MOTIVATION & AIMS:
The goal of this proposal is a simple one. To help ensure the survival of our blockchain and our community. As of recent, a multitude of grave concerns with the security of our chain have come to light, thanks to Jacob Gadikian, CEO of Notional Labs. He sounded the alarm that Allnodes was in control of the seed phrase of the validator wallets of each of it’s customers, creating a risk vector that was so big where if Allnodes were ever to be hacked by a malicious actor (or already has been hacked over the past 8 months), that hacker would be able to do whatever they wanted to the blockchain. They could drain funds, manipulate oracle prices, unbond other validators, anything. Whoever controls the consensus controls the chain, and the fact that Allnodes controlled the seedphrase of these compromised validators put the chain at severe risk of having it’s consensus violated.
That’s a big issue in itself. But an even bigger issue that has arisen from this is the fact that the L1 Task Force, particularly Tobias Anderson (Zaradar), has refused to acknowledge this as the risk to the chain that it is, and has misrepresented information to investors in an effort to try and calm the community and give them a false sense of peace and security. To be blunt, he is lying to the community.
The wider cosmos ecosystem has taken notice of this behaviour from Tobias, and they are slowly withdrawing away from involvement with the Terra Classic chain as they are capable of doing something Tobias seems to be incapable of doing: Acknowledging this for the huge risk to the chain and the wider cosmos that it actually is. Tobias’ inability to see reason and acknowledge the reality that’s directly in front of him about this risk has caused Mr. Gadikian and Notional to withdraw from the L1 Task Force and the wider LUNC community, as the security of our chain and it’s supposed “leadership” has been put into severe doubt.
In under a month, the L1 Task Force Has:
- Seen the departure of PFC for the Community Oversight role being nothing more then a vanity role meant to try and pacify the community and give them a false sense of control
- Failed to communicate properly with validators in regards to the matter of the pending 1.0.5 and provide strong details on why it is now a state breaking change when it wasn’t a state breaking change before, which has brought the integrity of the entire release into doubt and caused validators to hold back on wanting to upgrade until the release is looked at in more detail due to the current conduct of the L1 Task Force.
- Had leadership downplay a defacto security risk to the chain and created a mess that non-compromised validators have had to clean up as they’ve had to chase down compromised validators that have refused to remake their validator and validator wallets to secure the chain, with those compromised validators often citing Tobias’ words as reason enough for them to not take their responsibility to secure the chain for their delegators and themselves seriously.
- The above of which has ultimately led to the departure of Jacob Gadikian from the L1 Task Force, the second member and skilled developer and validator to leave in under a month; and caused a dramatic loss of the credibility of the Terra Classic blockchain in the wider cosmos ecosystem.
- Put the chain at risk of losing what is currently it’s only relayer (Notional) and has endangered our IBC connections to other chain due to the lack of credibility in regards to the chain’s security, which limits our potential access to liquidity from the wider cosmos ecosystem and harms the community’s efforts to revive the chain.
As a community, we can’t afford to tolerate a single point of failure by paying for a L1 Task Force that’s leadership not only publicly complains about their compensation and continually insults the very community that is paying for them, but also continues to push for more compensation while also providing back very little (or negative) value to the community and seems more content to continue posting on Twitter and holding pointless AMAs that last for hours instead of doing the programming work that the chain actually needs.
The only sane conclusion for us to move forward and work to secure our chain and rebuild trust that has been lost within the wider cosmos ecosystem is for us to try and create and incentivize multiple L1 teams to help work on our chain, while diminishing our involvement with the current L1 Task Force since their leadership’s actions around this security risk to the chain have conveyed an alarming lack of understanding about how Cosmos works, have brought their entire competency and ability to handle the tasks at hand into question, and have harmed our chain and it’s investors.
WE PROPOSE:
That we have Jacob Gadikian, the CEO of Notional Labs provide us with a proposal for how his team would identify and approach solving the issues that are currently present in the chain, across security, technological, and parity based vectors; particularly with a focus on helping to secure the blockchain and eliminating current technical debt to achieve parity with the wider Cosmos ecosystem and help to set up a strong foundation for Terra Classic to build off of for the future instead of arguing about the past.
If Jacob were to be interested in pursuing this route and working with the community to help secure the chain, then upon receipt of Notional’s proposal the community would review the proposal as a traditional vendor proposal, and upon approval from the community Notional would embark upon the work needed to properly secure the chain for the future and do the work that the current L1 Task Force is refusing and seemingly incapable of doing.
The proposal he put forth should include (but is not limited to):
- Timeline
- Scope of Work
- Milestones
- Cost Breakdown
- Roles and Responsibilities
- Key point of contacts
- Clearly defined goals and benefits of proposed actions
Delivery:
- Submit the offer to Agora for a minimum 1 week’s worth of discussion.
- Post amendments based on feedback if needed, keep in active contact.
- Submit for a governance vote (this can be expedited if Notional Team doesn’t hold any LUNC).
Timeframe:
- Current L1 Task Force funding lapses in 2 months.
- The submitted offer to be voted on before the above funding for the L1 Task Force lapses.
- If the offer by Notional Labs to the Terra Classic community is passed, Notional will embark on their work in parallel, separate from the L1 Task Force.
By voting YES - You agree that Jacob Gadikian and Notional have provided value to Terra Classic and will continue to do so, and that the chain needs the help of an additional L1 Team outside of the L1 Task Force to help secure the chain’s future from being destroyed by external bad actors due to the security vulnerabilities Allnodes has introduced into the chain as a result of their business practices, and to finally solve problems that have been plaguing the chain for far too long.
By voting NO - You think things are fine as they are, and you do are okay with the current level of to the chain if it’s consensus were to be violated by an external bad actor and funds were to be stolen and the chain were to be killed, and that the current misconduct of the L1 Task Force, particularly in it’s misrepresentation of the risk that currently exists to the chain has been acceptable and has been in the best interests of the community and not themselves.
By voting ABSTAIN - You have no particular strong thoughts on the matter either way, and are fine with the current level of risk that your investments are currently under.
By voting NO WITH VETO - You are vehemently against the entire premise of this proposal.
Signed,
Bilbo Baggins
Mpowski