On-chain data exposes suspicious payment to marketing bounty director

[flez]

Public on chain data shows an undisclosed payment route between Novasama and Marketing Bounty director Crane.

The starting point is the Kus treasury movements table linked from Referendum 1303 on Polkadot.

That table includes a section dated 06/25/24 showing an on-chain payment from Kusamarian to a specific Ethereum address as Crane’s wage.

This confirms that the wallet address is controlled by Crane and used for his compensation.

This is where things get interesting.

On November 03, 2025 (seventeen days before writing this post), that same address received a transfer of 54,021 USDC.

The sender was another Ethereum address that, earlier the same day, received 524,361 USDC through a Snowbridge transfer.

Tracing the Snowbridge transaction back into the Polkadot ecosystem shows that the 524,361 USDC originated from a Novasama controlled account.

The amount roughly matches the size of Novasama’s recently approved Blast campaign funding under the Marketing Bounty, in which they received a payout of 435k EUR. The bridge transfer occurs six days after Novasama received the Blast funding and one day before the Assethub migration.

The pattern is clear.

1. The Marketing Bounty funds Novasama for the Blast campaign.
2. Six days later Novasama sends 524,361 USDC to Ethereum address through Snowbridge.
3. On the same day the receiving Ethereum address sends 54,021 USDC, about ten percent of the total, to Crane’s known address.
4. This payment is not disclosed in any bounty proposal, any campaign reporting, or any curator communication.

The sequence looks like a beneficiary sending money to a director shortly after receiving public funds. In a public funding environment, even the appearance of this kind of arrangement undermines trust and cannot be ignored.

There may be explanations for the transfer, but none address the central issue: it was never disclosed while Novasama was actively receiving and spending treasury funds overseen by Crane. That nondisclosure means the sequence now presents a textbook conflict of interest and requires scrutiny regardless of any later explanation.

The minimum governance response should be:

1. Immediate removal of Crane from any role in the Marketing Bounty, including revocation of all permissions.
2. A pause on new payments to vendors and service providers until Referendum 1791 is resolved.

This remains urgent even with a shutdown proposal underway.

The Marketing Bounty currently holds approximately 340,000 DOT and is scheduled to receive another 200,000 DOT from the recurring scheduler in the coming days. This places roughly 540,000 DOT at the discretion of the current curators before the shutdown proposal concludes, even though it is tracking with full support.

Until Referendum 1791 finishes and the bounty is formally closed, the curators retain complete authority to spend those funds. That includes Crane, despite the undisclosed financial link documented above and the other issues already outlined in the Marketing Bounty Deep Dive thread. Allowing spending to continue under these conditions would expose more than half a million DOT to decisions made by a director with an unresolved conflict.

Immediate intervention is the only responsible course of action.

Anyone curious can trace these events themselves using Subscan, Etherscan, and public treasury reports, it’s all there for those who wish to look.

Truth > Trust.

[LinkedCar]

Finally, people are waking up…

The marketing bounty issue was an open secret, everyone knew what was going on. It only survived because everyone involved belonged to the same “group.”

After this, it’s time to look at the events bounty, because things are going off the rails there too.

Thanks @flez for having the balls to make this public. Time for some Truth !

[Megadot]

Thanks for the extraordinary investigation work, it clearly exposes how certain people have been milking the treasury with zero accountability. It’s honestly frustrating to see how things have been handled, and moments like this make the whole ecosystem feel like a complete joke.

I finally understood why he picked the name Crane:
Because every month he hoists another bag of treasury funds into the sunset.

[salty_carbonara]

Hey @ChrawnnaCorp , rat pack here. You missed some questions in the MB ( Marketing Bounty Deep Dive - #44 by ChrawnnaCorp ), but this post actually feels even more relevant.

So here we go again:

• When are you going to organise AAG where you will dissect Marketing Bounty with the same standards you did for all other opengov proposals? Even tho MB is getting closed, the question of transparency remains - or do you think because it is getting closed, we should just leave it be?

  According to your answer:

No. And the reporter moniker does not well describe the service I provide to The Kus & OpenGov. Probably more, like all funded media, a propagandist. In this case for the productive ecosystem agents who vote. Since I’m a DOT holder, I’m well aligned with them.

• You say you are not a reporter but propagandist, which is surprising since this distinction was never clearly explained in your proposals - you applied for financing as a independent media company and you showed us your internal ethical guidelines which a) clearly say “accurate reporting”, “journalistic integrity”, “non speculation”. This is the complete opposite to “propagandist for the productive ecosystem agents who vote.”

• Now that we have established you are not a reporter but instead deal with propaganda for “productive ecosystem agents” - can you please post the guidelines and a checklist on how your operations grade ecosystem agents as productive?

  • Would you say the following statement is correct: opengov funds KUS, KUS is a propagandist which decides on which ecosystem agent is productive and pushes that agents agenda?

  • Would you say that in a system where propagandist operates with “productive ecosystem agents” the parameters of “productive” should be known to a wider Polkadot community or is this something you want to control yourself?

  • Which productive ecosystem agents are you working for at this point? Can you list them?

• Isn’t main purpose of KUS spreading Polkadot values outside of Polkadot with primary focus on obtaining new users for the ecosystem?

• Can you specify your previous financial or other collaboration with Crane (outside of MB) - please be specific, with dates and value transfers (if the financing was paid from OpenGov or other Polkadot funded incentives)

• Can you explain your affiliation, membership status with Chaos Dao?

