Greetings!
The new node I've been teasing, Miko, has finally been set up and taken online. It sports 2 Xeon E5-2680 v4's at 2.4GHz (boosted to 3.3) with a 984 Geekbench 6 single-core score (a score that's almost double the previous Keisan CPU) and 768GB of DDR4 RAM. All current SSD VMs: Gaki, Kusari and Keisan are being migrated to this node. As always, prices on existing VMs will stay the same. The current offer system will probably get replaced by a server configurator next year.
While they're being migrated, expect the following downtimes for each VM:
Your server will automatically get shut down before it's migrated (or force stopped if qemu-guest-agent isn't installed and enabled on your VM, I strongly recommend installing it especially if you run a crypto node. Forced shutdowns could corrupt your blockchain and force you to resync from scratch) and started after being moved to Miko.
Matrix is now (supposed to be) working as an automatic contact method for expiring services. We also have a Telegram channel now, bridged to Matrix, and Telegram will be added as a contact method in the future. Be aware that Telegram DMs are not end-to-end encrypted, and can be read by Telegram. For any private conversations, it's much better to DM on Matrix or Session.
I started working on Kyun sometime in 2022, at age 17. I remember stumbling upon Vincent Canfield's Cockbox and thinking "this seems like it was fun to make. I should make something like this too, even if I never launch it. I was in 12th grade back then, freelancing in my spare time for pocket money and working on Kyun whenever I got bored or burnt out.
November was the month I went all in. I was tired of bitch ass teachers in school always on my ass for some bullshit for the past 11 years, always telling me I wouldn't amount to nothing, straight up harassing me and my parents. "What will school get me anyways? Make me one of the 3 billion 9-5 slave workers so I can kiss my boss' ass for a raise, retire at 65, go on vacations, take pictures with my iPad and die? I'm not going to waste my life like that." I didn't want a plan B. Whatever happens, at least I'm gonna have some fun.
I stopped going to school and eventually dropped out, much to my mother's dismay. It's a cliche but really, no one believed in me but myself. I couldn't focus on anything but the constant reminder that I made my mom upset, so I grabbed my X220, some clothes, bought a pack of cigarettes and a train ticket with the last money I had left and moved in with my grandma. That was the start of my 18 hour work days. I was in a tiny room 24/7, zero social contact, just constant grinding. "I am going to prove everyone wrong."
January 2023, I get a part-time dev job so I can make some money for the initial investment. I kept working on Kyun and in March, I finally got it into an acceptable state. Nothing special but it worked. Rented a 50 euro HDD dedicated server, 10 IPs and planned out the first offer, Gaki, for 2 euro/month, barely enough for me to break even if I sold everything.
Sunday morning, March 12, I launch kyun.host and post about it on the Monero subreddit. This was it, if I fucked anything up or the community didn't trust me it'd be over. I was exhausted after more than 24 hours in front of a screen so I said fuck it and went to sleep, not expecting anyone to care about my post or have it pass the spam filters.
I wake up and I can't believe what I'm seeing. I sold every single one of those 10 VMs. I don't think I've ever been happier in my life up until that point, lmao. I've said it before and I'll say it again, the Monero community is the best community on the Internet, and I owe a lot to every single person that upvoted and supported me in that thread.
I keep grinding and a few months later, around September, I get enough monthly income to live and keep investing in Kyun, so I leave the job. I grind some more. The hustle never stops.
Fast forward to this month, December 2023. I have enough money saved up, so I return to the city, rent a place, link up with friends I haven't seen in months, and finally relax for a bit. I made it. Mom is proud. MOMMA RAISED A SOLDIER, NOT A BITCH, NOT A BITCH
This train don't stop for no one. First thing next year, I'll touch up the UI and backend a bit, then colocate some servers in other regions, stay tuned for the region poll. 2024 is the year that Kyun gets truly production ready.
I also plan on launching a container/encode/AI hourly service besides the current more permanent classic VPS one. GPU containers will be the main focus.
Hiring some developers/sysadmins/network people would be nice. I know a lot of people would love to work on this project, and I would love to work with them too, but the money isn't there just yet. Colocating instead of renting will help the money situation quite a bit.
I will also add alternative payment methods at some point, with a 10% discount/bonus on all Monero deposits. I'm talking about Stripe and the like, I will never accept any other crypto.
I would like to open source the entirety of Kyun at some point (or rather, the important parts of it separated into high quality packages), under a GPL license.
I made many other promises in the past and I didn't forget them, but starting to go bald at the ripe old age of 18 isn't a sign of a very healthy lifestyle, so I had to slow things down. Next year is when shit gets real.
It's been a very long year. People have tried to dox me (my address and full legal name are 5 euro away btw, come get me irl PUSSY), I've been threatened because I protect free speech, the Kyun website got DDoS'd multiple times, and many, many other things. But this is just the beginning, and if this ship sinks then I'm going down with it.
Merry Christmas, love y'all.
- naphtha