Hey everyone, thanks for engaging with us and having such an open and transparent process, I respect that a lot. We replied to your comment on the referenda but pasting it here also in case someone doesn't see it.

About the pricing:

• Our ask has remained unchanged since the initial proposal back in February. All the plans, breakdowns, timelines, work allocation have been transparently available in the full proposal from the beginning.
• Its a large amount but its also proportional to the work that goes into creating a whole storage network comparable to Arweave, Filecoin etc the difference is that we are not creating a new L1, not launching a new token and not owning the network. Just adding to DOT utility.
• People typically pay for such projects, not because they are cheap/expensive but because the value created in return is bigger than the cost.
• As a business, on top of paying salaries for blockchain devs we have to cover other supporting personnel, health and social security, sick times, vacations, national holidays, training, replacements, taxes, which add to the difference between individual expectations and real costs.
• While the cost might seem high, we aim to deliver high quality work and avoid delivering a rushed, low quality product that would cost more to the network due to its failures, user experience, downtime or damaged reputation.

About the timing, I don't agree with that, these things take time and the bulk of the work must be done in parallel, if things are done sequentially then timelines are extended and we as an ecosystem miss the timing. As the first team to send our Jam client implementation for review and open sourced the code, we have the finger on the pulse with the latest developments and graypaper updates and believe the timing is right.