Alleged breach of the trust deed

[Cliff]

First, I’d like to thank all the community leaders that have chimed in here. It is unfortunate that the state of the discussion is seen as ‘toxic’ and unconstructive.

In my personal opinion, @Alexios did breach the trust agreement by signing off on a disbursement from the DGP grants multisig wallet to CryptoHondos, to which he is affiliated, and he should have disclosed the conflict of interest, and abstained from the signing process. This is regardless of the fact that the grant to CryptoHondos was approved in DGP v1 - the disclosure should still have been made to the trustees and the enforcer, and the trustees could have worked together to get this over the line without having Alexios involvement in disbursements to CryptoHondos.

Nonetheless, as @dgog has pointed out, Alexios has been impactful in driving growth efforts and his involvement in funding community cauldron initiatives. These findings do not discount his impact, and I thank him for his contributions.

Moving forward, I’d suggest for the new trustees deliberate and appoint a new Grantor through a process that the enforcer reviews. Looking forward to having the other trustees chime in, and I hope that the community emerges from this saga holding the values of transparency and accountability to a higher regard.

[CipherLabs]

@dgog

While transparency and accountability are paramount, we must prioritize constructive discussion and action over finger-pointing.

Let’s talk about this. What are we doing to ensure there is accountability and transparency? Because from my point of view, I don’t see anything. I’m specifically talking about transparency and accountability around applications, their outcomes and reasons for them, communications between both grantors and applicants, unless otherwise requested not to be public. Along with communications and decisions being made in a timely manner. I believe we are going to need a complete platform to facilitate this, something we’d like to lend a hand with.

@dgog

It’s disheartening to witness a few community members resorting to personal attacks, bullying, and harassment in these forums and other channels.

That’s an interesting statement. Can you point out an example of where this occurred? I have personally observed it all and don’t recall seeing anyone being personally attacked or bullied. From my point of view this community seems very mature and respectful 95% of the time. It’s one of the main reasons I like to participate in it.

@Cliff

In my personal opinion, @Alexios did breach the trust agreement by signing off on a disbursement from the DGP grants multisig wallet to CryptoHondos, to which he is affiliated, and he should have disclosed the conflict of interest, and abstained from the signing process. This is regardless of the fact that the grant to CryptoHondos was approved in DGP v1 - the disclosure should still have been made to the trustees and the enforcer, and the trustees could have worked together to get this over the line without having Alexios involvement in disbursements to CryptoHondos.

We are very pleased to see @Cliff taking an unbiased and neutral approach to all of this. We suspected this would be the case and are delighted he has been chosen for this role. This is exactly what we need to progress.

I also don’t think things always need to be sugar coated. Some discussions are not easy. As was the case here obviously. It doesn’t mean someone is being bullied or personally attacked. At no stage did @RealVovochka personally attack @Alexios from what I have witnessed. Had RV not pointed out his findings, how would dYdX have known any of this? As both @Immutablelawyer and @Cliff have pointed out, it is indeed a breach, no matter how you spin it.

[Atticus]

I haven’t really seen dgog around the forums much, so first of all, welcome to the dYdY community!

It’s great to see that we are attracting more and more people to the dYdX ecosystem!

At this point, since it seems that this has not been mentioned or somehow omitted, I’d like to thank Vov, an actual ACTIVE member of the community with numerous contributions and badges, for VOLUNTEERING and putting all this time and effort into exposing Alex and creating a more FAIR and JUST dYdX.

If it were up to the Foundation, preferably, nothing would ever be exposed, because it creates more work and things to worry about and taints the image of the perfect community that the Foundation is tasked to foster. I would argue that this thread is one of the most important contributions to date, because it lays the REAL FOUNDATION to make dYdX a more just, open, and fair platform for both present and future community members!

So thank you again, Vov, for your contribution, and for making dYdX what the community aspires it to be! Cheers to the real !

[RealVovochka]

Thank you, @Atticus for your kind words.

Also, I want to let everyone know that you shouldn’t consider me an enemy of the state.

I tried to solve this problem internally. My goal was to gather facts. I didn’t provide any emotional assessment, and I definitely don’t see presenting facts as bullying.

If it sparked heated debates, it’s only because the issue I uncovered was very serious.

Furthermore, I believe that if @Alexios is not guilty, he shouldn’t by no means resign. If he can provide evidence to the new Enforcer @Cliff I think he should keep his position.

[jake]

Do you understand the core idea of ​​DAO? You are an ineligible member of the DYDX Foundation. I am also disappointed in the work of the foundation.

[jake]

As the person in charge of the foundation, your answer makes me worry about the development prospects of DYDX. This is not what a qualified person in charge should say. You have said a lot of nonsense.

[RealVovochka]

Hey, dydx community!
Today (September 1st) is the first day of the continuation of DGP program.

