Resonating with this approach, I suggest we upgrade the “community tracking” into a Distributed Audit Guardian.
Manual tracking scales poorly. Instead, by placing Treasury funds into Optimistic Vesting Vaults, we allow scheduled payments to flow automatically unless challenged.
We then offer a ZK-Bounty to any auditor—or crucially, any Project Insider—who can prove that a milestone claim is false or that metrics are manipulated.
Why a ZK-Bounty?
Because perfect privacy breaks the game-theoretic stability of silence.
Currently, if a team fakes their metrics to secure a tranche, their internal developers or junior staff stay silent because the social cost of “snitching” (firing, retaliation, reputation) is too high.
By decoupling the ‘Reward’ from the ‘Identity’ via Zero-Knowledge proofs:
- The Threat becomes Internal: If a team fakes their metrics, their own developers have a financial incentive to anonymously flag it and claim the bounty.
- The Equilibrium Shifts: The project lead can no longer trust their own team to collude in the fraud, because the “Cost of Defection” for an insider drops to zero, while the reward is high.
This solves the ‘Audit Scalability’ problem instantly by turning every insider into a potential auditor.
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Manual tracking scales poorly. Instead, by placing Treasury funds into Optimistic Vesting Vaults, we allow scheduled payments to flow automatically unless challenged.
This is how it works already. Proposers can schedule many payouts via a single referendum. If those payouts are not canceled, they will flow automatically. Here is an example: https://polkadot.subsquare.io/referenda/1794
Also more reading on the topic here: Treasury Guardianship
Your zk stuff sounds interesting but since anyone keen on staying anonymous can just create a new wallet and any wallet can create a delay/cancel payout referendum, I wonder if it is really necessary?
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It is necessary because a “new wallet” provides anonymity, but it does not provide credibility.
If a random fresh wallet claims a project is faking metrics, it is easily dismissed as FUD or noise. The ZK-proof allows that fresh wallet to prove: “I am a verifiable insider/signer” without revealing which one.
This distinction is critical for the economic correction:
- Game Theoretic Correction (The Reward)
As you noted, currently “snitching has no reward.” To break the silence, we must pay the whistleblower.
• We cannot justify paying a random “new wallet” because we can’t verify their access or intent.
• We can pay a ZK-verified wallet because the proof guarantees they are a stakeholder. This allows us to safely automate the bounty payout, turning the “Traitor” into “The Reformer” with full Reputational Amnesty.
- Liability & Execution (The Auditor)
Relying on OpenGov for execution is slow and political.
In this model, a neutral third party (The Auditor) or a ZK-Coprocessor bears the liability for executing the logic. They verify the encrypted ZKP (which proves insider status + fraud evidence) and trigger the halt immediately.
The ZKP acts as an anonymous credential, it hides identity and binds agency from ‘The Reformer’ (The Insider) to ‘The Auditor’ (The Executor).