• What does a propagandist following “accessibility, truth, fairness, integrity” do in a DAO that is closed to public with a single rule that prevents members from posting screenshots - good example would be Chaos DAO - what is your role there? Have you ever executed any propaganda within Chaos DAO that would lead to favorable financial outcomes for you, marketing bounty or any other bounty financing your operations?

• Were you ever financed by the events bounty, and if so, can you please report when, how much and what were the specific deliverables?

• One of the guidelines you are bound to internally is “non speculative”. How would you grade your recent promotion of stopping DOT burning mechanism within the context of non speculative? Since the motion directly affects DOT emissions, it is speculative in its nature and you took a clear stance on the proposal. Is this coming from your “propagandist” side or your “journalistic” side. If its coming from “propagandist side” please show us your “propagandist” internal guidelines, so we can compare them to your “journalistic” guidelines, and please be clear which guidelines apply when you apply for funding next time.

• If you have thought about setting yourself to a same standard as you enforce for other projects (regarding inbound traffic and transaction metrics) and you say it is possible to implement it, why wait for Polkadot People? Why not tell us right now how you plan to implement it in the following weeks and how you plan to upgrade it once Polkadot People is out? This is a crucial metric for the whole ecosystem, it is shocking you have thought about it, never implemented it and even though you recognise the importance you deferred the implementation to an undefined time in the future?

• Can you please disclose the company name that charges opengov for Kus operations?

• Can you deploy total set of invoices (with masked personal data) across last 12 months?

• Would you be open for an independent financial audit of your company, financed by OpenGov, executed by established legal teams such as Deloitte, Ernst&Young or similar?

  Think for yourself, question authority.

[ThomasR]

Everyone deserves the right to answer.

Serious concerns have been raised by this investigation.
So i guess the community is pretty interested in Novasama’s and Crane’s explanations about this doubtful 10% retro payment which is not traced in any report.

@bill_w3f and the W3F should pay attention and follow the case thoroughly because it puts the whole community in front of potential conflict of interests.

It’s a serious case that needs to be properly address to restore community’s confidence.

I hope people will remain calm and preserve both parties their presumption of innocence till their official explanations.

Less Trust, more Proofs.

[muddlebee]

Is the spending for Novasama + Blast campaign justified? did it add any value to the ecosystem?

[Crane]

Hey Flez,

The funds in question were Novasama’s after governance approval, not Marketing Bounty funds under curator discretion. Novasama engaged me to facilitate payments to their contractors due to technical and timing constraints on their end.

Novasama’s CEO was out of office and unavailable during the final day of a contractual payment window for Blast. Their previously agreed payment infrastructure (Assethub) couldn’t be used by Blast’s team. Novasama’s other cofounders asked me to help execute the payments to avoid contract violations. The funds moved from Novasama’s control to an intermediary address I managed, then to the designated recipients.

• $470k USDC → Blast (per their approved marketing contract)

• $37.5k USDC → Pain Gaming (final tranche for tournament promotion)

• $16.5k USDC → Nova Shots tournament ($15k prize pool + operational costs: minting fees, faucet, gas)

The intermediary routing served operational and risk management purposes. Operationally, it resolved the technical constraints preventing direct payment within the contract deadline. For risk management, the routing reduced direct on-chain links between publicly identified curator addresses and downstream distributions. This is particularly critical for tournament prize pools, where funds are distributed to numerous unknown recipients.

Novasama can confirm these arrangements. Blast and Pain Gaming can confirm receipt. Contracts were provided to Web3 Foundation during the last days.

Going forward, I won’t facilitate operational payments for bounty recipients to avoid any perception issues, regardless of the technical justification.

[ThomasR]

End of story

• Not optimal internal MB process
• Legit contract payments

I think we still didn’t solve how to avoid curators making/receiving contract payments.
No curators should be involved in contracts on behalf of the ecosystem. Pain points for bounties.
Only multi-sig accounts should be used by default.

But anyway, it’s only about defining transparent processes in the end, and improve collectively.

[salty_carbonara]

Hi Crane, rat pack here.

• So what you are saying is, you facilitated a payment between two businesses that had contractual obligation, yet you are not part of any of those businesses?
• If Novasama had contractors, and actual contracts were signed, this becomes a real world, regulated obligation, how exactly can you pay those contractors without having no contracts signed?
• Is your payment of someone else’s expanses even legal? What happens if Novasama contractors claim the payment was not received?
• If Novasama and Blast had a contract to execute payment on Assethub, why was that changed in the last minute? You claim the contract payment window was close to expiration, essentially communicating, the contract was in place and Novasama respected it, why not process the payment on AssetHub as originally agreed upon?
• What happens if this specific act/transaction falls into hands of German financial ombudsman, or BaFin? How do you explain your case of “good act” and being intermediary?

[cpiccard]

@Crane

For risk management, the routing reduced direct on-chain links between publicly identified curator addresses and downstream distributions

What is this? I don’t even…

[LinkedCar]

Thanks for the screenshot! I think no one can understand what this means

What I genuinely don’t understand is this: Novasama has three founders; Anton Khvorov (CEO), Ruslan Rezin, and Valentin Sergeev. All strong profiles. And yet they supposedly need to bring in Crane because “something isn’t working” with payments?

And Leemo works full-time at Novasama. If he can’t solve it, nobody can. So why bring in someone with zero contractual ties to Novasama to fix this?

I find it astonishing that four very capable people at Novasama can’t resolve a basic payment issue, but a marketing guy somehow can…