We’d like to get your thoughts. It involves the grants of a few grantees and depending on how this discussion goes, it can also potentially involve making adjustments to Mina’s ledger during a future hard fork.
Changing a blockchain’s ledger is a very drastic measure. We’d like to know what you, as a member of the Mina community, think. The community is at the heart of Mina, and you all have a hand in shaping Mina’s future. This is an important time to weigh in.
In this post, we want to provide you with the necessary information and help you to take part in this discussion (that was started here previously), irrespective of whether you are a member who already joined the community before the mainnet launch, or a member who joined more recently. The perspectives of each one of you are valuable.
Problem statement:
4 recipients of the Genesis grant, Genesis Founding Members (GFM’s), are reporting that the keypairs that they generated aren’t working correctly, and they cannot access the grants in their accounts.
TL;DR
Out of the 750+ community grants that were included in Mina’s genesis block, 4 GFM’s used an older version of the key generation tool and did not sufficiently test the keys that they generated on the QA test networks that served as dry runs before the mainnet launch. As a result, they only discovered that their keys are invalid and that they cannot access their account and grant after the mainnet launch.
How does everyone feel about this? Do you think the ledger should be changed and new public keys should be added to the ledger for the affected members in a future hard fork? Why? What are your reasons and what were your considerations when thinking about this topic? Please share your thoughts below in this thread. You are part of the Mina community, and your voice is important.
P.S. More detailed information can be found here. This all took place a year ago, so feel free to chime in if we missed anything, and help provide other members with the best background information.
Hey Brian! Thanks for posting and collecting the community opinion.
It is very unfortunate to see an early supporter/grant recipient miss out on the potential reward due to what appears to be most likely a human error.
Personally , I feel changing the ledger is a drastic action as the impacted parties are 4/750 (0.5%) of the recipients and should be reserved for extreme circumstances.
At the same time i feel a fairer solution would rather be to have these parties re-apply for grants and be approved by foundation. I understand this may not be GFM (and allocation might be less) , but this is a much cleaner/transparent way as opposed to adding conditions to a HF which could be due to human or software related errors.
I suppose this does mean the existing funds are locked/un-usable (security checks pending) and the foundation would need to payout from existing grant allocations.
More than 750 people are given “grants”. Only 4 people have trouble. The problem is caused by the use of an old version of the key-building tool. It is not a technical error, I think it is not wrong to say that there is a user error here.
Such a situation should be investigated instead of a rooted change and 4 people are understood that they do not receive grants
Re-grant can be given once again. But I think it is not necessary to make a rooted change.
Having discussed this with several community members I think there is a consensus (among them) that as we look forward to increased decentralisation of Mina Protocol there are still many decisions that (for now) will have to be made by Mina Foundation.
I understand the need for transparency and discussing this with the community is a good way to gauge opinion, but until there is some kind of community DAO I think the Community will (on the whole) respect any decision made if it reflects the core values we have come to expect from MF.
Pete, while I like consolidating threads, it seems (to me!) that you are saying this thread is a waste of time and MF will just decide, and that the community is okay with that. I don’t think that your discussions mean consensus, and don’t think that it is appropriate for any of us to take on the role of speaking for the “Community”. There are better ways for many voices to be heard.
I also suspect that Brian is from MF and is trying to solicit specific community feedback. I think we should provide feedback, not discourage the conversation.
Finally I see this as a subset of that other thread – this is for keys that were not generated correctly, not for BPs that decided to go it alone but did not meet the threshold for block production.
There has been a lot of discussion on the other thread. I disagree that there is consensus that it is okay for MF to change the ledger as they see fit.
@b_mckenna I think @hgedia has a straight-forward solution, that is less concerning than a ledger change, if MF wants to pursue this.
My recollection is that everyone had ample notice and several warnings to check our keys, so it is certainly not “unfair” to just let things be. While I would be disappointed to find myself in that situation, I have missed opportunities on several chains where I was not paying sufficient attention. I would not expect any special accommodation. In fact, I would be very disappointed with the foundation and concerned about the chain if a decision was made to “fix” my mistake on the ledger. My opinion is that a new grant is more acceptable, if anything is to be done at all.
Of course, I am only speaking for myself. If it were up to me, I would do nothing. I find changing the ledger to be unacceptable, but a new grant is clearly within MF purview and appropriate if the foundation wants to do that.
I can get behind nearly all points here. I don’t think ledger adjustments are unacceptable but I believe it is for these kinds of situations. If you open pandora’s box there will be a lot of user mistakes over the long period and looking for the same treatment this action never benefits any party. The person with the mistake mostly didn’t get any lesson/experience from the mistake. Resulting in the same mistakes because the person doesn’t take proper responsibility of the keys. The project lost significant trust and credibility. There will be a lot of mistakes like these and if this kind of action is taken I am sure the overhead of it will cause most of the issues stay at is it but there will be time with +1million mina or whatever the amount is, the important part is the amount is significant and that being fixed(I know this is a big assumption but it’s same helpful/assisting idea behind the fixing addresses for 4 gfm). This is just a spiral downwards negative/bad thing goes deeper into the rabbit hole.
Thanks for the reply Jonathan, it’s always great to hear your thoughts. I hope you will allow me to speak openly and honestly.
My apologies, this is a different situation from the other one, I didn’t read it properly which is part of the problem as unless you are deeply involved or have a vested interest then it is a challenge to understand these situations properly and offer an intelligent response.
I’m definitely not attempting to speak for the community, but I think on this matter and the other there is a consensus for a resolution and for Mina Foundation to do the fair thing (whatever that is).
This is not meant in any way to disrespect Brian as I know he is just looking for guidance, but I wonder how the extended uncertainty of this is affecting the mental health of the people it directly concerns, and how long we should be per longing it for?
As someone who would like to participate in a responsible society/community that personally takes priority over everything else.
I largely agree with @jrwashburn and remember countless reminders to check the validity of GFM keypairs, so think that doing nothing, whilst seemingly harsh, would be completely acceptable. That is my stance, and perhaps would be different if I was one of the few with invalid keypairs.
My opinion of this: mistakes happen, given that we’re talking about four folks - perhaps grace can be extended. Though I can totally understand the concern about the (potential) precedent, and whether or not future hiccups will get this same level of treatment/care. A tough call all around.
I strongly support not modifying the ledger in this instance.
As we don’t know the exact circumstances of each case it’s difficult to comment further, but think that the Foundation compensating those affected via a new grant would be the most appropriate if they see fit.