Background
I am writing this post as a response to the feedback given by the community and last days discussion on X in relation to the previously announced challenge feature hosted on kinfo.
On Dec 16 kinfo announced a new feature to host challenges on the platform, the first person to host a challenge was JTrader.
The feedback was negative and I took immediate action based on feedback from the community.
- The challenge was removed from public view.
- New policies and rules related to challenges were announced
- Kinfo took a decision to not associate with or market the challenge
- No new challenges will be planned in the near future
- JTrader will be allowed to run the already announced challenge as a private challenge
These actions received positive feedback from the community.
Events on Feb 4
On Feb 4 a user showed a screenshot on X with JTraders profile on kinfo showing -11k
The post was deleted by the user after an explanation was posted as a comment.
Unfortunately, the thread was spammed with negative comments which made it hard for anyone to distinguish facts from misinformation.
Below you will find the facts and a detailed explanation of what happened and the actions taken.
Immediate Actions
I immediately started an investigation into the issue and found that a management account had been used instead of an individual account. Since kinfo pulls data from all accounts, it added trades from a number of newly added student account.
JTrader was contacted and the issue was resolved the same day.
Of course, management accounts shouldn´t be allowed in the first place, later the same day the platform was updated to prevent this from happening in the future.
Detailed explanation about the issue with Management accounts
The broker used in this case supports management accounts, a feature where an individual can have multiple accounts from other users as subaccounts. It is used by educators as an efficient way for educators to review students’ trades.
When looking into the issue I discovered that the broker link had several student accounts enabled which then had added trades and metrics which was the -11k shown in the platform.
This should of course not be allowed on kinfo as it would open up a possibility to skew ones trading record. When discovered, it was immediately removed and JTrader linked an individual account instead.
To further investigate the issue I went through all accounts and discovered two other similar cases where a management account had been linked, these were immediately removed.
To prevent this from happening in the future, a failsafe was implemented that detects if a management account is used instead of an individual account, in case a management account is used, it will deny and block the linking of the broker.
Facts about business relationships
The challenge feature was a platform feature, not a service. There is no agreement, association, or financial incentive for kinfo to host a challenge other than adding a feature to the platform which benefits the original business model.
The original business model is based on users signing up for the paid PRO and PRO+ tier, or aquire the subscription from a broker partner.
Misinformation
What you read here are facts, there is nothing to hide and there is no reason for me not to explain exactly what went wrong and what was done to fix it.
You can choose not to believe me but it´s out of my control.
When reading about the issue on X however, facts will be mixed up with a ton of misinformation that are neither grounded or backed by any proof, it´s more there to cause damage.
My policy on blocking X accounts
I rarely block anyone on X and my policy is to not block anyone unless absolutely necessary, I think the negative comments are as important as the positive ones to show guidance on how to improve the business.
But there is a limit to everything, when a brand new account with 50 followers blasts 50 tweets within a few hours, repeatidly on every sub thread it´s enough.
After blocking him, this person engaged in personal harassment against me instead.
The future
The technical issue with management accounts has been resolved both for JTraders account and permanently for users that may link a management account in the future.
JTrader will run his challenge, the kinfo platform will be used to host it since we agreed to that prior these events.
As said already on Dec 18, kinfo will not market the challenge and has neither incentive or obligation to do so.
The challenge feature will likely not be used in the future, we will carefully evaluate feedback from the community to decide what to do with it.
Final words
I admit that mistakes were made on my end and I apologize to the community for that.
Technical issues as the issue with management accounts are hard to foresee when it´s such a rare and first-time occurrence but there are improvements to be made in that are as well.
We live in a time where anonymous free speech is the norm and doing the right thing seems more difficult than ever.
To this day, no one has been able to prove that the track-record on kinfo can be faked. The rare occasions with bugs like this has been patched and fixed same or next day.
Despite this, there is a flood of comments claiming that kinfo is fake, can´t be trusted and so on.
I am doing the best I can to provide value to the community and a platform that can be trusted.
I understand that situations like this weakens the trust I worked so hard to build but I hope it can be regained by showing the facts that it was a bug in our platform, fixed the same day.
