Wanted: Bounty Hunters for Undelivered Referenda

Governance
1

Due to OpenGov’s diligence, undelivered and red flagged referenda still remain a low percentage of the cases. But we’d like to open the discussion about what we think it’s an alternative for undelivered referenda which is inspired by the Bug Bounty Programs offered by many entities.

It is the incentivisation of entities who are in charge of the mediation and actions that lead to the successful return of funds granted by OpenGov to a proposer of failed referenda.

With an economically aligned model for all interested entities willing to intervene on undelivered referenda, OpenGov doesn’t need complex structures or gatekeeping committees in charge of failed referenda seeking fund returns as the first line of action or other less effective ways to deal with this issue, rather, a more diplomatically economically incentivized way potentially more effective to deal with honest to neutral entities who were incapable of delivering referenda.

Risks.
The only possible risk to this approach is that, referenda could potentially be presented intentionally with the option to only claim undelivered bounty funds through a third party. Though experience has shown us that OpenGov can sift through this and many other risks almost flawlessly and detect these plots well in advance.

Range.
We propose a 5% to 10% bounty for the entities that mediate the successful return of funds from an undelivered/red flagged referendum. With a decreasing curve starting at 10% for the lowest grants and ending with a 5% cap at 100k USD value at the time of return. Percentages shouldn’t be treated as completely fixed but as a suggestion of the bounty request.
Requests will be presented to OpenGov as a referendum after the successful return of funds that the party who returned the funds failed to deliver. The percentage of the bounty will only apply to the returned funds.

Example Range.

fees
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Higher Incentive Range.

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Gentler Slope Range.

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13 Likes
2

I think a solid starting point might be to list the top 10 bounties, and the reward amount, and see if people have the appetite to follow up.

I think the idea in a vacuum is good, but probably not enough to actually initiate action.

A few explicit bounties with some juicy rewards may be what we need…

3 Likes
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My main concern is that it could unintentionally encourage a kind of vigilantism, which might quickly spiral into problematic behaviour.

What starts as persuasion could easily escalate and I’m not entirely sure where I’d draw the line with what I would be comfortable incentivising, intentionally or not —

  • Investigating pseudonymous actors’ identities
  • Contacting individuals in their personal lives
  • Targeting other projects they’re involved in

Rewards will attract bad ones from within as well as outside the ecosystem.
There seems to be an inevitability that overzealous actors will cause unjustly damage in the name of a payday and the program be accused of legitimising unchecked collateral damage.

Strict parameters under which the bounty hunters must operate in order to be eligible for a reward would be essential.

2 Likes
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Very interesting one !!!
We have a French community member which has been flagged. And we’d like him to return what’s left on the receiving address.

2 Likes
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Great Proposal Saxemberg

2 Likes
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gm,

In general is a good proposal to have a better accountability.

My two cents: Consider increasing the bounty to 25%–20%, since OpenGov deals with pseudonymous individuals who haven’t signed formal legal contracts, ergo, there’s more work involved in recovering the debt.

2 Likes
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Honestly, a 20% - 25% seems to be the sweet spot for many to actually get in and be involved. We have interest from two teams willing to intervene and recovery and this increase should definitely help in their efforts. It seems like the curve or cliff needs to be higher/steeper, you’re right @ wariomx.

1 Like
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Right now, there is already vigilantism, bullying and doxxing which has gone unchecked so instead of adding fuel to the fire this is an honest attempt for others to actually solve the problems in a more or less civilized manner with results instead of going for the witch hunt route which is the current status quo actually. What you mentioned is also mainly the reason why we don’t think a " RFP" approach suggested here is the best approach either much less to use treasury funds in advance for that, though of course others are free to try it. We’ll try to keep trying to prove this idea is plausible in the less disruptive way possible.

1 Like
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Here’s a previous discussion that might be worth bringing back to the table, as it offers a potential solution with alternative dispute resolution methods, and it tackles the “no legal contract” issue: Polkassembly - Dispute Resolution Legal Contract for Open Gov Treasury #2628

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The inclusion of the ICC clause is an interesting one but who would be the other side of the contract? The PCF? The use of the PCF will most likely be larger than the amounts sent back. It’d probably only make sense for large sums.

