Some major developments for the new year have been seen already in the Hedera and Hbar community. Amongst all the news and updates over the last few weeks one has stood out to me as major.
That event marked the departure of Peter Uliano (@peteruliano) from GoMint.me which was the first NFT marketplace to launch on Hedera Hashgraph. Seems lips are sealed about what led to his resignation but it seems he has already taken up shop with other use cases and projects that are operating on the platform. Aeonft, a meta-verse project, has had Peter as an advisor for some time but a recent tweet from another project is getting attention from the handle @wafutoken which tweeted that they are excited that Peter is joining them in a leadership role.
So what does the future hold for @Gomintme now that their public face and front man is gone?
It is safe to say that GoMint would not be as relevant as they are today without Peter Uliano as he has been in the forefront of the company since the beginning. I remember first learning about the NFT platform through the interview he did with Hedera Hashgraph’s Zenobia Godschalk on youtube explaining their launch and plans for the future. After that Peter was the only public representative of the company oftentimes appearing in twitter spaces, engaging with the community whilst the other founders were generally quiet and avoided the public eye. A quick look at their Twitter page and some of the conversations in the community show a disgruntled experience with the marketplace and lack thereof customer service.
I am led to wonder about the future for the marketplace. Peter tweeted about his departure on the 1st of January and the tweet has gained significant traction with 96 likes, 28 comments and a few retweets at the time of writing this. Some of those comments echo the thoughts of the community stating that Peter has helped them get into NFTs, provided personal phone calls and an experience that usually does not come from founders of a startup. GoMint has had another departure in the past with Mark Lombardi @blockfisher who was also quite vocal in the community through the telegram channels and rumor has it that he did not leave on good terms but I could not reach him for a comment. Peter also was unresponsive to a twitter direct message I sent asking him about the situation.
So where does that leave GoMint? It is in my opinion that this is the start of the demise of the startup that paved the way for newcomers like NFTPlural, Mintmaster and few others. A look at the website GoMint.co lists 2 other co-founders who do not have the same exposure and love in the community as Peter Uliano did or still does for that matter. I spoke to a few customers of the company and they said when they needed assistance the company generally did not offer any help or satisfactory customer service and a few said Peter was the only one willing to help them. One customer stated that Alex Taylor the CTO said “I do not see a business case to hand hold you through this process” and stated that he was instantly put off by the startup and ultimately decided to go to a different platform.
So what do you think? Is this the beginning of the end for the platform? Did Peter Uliano and his public role at the company lead to the current success? And where are they headed now that he has parted ways?
Lisa Steiner
