Rework the Community Repayment Process

The Community Repayment Process needs to be reworked. From a community standpoint, the management of the process seems very opaque, unclear, and open for abuse due to how nonchalant it's become.

The community deserves more transparency and structure regarding the community repayment fund.
As far as I can tell, there's currently $16,000+ sitting in the wallet.

Address: bc1qfjfg7ma899x5wgdhka5w4tj6xv8yq0qhxw5k3k

There is a huge lack of transparency around a fund that is holding $16K+ of community members' money.


- Who currently holds the funds?
- Who has access to that wallet?
- Does the admin who owns the wallet use it for personal send/receive of funds?
- Who determines when repayment rolls occur, and how do they decide when to roll?
- Why are rolls so infrequent when there is an obvious surplus of money available?
- Who vets said person(s) for trustworthiness? Anyone with access holds a fiduciary responsibility to the community.
- What happens if the funds are mismanaged or stolen? We've seen multiple admins fall to corruption [Azie, Video, Gladiator] just within the last couple of years. I believe it's fair to question the possibility of this happening.
- What sort of checks and/or balances are in place?
- With how little oversight and public transparency there is, I could see how it would be very easy for someone to siphon off funds over the course of weeks/months/years, or just scamquit the wallet.


Repayment rolls should be occurring more frequently, and ideally adhering to some sort of schedule. Given how infrequent [and at random] rolls currently are, users’ likelihood of receiving repayment decreases significantly as time goes by.



My suggestion:

1) Require the active wallet address to be listed on these stickies at all times [an empty wallet is currently listed: READ THIS FIRST! Community repayment details and template and Funds sent to/from community repayment ]
2) Create and publish a list of who has access to the community's wallet.
3) Implement some form of oversight system [Similar to a 2FA] that would make it challenging for someone to single handedly misappropriate funds. It can be rudimentary; anything is better than nothing.
4) Create a standardized roll schedule and publish guidelines around when rolls will occur. IE - Roll once a quarter [1/1, 4/1, 7/1, 10/1]. If no funds are available, the roll could be skipped.

Making the above changes would be very easy to do and would help add transparency to community owed funds.

 

[Departure]

Seems unnecessary. Community Fund has been working great and the 300-lifetime cap makes sense. Would be best for users not to rely on the community repayment as a crutch to bad trading practices.

Only thing that is interesting is who has access to it. My guess is Sythe controls it and sends out portions of payment to admins when doing rolls.

 

Seems unnecessary. Community Fund has been working great and the 300-lifetime cap makes sense. Would be best for users not to rely on the community repayment as a crutch to bad trading practices.

Only thing that is interesting is who has access to it. My guess is Sythe controls it and sends out portions of payment to admins when doing rolls.

Your reply proves my point. You have no clue who manages community repayment funds or how they're managed [you're wrong, btw].

Furthermore - what do you mean by, "community fund has been working great?" What about the way it's currently operating is great?

 

The community repayment max amount should be updated to match year over year inflation rates. Thanks Joe Biden!

 

At the very least, I'm requesting:

1) That the public be informed on who is currently "holding" the Community Repayment Funds wallet.
2) Does the admin who holds the funds use the address for personal reasons?

 

So this seems to a couple suggestions in one, I agree with some parts.
I'm not sure why the public btc wallet appears empty. This could have numerous legitimate reasons.
I do think we can be more transparent so I agree with that.

Implement some form of oversight system [Similar to a 2FA] that would make it challenging for someone to single handedly misappropriate funds. It can be rudimentary; anything is better than nothing.

This would be a good option, do you know if there's a way to do this? In businesses we call this The Four eyes principle. This means that two individuals need to approve an action before it can be taken. I just don't know how this can be done with bitcoin.

Given how infrequent [and at random] rolls currently are, users’ likelihood of receiving repayment decreases significantly as time goes by.

Uhmm, if rolls are at random then the likelihood of receiving repayment will increase as times go by.

4) Create a standardized roll schedule and publish guidelines around when rolls will occur. IE - Roll once a quarter [1/1, 4/1, 7/1, 10/1]. If no funds are available, the roll could be skipped.

I disagree with this part. The wallet is not just for people requesting repayment. When people go through the pardon system they will have to repay their debts. If the victims are inactive, money goes to the community repayment wallet. We send the victims a PM (they will likely receive an email) for them to get their money. These people do not go through our repayment program, they get paid back right away. This is the priority and main reason of the wallet.

We don't want a situation where a scam victim finds out the scammer repaid, but we are unable to pay the victim as we gave the funds away in our repayment program. For this reason it's good to have a decent amount of funds available. We could set a minimum of funds we'd want at all times but we'd have to find a suitable number for this.