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Is not an easy topic

Probably is better to implement a flexible, phased approach:

1st Proposal: Introduce an ADR clause (e.g., ICC or another recognized institution) into all Treasury referendums. It’s better to have a dispute resolution mechanism in place and never need it, than to face conflict without one.

2nd Proposal: Consider linking PCF or another foundation to take on this role.

Btw, I have a domain I purchased earlier this year: www.polkadot.law — any ideas on what we could build with it?

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Arbitrage and disputes for OpenGov referenda unironically :sweat_smile:. Opening the option for optional arbitration can be an interesting pilot.
Taken from a recent referendum, you can see that the operational prices of the PCF for a single contract are higher than a full incorporation so there seems to be room for alternatives there. Not enough competitors in cryptolaw.

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Also it can be set as a pre-packaged suite of incorporations and structures for crypto. Even to this day, most of those providers have no idea what they are doing when it comes to crypto, many will just sell you MICA compliance because it’s expensive. The Americas have the most diverse set of regulations on the planet so helping entities navigate that could also be great.
The most interesting one would be an Americas centered education/lobbying group. No one has the time/guts/patience to engage with the officials of many of these countries as they will fervently defend their banking industry against any disruption even if such industry is decades behind regular tradfi and regulated markets.
Now that the US is positioning itself as slightly crypto friendly, other countries in the continent will follow suit sooner or later, ideally it should sooner.

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@Saxemberg ~ thank you for proposing this and showing OpenGov will not tolerate abuse of the Treasury.

If anyone requested funds with the true intentions to do as they proposed, they would have communicated with the OGWatchDog and OGTracker teams - or kept the community updated. The bounties that the proposer’s disappeared or failed to communicate, did not provide reporting, or show any documentation for the DOT they distributed should be the Wanted Bounties that are put on the list.

Those curators and/or proposers should be given this one and final opportunity to return the bounty amount within 30 days of the bounty being postied on the wanted list. Curators can provide information or return any DOT within that time period to avoid repercussions or legal actions. The Bounty will be removed from the list and no reward will be available if they provide notice within 30 days. Otherwise,.if there is no response after 30 days, that offer is off the table and its Open Season for anyone in the community to claim the reward.

Anyone that provides information that leads to the verified identification of the person(s) behind the pseudo identities of the Curators/proposers listed for the bounty will receive the reward of 10%. If anyone is able to have the bounty returned through their actions, they receive 20%. (capped at $100k)

If we do not have the bounty returned and only have the identities of the proposer and curators, we simply file with complaints with their local jurisdictions and have the legal authorities handle the matter, including recovering any of the funds. It may take longer due to criminal trials and investigations for theft, embezzlement, fraud, tax evasion, AML violations, and liable for token holders to file lawsuits for damages caused by those convicted.

If no one provides any inofrmation, all of the avialable details will be submitted and allow the authorities to decide to investigate or not - but all grifters should be aware their past, current and future grifting has not gone unnoticed.

I put together this directory for reporting grifters that I would like to share with the community. You see, this is what happens when whales get greedy and abuse the rest of the community - you rub enough people the wrong way, someone will do something about it.

This is your public notice to return the Treasury before it is too late and you will constantly be looking over your shoulder…

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Hi @SAXEMBERG, replying here because you copied the budget for our proposal. It is just an explanation about the breakdown and nothing related to your proposal above.

That PCF amount is overestimated to avoid any issues; any excess will be refunded after completing the bank transfers and covering the legal costs associated with verifying the contract with the university.

We, as Polkadot Italia members, are not in America or under American jurisdiction so we have to comply with other laws. If we would take this activity by ourselves (with no PCF), we would need to charge +$7,000 just for the taxes as per Italian taxation. On the top of this $7,000, we would need to consider legal cost for signing the contract and risks of getting the funds locked during the transaction from a CEX to our personal bank (it is not a huge amount but still an unusual transaction for normal people who lives in Europe, us).

At the end, in our case, costs and risks will be higher than the PCF ones. Using the PCF give us the advantage that the contract is signed by the Polkadot community for the community. This is in contrast with what it has/is happening in many other cases where a single individual or private entity signs and takes advantage of the deal.

We apologize in advance for highjack the topic of the post.

If you have any suggestion on how to handle similar cases, please let us know.

Polkadot Italia

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I have opened a referendum discussion to address the problem.