As someone who advocates for maximum transparency, I wanted to let you all know that I have applied for a retroactive grant based on this investigation. And now, I want to disclose all the details of my application.

Grant name : “Trust Restoration and Transparency Enhancement Initiative (TRTEI): Allegedly Exposing a Bad Actor”

Grant goals : Improving the transparency of the grants program

Grant description : I used onchain and other investigation methods to expose an alleged bad actor in the DAO. His actions posed significant legal risks to the Grants Program subDAO, opening the door for potential lawsuits. Who knows what kind of problems this person could have caused in the future? His actions undermined trust in the grant program. My investigation and subsequent publication of all the evidence allowed the DGP program to get rid of this individual and also saved $18k in his salary over 6 months. My forum post gained a lot of public attention (~1k views) and shed light on the inefficiencies within the trust’s work. The lessons learned from this situation will help avoid similar incidents in the future.

Grant category : Other

Milestones :

1. Collecting the evidence
2. Post publication
3. Comprehensive explanation of all the evidence found to the dydx stakeholders

Grant timeline : Grant is retroactive

Funding Request : 4500 USDC

Budget Breakdown :

1. Collecting the evidence, post publication and explanation = 30 hours x 100$/hour = 3000 usdc
2. Success bonus (final milestone) 50% = 1500 USDC

Using Retroactive Evalution Criteria which can be found
Guidelines for Retroactive Funding Eligibility (dydxgrants.com)

Impact: I think the Impact is really huge. In the future, the grant program will follow clear Conflict of Interest criteria. Any potential violators of trust will understand all the risks and won’t engage in any illegal activities.
KPIs: This topic has become one of the most popular on the forum. Lessons from this topic will allow all subDAOs to act more transparently and attentively in the future. The offender has resigned.
Complexity: The investigation was complex, I used different tools, and all the evidence was presented in the form of screenshots and detailed explanations.

Eligible projects criteria : Community Research project

Contributors not eligible for retroactive funding : I am not an Active Grantee and I am neither a member of DGP team, nor dYdX Foundation or Trading. So I am eligible for that grant.

Feel free to leave any comments on my application

[RealVovochka]

Hey @RoboMcGobo and @carlbergman don’t you mind to post here for the sake of transparency why my grant application was rejected and the reasons behind that.

[vamif30054]

@RealVovochka
Your request for a retroactive grant in this case, in my opinion, is inappropriate & vulgar.
The fact that you are required to discuss all of your minor issues in public serves as an example of the feedback you should take into account.

[RealVovochka]

Thank you for registering on the forum to leave this comment.

You didn’t introduce yourself and didn’t explain why this question is so important to you as a new member of the community.

I think there are much more interesting topics related to the dydx product you can read and participate in the discussions

Cheers

[RealVovochka]

I can understand if I’ve been annoying you with this story, but nobody has drawn any conclusions from it.

8 days ago, I asked @carlbergman or @RoboMcGobo to publicly explain the reason for the rejection of my grant application on the forum.

I’m not in the habit of publicly exposing personal correspondence, but if they decided to ignore my request - I will post it.

In my opinion, this response was offensive towards me:

While I’m sure your allegations on the public forums were presented without malicious intent, the level of discourse that ensued (mostly from others and not yourself) was not conducive to a welcoming and growth-oriented community.

When you go to the police or court, nobody will tell you that your crime report could have had any malicious intent if you provided all the evidence.

I have heard opinions that I intentionally exposed @Alexios to take his place. This is not true. I purposely shared this message before announcement who would take the position of the second grantor to avoid hints and insinuations.

I have personal principles of morale, and if someone breaks the law or deceives the community, I will not keep quiet about it in order to maintain a “friendly atmosphere”. A good atmosphere is when everyone trusts each other.

We are still a DAO; we make decisions collectively. There should be no corporate culture of covering up problems and so on.

I’ve been in the dydx community since 2021; I remember active discussions on all aspects of the protocol back then. The archive is available on Commonwealth; anyone can read it and see for themselves.

Everyone can evaluate the level and activity of discussions now.

As for my grant application and why it was made: I invested a significant amount of personal time and effort into it. The person who broke the law is no longer in his position.

Did dYdX benefit from this? Undoubtedly YES.

Did the community atmosphere suffer? In my opinion, absolutely NO.

If someone does not break the law, no one will speak ill of them. But if the law is broken, there must be inevitability of punishment.

As some people have presented the situation: I excluded Alexios due to personal dislike and a desire to take his position. It’s nonsense, and I think everyone understands that.

My conclusions from this story:
If certain people keep on creating an atmosphere of hiding the facts and important information that the community should know (hello @carlbergman and the $300K grant), as well as selecting people solely based on loyalty to certain stakeholders rather than the project overall, then I will leave the community.

[dYdX_Ops_subDAO]

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