 

So this seems to a couple suggestions in one, I agree with some parts.
I'm not sure why the public btc wallet appears empty. This could have numerous legitimate reasons.
I do think we can be more transparent so I agree with that.
#1

This would be a good option, do you know if there's a way to do this? In businesses we call this The Four eyes principle. This means that two individuals need to approve an action before it can be taken. I just don't know how this can be done with bitcoin.
#2

Uhmm, if rolls are at random then the likelihood of receiving repayment will increase as times go by.
#3

I disagree with this part. The wallet is not just for people requesting repayment. When people go through the pardon system they will have to repay their debts. If the victims are inactive, money goes to the community repayment wallet. We send the victims a PM (they will likely receive an email) for them to get their money. These people do not go through our repayment program, they get paid back right away. This is the priority and main reason of the wallet.

We don't want a situation where a scam victim finds out the scammer repaid, but we are unable to pay the victim as we gave the funds away in our repayment program. For this reason it's good to have a decent amount of funds available. We could set a minimum of funds we'd want at all times but we'd have to find a suitable number for this.
#4

My primary concern around CRF funds is a lack of public transparency, and the potential for abuse or mishandling of funds. Your post still doesn't answer my key concerns:

1) The public should be informed on who is currently "holding" the Community Repayment Funds wallet.
2) Does the person who holds the funds use the address for personal reasons?
3) Who determines when repayment rolls occur, and how do they decide when to roll? Where do they publicize the roll results?


To address your points above:
#1 - I was educated by someone yesterday, and believe the wallet shows empty because of the "change address" function. If so, the wallet holder should be able to turn off this feature.
#2 - I'm not aware of a way to have this automated through a BTC wallet, but it could be implemented manually from a processes standpoint. I don't think it would take much work given the relative infrequency of CRF wallet transactions.
#3 - I could be missing something, but how does the likelihood of receiving payment increase as time goes by? Rolls are very infrequent right now. As time passes, the number of repayment candidates grows, and in theory the odds of a specific user being chosen on a roll decreases.
#4 - I understand, and agree. Can you help me understand where these "direct repayment" add/deletes that you reference to are publicized? I don't see any direct victim payouts on the "Funds sent to/from" CRF thread. The only activity that has been tracked is wallet adds, as well as deletions based on repayment program rolls.
Secondly, define a "decent amount of funds." Whatever that number is, it certainly isn't $14,000. I like the minimum set of funds idea, but $14,000 siting in CRF is excessive.

Again, there's way too much uncertainty surrounding $14K in community owed funds. The whole process lacks transparency.. and I'm not convinced it isn't being mismanaged.

 

My primary concern around CRF funds is a lack of public transparency, and the potential for abuse or mishandling of funds. The only portion of your quote that addresses this is #2, but still doesn't answer two key concerns:

I already said I do think we can be more transparent and that I agreed with that. So yes I think those questions should be answered.

#2 - I'm not aware of a way to have this automated through a BTC wallet, but it could be implemented manually from a processes standpoint. I don't think it would take much work given the relative infrequency of CRF wallet transactions.

Regardless of it being manual or automatic, what step would you add in our current process that would achieve this?

#3 - I could be missing something, but how does the likelihood of receiving payment increase as time goes by? Rolls are very infrequent right now. As time passes, the number of repayment candidates grows, and in theory the odds of a specific user being chosen on a roll decreases.

The last few times we issued repayment to everyone on the list. No rolls occurred.
If the event itself is decided at random, then the more time goes by the closer you get to this random point. Even if this wasn't the case, I don't think it should be first come first serve either.

#4 - I understand, and agree. Can you help me understand where these "direct repayment" add/deletes that you reference to are publicized? I don't see any direct victim payouts on the "Funds sent to/from" CRF thread. The only activity that has been tracked is wallet adds, as well as deletions based on repayment program rolls.

This is posted on the pardons.

 

I already said I do think we can be more transparent and that I agreed with that. So yes I think those questions should be answered.

Should be easy enough!

Regardless of it being manual or automatic, what step would you add in our current process that would achieve this?

I need the questions previously mentioned prior to answering this. Candidly, I don't understand the current process which was my reason for this suggestion. The public has zero visibility into the process. From the outside looking in, it appears to be "send out money when we feel like it, roll when we feel like it, repay when we feel like it, etc." with no rhyme or reason. There doesn't appear to be a process in place.

The last few times we issued repayment to everyone on the list. No rolls occurred.
If the event itself is decided at random, then the more time goes by the closer you get to this random point. Even if this wasn't the case, I don't think it should be first come first serve either.

Now see, that doesn't make sense to me. Repayment was issued to everyone on the list in December by Gen, but what about these?

