Attributes:
Author(s) Cryptocorn
Category: PEP Funding Proposal
Recipients: TBD
Asking Amount: UP to $10,000
Summary
Nodes4All (N4A) was a major US based staking provider. Since they informed their investors that they were closing operations on October 2nd 2023, they have failed to return funds.
Investors have not been informed about what has happened, if their funds have been stolen, or there have been other malicious actions. The Nodes4All Telegram channel has been closed to comment or updates, as has the N4A Discord.
This proposal seeks to first establish the facts of what happened to the Nodes4All Investor funds, then to finance legal action against the management of Nodes4All to recover funds and act as a deterrent for future attempts to steal investors POKT.
Background/Motivation
Nodes4All was an early and major staking provider for the Pocket ecosystem, managing the staking of tens of millions of POKT at its peak.
Itās management consisted of Henry and Pat, who were trusted leaders in the Pocket space and vocal participants, respectively. The management resides in the US, assumed in Florida, the same state as many of Pocket/Groveās management is based. IT is known that Pat has physically turned up to Pocket events.
On October 2nd 2023, Nodes4All decided to close down their POKT staking operations. They asked all stakers to fill out an unstake form:
On October 27 2023, Nodes4All provided an update that they had started to refund some investors and that they expected all refunds to be processed by 5th November.
November 1st, Pat wrote: āplease hang tight we are returning everyoneās tokensā
November 3rd, Pat wrote: āI have everyoneās withdrawals here and am in processingā
November 6th, Pat wrote: āEveryone that hasnāt received tokens just fill this out and we will start processing as we are receiving back our tokens from the various locations.
We are no going anywhere, we are here to make sure everything is unwinded properly.ā
Sometime after that Nodes4All shut down their Telegram group and disallowed posting.
Pat has not read or returned any messages:
Henry has occasionally responded but has not explained what happened and has repeatedly missed his own deadlines to return funds.
Currently on the 19th December, many investors are still waiting to receive their funds.
Deliverables:
This proposal hopes to:
- Clarify what has happened at Nodes4All, how many investors have been affected and the amount still outstanding.
- Nominate a representative to attempt to negotiate with Nodes4All to return their investors funds in a timely manner.
- Create a budget to take the first legal steps against Nodes4All to return userās funds and consider additional legal options available for damages caused, and what financial laws have been broken to refer to state and federal agencies for prosecution.
Budget:
A maximum budget of $10,000 is asked for (POKT to be sold OTC and funds custodied by PNF in a similar manner to the ERA and other USD budgets), to investigate the above and pay a retainer fee to a law firm to begin preliminary investigations.
If a suitable resolution can not be found, more funds may need to be made available to further pursue this issue, voted on by additional proposals.
Rationale:
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We donāt know what has happened to the investor funds custodied by Nodes4All and as they are now several months late in returning funds and have failed to communicate/actively stopped communication, we first need to understand the issue, its size and the options available to help POKT investors recover their funds.
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PNF, the DAO and the Pocket Community has a whole should send a strong message that they wonāt accept stealing or malicious behaviour. Allowing 3rd party companies to steal POKT without consequence is ultimately damaging to our ecosystem. By pursuing and punishing bad actors severely we can send a strong warning to future potential malicious actors.
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If funds were stolen, it is likely that the thief will want to ādumpā the POKT quickly onto the market and ācash outā. This would bring millions of POKT of unnecessary sell pressure to Pocket, causing a decline in POKT price. This would affect everyone who holds POKT, not just those whoāve had their funds stolen by Nodes4All and incentivize a vote for this proposal.
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