5 - Transfers from both operators to the same Kraken (user wallet):
This is the clearest evidence so far, since a user wallet is personal by definition.
What legitimate explanation is there for two supposedly independent validators sending funds to the same personal wallet?
At this point, it’s reasonable to ask whether Polkadot should take action against validators operating multiple identities, engaging in systematic commission flipping, and behaving in ways that are clearly detrimental to nominators.
Could mechanisms like Proof of Personhood be part of the solution to finally address this long-standing issue?
As far as I can tell, there is no approved Fellowship RFC that directly specifies or constrains how validator commissions are treated (the mechanics live in the staking runtime and are mostly surfaced via UI conventions, please correct me if I am wrong in this interpretation).
However, Proposed RFC-0162 is relevant in principle: it explicitly frames sybil splitting (multiple accounts), broker aggregation (off-chain consolidation), UI/coordination capture, and timing manipulation as part of the “economic/institutional adversary” attack surface. In other words, it treats these behaviors as market-structure vulnerabilities.
I would strongly recommend revisiting RFC-0162 and contributing amendments that make these specific staking-related surfaces first-class considerations (e.g., disclosure/observability requirements and UI invariants such as era-effective parameter history by default). Left unaddressed, these gaps can mechanically increase market concentration and manipulability, lowering the protocol’s market-structure maturity and the trustworthiness of nominators’ decision inputs.
@Megadot You should go check the commission flippers from before the AH migration. So far what you’ve posted on this topic is nothing new and is honestly not even concerning compared to historical behavior.
Many validators are duplicates because they’re still riding the wave of nominations they received while active from the 1KV and DN programs. It was always my opinion that at least 50% of the 1KV participants were dupes.
The majority of the data available for this and by far the most offensive perpetrators – you haven’t even looked at yet. << Insert jurassic park that’s one big pile meme >>
It’s honestly shameful that no one is taking action so far, but if the system is to maintain any credibility, someone has to step up and take measures.
I want to stress (again) that this is a UI/UX issue, not an unsolved protocol problem.
The PAPI Staking DApp already avoids this pitfall by showing nominators the effective commission in the most recent eras, so users can make decisions based on what validators are actually charging:
Given there’s now an OpenGov proposal to fund the most widely used staking dashboard, we should require them to address this explicitly in scope and deliverables: https://polkadot.subsquare.io/referenda/1831#1
That doesn’t resolve the issue of duplicate validators who operate who knows what % of the validators on the network. Yes, working as intended, but the entire model is broken because of assumptions made about the rationality of nominator behavior. The early 1KV validators were able to get in easily, create duplicate entities, and leverage low fees to collect nominations to remain in the active set permanently.
This is, indeed, a real and very worrisome issue. Sorry, I hadn’t been paying close attention to the latest messages, and I wrongly assumed that the main discussion topic was the commission-flipping.
However, I agree that what you are pointing out is a much more worrisome and important issue, for sure.
It is deeply concerning to see validators operating under multiple identities.
I would like to present another case that suggests a strong link between dakkk and OpenBitLab, both identities currently operating active Polkadot validators.
Please note that its Davide personal email address, not OpenBitLab corporate domain
What is particularly alarming is that both accounts transfer funds to the same Kraken user wallet, despite the fact that user wallets are, by definition, personal accounts:
In addition to direct transfers between these two identities, there is also a transfer dated 13/08/2025 of 2,490 DOT originating from the following account.
A review of this account’s transaction history strongly indicates that it is controlled by OpenBitLab.
Given that OpenBitLab does not appear to be a legally incorporated entity, this seems to be a case of two identities that are apparently managed by the same operator. It is also concerning that OpenBitLab is operating validators on the Paseo network and across multiple system chains within the ecosystem.
Once again, this situation raises serious concerns regarding validator identity duplication, transparency, and the lack of effective enforcement within the ecosystem.
