AI translated#Podcast

Minter’s biggest mistake

Evgeny Gordeev on Minter’s tokenomics error, BIP, and plans for TON and The Fund.

25.09.2025 ForkLog

The developers of the Minter blockchain made a serious error in tokenomics, which drove the native BIP token down a thousandfold. The team now awaits the completion of mining of the remaining supply and is preparing to launch trading on the TON network. ForkLog spoke with its creator, Evgeny Gordeev, about the project’s history and future.

ForkLog (FL): In 2017 you stopped working on the DeCenter Telegram channel and focused entirely on Minter. How did it start?

Evgeny Gordeev (E. G.): At the end of 2017 DeCenter was the first to publish the official documents on Pavel Durov’s project Telegram Open Network.

Watching the market, I realised this blockchain was maximally inconvenient for the masses. TON, with its colossal capabilities, went into the complex thickets of scaling in an attempt to build a fully decentralised Web3. I understood that ordinary users did not actually need this. We began thinking how to make a blockchain for people. We were advised by Konstantin Lomashuk from cyber•Fund.

We initially wanted to build a network on a fork of Ethereum, but were advised to look at Tendermint. And that was the dumbest mistake one could make. We should have just built what would later be called an L2, or an Ethereum fork; we would, of course, have done much better. But by nature we love to wade up to our ears into the deepest swamp.

By mid‑summer 2018 we already had a testnet, we began recruiting validators, and in May 2019 we launched the mainnet.

FL: Was the idea to create a blockchain for integration with Telegram Open Network?

E. G.: We did not build a blockchain for TON. We were the first to agree with them that we would use their smart contracts. Minter did not have its own due to optimisation. However, when the original TON stalled because of litigation with SEC, we implemented this on the Ethereum and BNB Smart Chain blockchains.

The initial goal was to build a fast and reliable platform for private money with throughput of up to a thousand transactions per second and low fees. In principle, what Solana did, only without that amount of scam.

We also considered rewarding the best people in the community with coins, providing their liquidity through built‑in trading mechanisms.

FL: The Minter white paper speaks of “instant liquidity” for issued coins. Did you manage to implement this concept?

E. G.: I may be mistaken, but roughly 2,500 coins have been issued and there are about 1,500 pools in the system.

FL: Were all the launches successful, or did some projects turn out to be less than honest?

E. G.: There were a number of successful launches, but in any open system scammers arrive first. They do not need to build anything; they just need to sell something. If a normal project spends 10% on promotion, scammers can spend up to 50% and, accordingly, gain more marketing influence over the market.

Scammers saw the first tokens launched by validators and other strong projects and began making their super‑coins with outlandish promises. Back then Minter had many people who were not “crypto-native”, and it is clear they piled into anything and everything.

Frankly, I think 99% of everything launched in crypto over the past 15 years is mostly scams. This problem can be tackled; we will announce this soon.

FL: Where does the BIP token trade now? And what about its price?

E. G.: From the very beginning our position was that all CEX are a scam, so BIP trades inside Minter. We have all sorts of top wrapped assets such as Ethereum, BNB, USDT, USDC, and so on. But trading there is extremely small, because the token has fallen in price roughly a thousandfold since launch.

This happened because there was a serious tokenomics mistake—one later made by Durov and many other players. The idea was to distribute 100% of the token issuance among validators and developers—those who were building the economy. They were supposed to accumulate it and sell little by little to cover their costs. At the same time, applications were being developed and corporate value was growing.

New people arrived, and in the first month BIP rose tenfold. Euphoria began, and everyone started dumping into the order book. The rate began to fall, selling intensified—a snowball effect.

FL: Were there unlocks, or did distribution occur without vesting?

E. G.: The system has smooth vesting via BIP mining. At the start everyone had 1% of the issuance; now it is about 85%, and every five seconds new coins were being mined. That was also one of the problems. Because everyone thought: I will sell now, and then I will not.

FL: How many independent validators are in the network now?

E. G.: About 25–30. They are constantly being added and removed.

FL: Is Minter’s code open?

E. G.: Yes. At one point Minter was in the top three blockchains on GitHub by number of commits.

FL: What is Minter’s main competitive advantage?

E. G.: That no one has done better to this day. Our mistake was precisely in tokenomics. Technically, everything works perfectly.

FL: What is the project’s roadmap for the coming year?

E. G.: We are waiting for the entire supply to finish mining, and then we will distribute it across different projects.

One of the most active Minter participants also came up with the idea to list BIP on the TON blockchain and test smart contracts.

FL: You are now working on The Fund. What is its purpose?

E. G.: It is a board of top builders on TON and in Telegram who are creating a tokenised fund to attract financing for launching and developing projects in the ecosystem.

Developers apply through a dedicated application, FundApp, and after selection they are assigned to one of the board members, raising initial investment in FUND tokens with their help. In turn, the project allocates part of its native assets to investors.

After the seed round The Fund guarantees a 100% return of the spent tokens within a year. Then comes the pre‑market, when the project’s coin can rise or fall in price. And the fourth stage is the market stage, when the fund launches liquidity for the project.

The structure does not aim to generate commercial profit. Our task is to improve the chances of decent teams to gain traction and to get rid of scammers as much as possible. We will focus on projects that can launch within a month to a year.

FL: When will The Fund launch?

E. G.: FUND will be listed on DeDust in the coming days; in October three rounds of token sales will begin. From 1 January 2026 the first projects will be published.

FL: What promising areas in the crypto market do you see over the next five years?

E. G.: I think at some point a protocol will become the basis for transferring large assets between corporations. SWIFT, SEPA and other payment systems are not universal; a tool is needed that corporate agents can manage.

The second trend is a new credit system based on social capital recorded on the blockchain. People will be able to lend to each other depending on activity, success, honesty or other criteria. Borrowers with a certain level of credit score will be able to debit cryptocurrency from the creditor’s account without acceptance.

Artificial intelligence will help assess people for this rating. Such a system will allow trillions of dollars to be accumulated for billions of people.