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.