I am surprised by the extent to which the following operator identities, all running active Polkadot nodes, show such a significant intermixing of transactions between their accounts:
It is also noteworthy that these operators chose to transfer 20 DOT to their sub-identities almost simultaneously on November 5, 2025, presumably for identity verification purposes:
The timing and coordination of these transactions further reinforce concerns about whether these identities are truly independent or instead managed in a coordinated manner.
This level of fund movement between supposedly independent operators raises legitimate questions around independence, transparency, and whether these identities are effectively controlled by the same entity.
With great sadness, I have to report that I continue to find rotten apples within the ecosystem. In this case, it involves the validator “Mile” and its other identity “StakedTech”, both operating active validator nodes.
To properly understand what is happening, let’s follow the chronology of events.
On 16/06/2020, the wallet that now shows as ‘Mile’ set its identity as ‘StakedTech’ :
Then, on 19/01/2021, just a few days after this second wallet established its identity as StakedTech, the identity of the first wallet that now shows as ‘Mile’ was suddenly changed:
Additionally, by analyzing the transfer history of this account, it can be observed that on 29/09/2020, “Mile” sent 1,094.45 DOT to another account, and those funds ultimately ended up in a StakedTech controlled account.
What makes this particularly concerning is that both “Mile” and “StakedTech” have been identified for years as engaging in abusive practices, specifically commission flipping, extracting hundreds or even thousands of DOT from nominators over time.
Once again, this raises serious questions about multiple identities, abusive behavior, and the lack of effective enforcement within the ecosystem.
Expand your search criteria a bit more to look at any validator that changes commission to 100%.
If you don’t claim an era it’s possible to change your fee in the future and claim the previous era at the new fee. I’ve never tried this in practice myself to confirm it’s true but it was talked about somewhere in here before. The premise is that you run a validator, allow 100 eras to pass, flip commission to 100%, wait for it to apply, then claim all the eras. I do have some vague memory of looking at a few accounts that did this a few years back.
Like I said previously, while this is new for you, people have been annoyed by this for years. No one ever cared enough to act. I had to complain for months just to get W3F to implement a simple KYC. This is when they changed it from 1kv to DN.
The needing to complain or interact a lot to get anything done is a common theme and it’s a reason why people are angry.
The W3F should have known already if ink was part of the new roadmap or not. Why did it take months for them to finally say that?
Just look at the DV and DN programs – there was no experimentation, no changes, no real oversight or management – no plan. As far as I can tell, they no longer have the capacity to meet the foundation’s stated mission. What do they even do? I’m trying to figure it out.
It’s the common theme you’ll find in a lot of issues around the ecosystem. People complain about stuff but those complaints don’t make their way into a task management system to be resolved. I just recently realized (last weekend) that even though there are all these duplicate identities that the DN program itself was massively beneficial for that thing for which we dare not speak.
I told a few people that the DN program should not be shut down because of its benefit to that thing for which we dare not speak – But I already know it will have 0 impact – and – I can prove it with math. It’s not subjective.
A single operator appears to be running three different validator identities and has been observed transferring funds from those validators to the same personal Binance user wallet, where deposits are restricted to a single account holder.
This pattern strongly suggests common ownership and raises serious concerns about transparency, accountability, and validator concentration within the network.
We respectfully ask Polkadot and Kusama nominators, as well as nomination pool operators, to review and update their nominations accordingly. Some of these actors currently maintain active validator nodes on both networks, and continued vigilance is essential to protect delegators, preserve decentralization, and uphold the integrity of the staking ecosystem.
In the following article, you will find a comprehensive list of identified bad actors, which I will continue to update as new information becomes available.
Now we have discovered that he has also been running another identity: BEEFY
Here you can see Mile sent 10,000 DOT to a bridge account and from there to BEEFY wallet who was a Polkadot validator in the past.
Plant A Tree 
Bluefin Tuna 
Sandwich 
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Magnet — 
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HODL.FARM 
MIDL.dev - 
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