- 1/23/23, Andy issued repayment to six recipients
- 2/8/23, Andy issued repayment to one recipient
- 2/11/23, Andy issued repayment to one recipient
- 2/12/23, Andy issued repayment to two recipients

There might be a logical conclusion here, but again, this lends to the lack of transparency surrounding the CRF management process.

This is posted on the pardons.

Gotcha. So there's no ledger of funds sent out directly, as I understand?

 

Gotcha. So there's no ledger of funds sent out directly, as I understand?

Not to my knowledge.

Now see, that doesn't make sense to me. Repayment was issued to everyone on the list in December by Gen, but what about these?

- 1/23/23, Andy issued repayment to six recipients
- 2/8/23, Andy issued repayment to one recipient
- 2/11/23, Andy issued repayment to one recipient
- 2/12/23, Andy issued repayment to two recipients

There might be a logical conclusion here, but again, this lends to the lack of transparency surrounding the CRF management process.

This is all from the repayment from December. The reason these were late is simply because not everyone was active at the time.

 

Bump.

1) The public should be informed on who is currently "holding" the Community Repayment Funds wallet.
2) Does the person who holds the funds use the address for personal reasons?
3) Who determines when repayment rolls occur, and how do they decide when to roll? Where do they publicize the roll results?

 

It would certainly be good to have the information at hand, I cant see why an admin wouldn't be able to confirm such information or make a pinned post or anything.

I also don't understand a lot of the stuff myself, as it's clearly not explained to the fully extent it should be so support

 

[Utopia]

Bump.

1) The public should be informed on who is currently "holding" the Community Repayment Funds wallet.
2) Does the person who holds the funds use the address for personal reasons?
3) Who determines when repayment rolls occur, and how do they decide when to roll? Where do they publicize the roll results?

Transparency is good, but for what purpose does this have any benefit to expose who has access? Public ridicule and to make them a target? I for one wouldn't want just anybody knowing I have access to that much money in a black-market space. For security reasons of course. As for #3, I would like to know as well out of curiosity.

 

Transparency is good, but for what purpose does this have any benefit to expose who has access? Public ridicule and to make them a target? I for one wouldn't want just anybody knowing I have access to that much money in a black-market space. For security reasons of course. As for #3, I would like to know as well out of curiosity.

What security risk exists by the Sythe community knowing who is overseeing their funds? Furthermore, the holder of the wallet was public, until @Gen's retirement. Again, I'm not really sure what sort of realistic security risk you could be referencing. There's no boogieman in the closet here.

Furthermore, they're community-owed funds. They are not property of the person who oversees them. Therefore, transparency should be provided to the community if nothing more than for accountability (and security, as you mentioned) purposes.

 

[Utopia]

What security risk exists by the Sythe community knowing who is overseeing their funds? Furthermore, the holder of the wallet was public, until @Gen's retirement. Again, I'm not really sure what sort of realistic security risk you could be referencing. There's no boogieman in the closet here.

Furthermore, they're community-owed funds. They are not property of the person who oversees them. Therefore, transparency should be provided to the community if nothing more than for accountability (and security, as you mentioned) purposes.

If it was public before, but is private now, there must be a reason. The target comment is not likely to happen, but probable. Security risk meaning that specific individual is targeted in a way to try to gain access to said funds. If Sythe as a whole is maintained as some democratic entity where transparency is the motto/principle, then I support what you're asking for. I personally don't care to know who has access, but rather how or who determines it's use.

 

If it was public before, but is private now, there must be a reason. The target comment is not likely to happen, but probable. Security risk meaning that specific individual is targeted in a way to try to gain access to said funds. If Sythe as a whole is maintained as some democratic entity where transparency is the motto/principle, then I support what you're asking for. I personally don't care to know who has access, but rather how or who determines it's use.

A lack of processes; that's why it was public prior to Gen's departure, but is now unclear.

 

[Utopia]

A lack of processes; that's why it was public prior to Gen's departure, but is now unclear.

If this is true, then I would support it to be revealed again.

 

Bump.

1) The public should be informed on who is currently "holding" the Community Repayment Funds wallet.
2) Does the person who holds the funds use the address for personal reasons?
3) Who determines when repayment rolls occur, and how do they decide when to roll? Where do they publicize the roll results?

 

This would be a good option, do you know if there's a way to do this? In businesses we call this The Four eyes principle. This means that two individuals need to approve an action before it can be taken. I just don't know how this can be done with bitcoin.

You can easily achieve this by having a multi sig btc wallet like electrum, where at least 2 out of 2, 2 out of 3, 2 out of 5, 4 out of 5 people have to sign the transaction.

 

You can easily achieve this by having a multi sig btc wallet like electrum, where at least 2 out of 2, 2 out of 3, 2 out of 5, 4 out of 5 people have to sign the transaction.

Wouldn't there still have to be one person who has admin perks? Someone who can decide who can sign transactions?