly, on the statement page of the Apollo block explorer. Contrary to what has been claimed, there has never been any attempt, even an opportunity, to hide this wallet as this wallet along with its balance has always been in the public eye.

Foundation Wallet: APL-7XPN-65VC-H29B-35FWG

Statement: https://explorer.apollowallet.org/official-statement

Block Explorer Statement

Apollo Foundation Public Wallet

Another one of the accusations made on this particular blog article is the frivolous claim that the Foundation somehow owns 11 Billion Apollo. This amount is obviously significantly more than the 6 billion Apollo that was transparently set aside in the Foundation’s public wallet. This claim is further evidence that the blog’s author did very little research since anyone that has read the original allocation or has followed the blockchain would quickly see that this is not the case, as the allocations which have been clearly defined from the beginning, match up with the blockchain. It takes very little time using the block explorer (or Apollo database) to prove the Apollo referrenced has been placed in a large number of wallets over a period of time, reflecting the stated original distribution.

The amount within the remaining 5 billion Apollo referenced (11 Billion - 6 billion = 5 Billion) is not in anyway owned by the Foundation and has been distributed into several categories of wallets, as stated on our allocation description. Within these categories of wallets are: investors, influencers, vendors, volunteers, contractors, advisors, team members (short term and long term), exchanges (most exchanges require a portion of APL), airdrop recipients, non-profit donations as well as wallets pertaining to many other circumstances.

It was claimed within this blog post that the Apollo Foundation has been purposefully hiding these addresses. Of course, this could not be further from the truth. Anyone is able to clearly locate any of these wallets on the blockchain through a very simple deduction process. To allude that the Foundation should have listed out all of these wallets publicly and that by not doing so the Foundation is somehow suspicious highlights the malicious intent of the blog’s author. This defies common sense as no blockchain project has ever listed out each address within the blockchain, especially in a circumstance such as this which would include hundreds, if not thousands, of wallet addresses which have no connection to the Foundation. On top of this there would be no need to do so as these addresses are easy to locate within the blockchain explorer and Apollo’s database. From the very beginning the Foundation has made all addresses public which pertain to supply or the Foundation’s holdings. It is important to understand that Apollo is a privacy currency, so any wallet that does not fall within these parameters would and should never be highlighted publicly. To do so would create unfair attention on the owner, of which contributed to the Apollo mission either monetarily, with sweat equity or at the very least vital goods and services.

As part of the narrative within the referenced blog post, an attempt was also made to suggest that the “numbers provided do not add up”, ironically the math pertaining to this post’s “evidence” is completely incorrect from the very beginning. At the very start of this post it is stated that the Apollo total supply is 31 Billion, this is completely false (and does not match up with any description available) as proven by our genesis account:

Genesis account: APL-MRCC-2YLS-8M54–3CMAJ

21,165,096,531 + 8,834,903,465 + 4 = 30,000,000,000

Genesis Account

In summary, if a user follows the real, verifiable numbers, of which are absolute and easily proven, and then verifies those numbers against the Apollo original distribution, it is easily determined that the numbers we have published transparently from the beginning add up perfectly. If there was a single discrepancy within these numbers the Apollo team would never have put their name and reputation behind this project. Apollo is unique in that, unlike other privacy coins in the past, members of the core team have chosen to reveal their full identity and in doing so accept all liabilities that come with doing so.

Apollo Foundation Selling -

An additional claim that has been made within the referenced blog post is that wallets which were funded by one of the Apollo Foundation’s accounts have transferred funds to IDAX. There are two incorrect assumptions which were made pertaining to this claim:

1. That these accounts are owned by either the Apollo Foundation or a team member.
2. That these accounts sold the funds which were sent to IDAX (exchange).

In determining the legitimacy of this claim it is very important to remember two absolute facts:

1. Nearly every Apollo wallet (with a positive balance), in existence, was originally funded by one of the Foundation funding wallets as part of the CDE, airdrop or otherwise. This includes every original wallet set up for investors, influencers, vendors, volunteers, contractors, non-profit donations, advisors, team members (short term and long term), exchanges (exchanges require a portion of APL), airdrop recipients, as well as every other type of user. The reason for this is that Apollo’s initial distribution was completed only recently and the majority of Apollo accounts have not moved their funds since the initial distribution. By the author’s logic, nearly every one of the 10,000’s of wallets containing Apollo would be a wallet that must be owned by an Apollo team member. Obviously this logic is flawed as this cannot be the case.
2. Many users have sent funds to exchanges (including IDAX) with no intent on selling in the foreseeable future. Apollo moving from a standard wallet to an exchange does not mean that an account is creating or has created a sell order, much less that it is dumping. Users move funds to an exchange for a multitude of reasons, including but not limited to: increased security (two-factor authentication), liquidity, increased accessibility (shortened username and password), day trading (to increase stake), bot trading, and many other logical reasons.

Contrary to what was stated in the article referenced, sending Apollo from a user’s address to an IDAX address does not mean that a sell order was created. It is impossible to verify if a sell order has been made. Claiming to know this information shows that the author is intentionally publishing false information to push a narrative.

Additionally, within the article referenced there was an attempt to link Apollo wallets that were funded before the start of the CDE, wallets with specific aliases and wallets with larger balances directly to team members. This assumption is grossly inaccurate because of the fact that nearly all, if not all, wallets funded before the start of the CDE were a direct product of the NXT airdrop, these wallets account for thousands of wallet IDs which make up the largest Apollo holders (biggest account balances). These NXT airdrop recipients include wallets with balances as high as 800 million Apollo and belong not only to exchanges but the largest private NXT holders. The majority of Apollo team members were funded either during the CDE or after, and on average Apollo team member’s balances are much smaller than the majority of the wallets from Apollo’s largest investors and NXT airdrop recipients. Furthermore, an alias such as the one mentioned in the referenced article (“Airdrop2020”) does not provide evidence that a wallet is owned by a team member. On the contrary, it is common knowledge that aliases, just like domain names, have been acquired by investors within the community based on their potential, future value, not only based on their immediate practical uses. The alias ApolloCEO, for instance, is owned by a member of the community, not the Apollo Foundation’s CEO.

Contrary to suggestions made by this author, the Apollo Foundation has never transferred or sold Apollo on an exchange and has no plans or necessity to do so anytime in the near future. The Foundation has reserved the funds within the initial 6 billion solely for the purpose of funding development, exchange listings, marketing and operations costs, if and when it is ever needed. This has been transparently specified at the time of Apollo’s inception, because of this there would be no reason for sales by the Foundation to be completed in private. Structured sales are something which are expected and welcomed by the majority of our large investors, for this reason everyone will be made aware when and if this happens. All invesors can rest assured that there will be four absolute guarantees if this situation was to come about, these are:

1. The Apollo Foundation will alert investors of any structured sell well in advance and specify the reason for this sale in great detail.
2. There will be an absolute reason for the sale which pertains only to building, bettering or maintaining Apollo or the Apollo privacy mission.
3. The amount sold will give Apollo an equal market value. An example of this is if $100,000 is sold in APL then this $100,000 sold must create $100,000 or more in market value within the near future for Apollo or the Apollo privacy mission.
4. Depending on the situation, the Apollo Foundation may ask the community to vote on this expense prior to any sale, solely for the purpose of determining if an expense is deemed worth the potential effect on the market.

We hope that this has cleared up the false information out there. We will be publishing a video, point by point commentary of the referenced article as well as a full list of all NXT airdrop wallets in the coming days.

Please do not hesitate to bring any questions to the community Telegram page.

-The Apollo Team