Sorry it’s been painful to post, I’m not seeing your first message but seems like this one is working.
If that link to our discord doesn’t work, please sign up at discord.gg/pokt and then come back and click that link.
What’s the handle you used for getting your funds back? I can check in the channel with the N4A team to see if it’s in process.
Hi,
Yes thanks a lot, that worked! First joining the general discord allowed me to see the chat you were referring to, and posted a message there as well.
I know that there are several people still waiting on refunds. From the 4 persons I know (myself included) only 1 received a response and a refund. So lets hope that they will put some more effort in this. Thanks a lot Dr. Robinson for the help!
Happy to help.
General Update for everyone here:
Henry has been very responsive, but isn’t checking our discord 24/7 so please DM me if you haven’t heard from him in a few days and I’ll get his attention.
To breakdown the process for the rest of us: In an effort to return funds, N4A has returned many individuals stables instead of POKT. From what I understand, this means some individuals have had their refund in USDC (or similar) issued near POKTs all time low (at the time of their unstaking).
What seems to be the anger here is that some people who unstaked were issued USDC and did not convert back to POKT; and so have missed the big upswing over the last few months. I understand that is frustrating, and empathize with those of you in this position.
If any of the things I’ve stated aren’t the case for you, you can always reach out to me with more details and we can take it from there.
Edited to remove my soapbox, as it was unnecessary. Sorry y’all.
Hi Everyone,
I am one of the investors who invested in N4A. I got surprised about what happened to it. Im not active to TG anymore thats why Im out of date. Im trying to get my invested funds from it. I couldn’t find anyone to DM about refund. I hope anyone can help me to reach out anyone to get the funds back.
Im not a whale in this industry that small amount I invested in 1st tranch can make a Huge difference. So anyone know anyone to message about the refund i would appreciate much! Thank you!
Ron
Hey Ron, there is a thread in discord where you can fill out and form and get this followed up: Click Here
Doc. I have about 88,000 pokt that has not been returned to me. I filled out the form and am wondering how long it will take to get it back? I want to be sure to have pokt returned and not USD or stable coin. I am am affiliated with Danny Ward’s account. Please advise.
hey @cruzer04 what’s your discord name? have you followed up in the discord thread Click Here
It’s been said that this is not really the DAO’s problem or PNF’s.
Yes, but.
Shoddy and unfair treatment by a staking service of customers, to say nothing of losing their money - I am not saying whether any of that happened here - creates bad will. It can tarnish POKT’s reputation by association and hurt the project’s success by deterring investment.
PNF’s exemplary response appears to recognize this.
Zak, on behalf of PNF, set up and is active on the Nodes4All channel under Community Chat on the Pocket Network Discord server where investors can communicate with N4A. In addition, he has invited those who feel wronged to reach out “with more details and we can take it from there.”
I also note, to N4A’s credit, that as soon as it shut down (Oct. 2) it advised stakers to fill out a refund form. A little over a month later, however, it stopped responding, causing stakers understandable jitters. But later (Dec. 23 post, above), N4A said that it is “committed to doing the right thing by anyone still affected.” And N4A’s Henry Habgood has been addressing customer concerns in the new N4A Discord channel.
Stakers not yet reimbursed recently have been asked to sign a new form titled “Time-Limited POKT Token Staking Program Refund Offer.” But the offer expires tomorrow (Jan. 31). Has N4A successfully contacted all affected investors as would seem to be its onus under the circumstances (contact info was required in the original staking agreement)? If not, extensions are warranted. (A copy of the refund-offer form is appended at the end of this post.)
Of concern, the offer stipulates that anyone who applies for a refund thereby agrees to waive any claim against the company even if they get no refund. What’s more, refund requesters must agree not to join a lawsuit against the company and not even “disparage” the company in “any medium” (e.g., Discord or in this thread) or risk a penalty of not less than $10k. This seems heavy handed.
Even more troubling, the offer stipulates repayment in USDC at a token price of $0.15 when the actual price is now fluctuating well above that. No reason has been given for not returning investors their actual staked POKT. A possible justification is the alleged theft of POKT by an employee “as the pool was shutting down” (Dec. 23 post, above).
Notably, however, no evidence of theft has been produced. N4A did not respond to @RawthiL’s post (Dec. 23, above): “Could you give us the address of the stolen wallets so we know if we are dealing with stolen coins."
Also concerning, there are outstanding refund requests that date from the time that N4A was returning POKT tokens. Why should these customers have to accept a loss-inducing refund in USDC as a result of N4A’s delay, months long in some cases, in processing their requests?
As N4A has given investors till tomorrow to apply for relief, let’s revisit this matter at the end of February. At that time, we can determine whether everyone impacted has received a fair refund and whether any action by the DAO may be warranted.
That a need was felt to go public with this issue is unfortunate. But it’s a call to action. Steps must be taken to make Pocket Network a safe and welcoming place to invest. I am preparing an initiative. If you run a staking service or are a lawyer versed in contract law, or just want to contribute ideas, DM me.
Zak says “I feel for anyone who has lost funds,” observing that “crypto can be a harsh place sometimes.” In my view we should do what we can to ensure that POKT Network is not a “harsh place” for investors.
NOTE: @zaatar did not stake with N4A, and does not operate a staking/pooling service or hold shares in any such service
N4A’s Time-Limited POKT Token Staking Program Refund Offer Form:
Nearly five months have passed since Nodes4All shut down and still some investors are waiting to get back their staked POKT. Judging by the conversation in the N4A channel that PNF set up on the POKT Discord server to facilitate reimbursements, N4A continues to show a lack of responsiveness.
This situation is totally unacceptable and casts a dark shadow over investment in our ecosystem.
It cannot go unanswered.
The DAO must step up and show that we will try and protect supporters who have put their faith in this project.
Unless N4A proves it was the victim of theft - as it has alleged - it should return original POKT stakes to all investors who are still waiting for refunds. It should do so by the end of February. If it fails to do so, a modified version of this proposal - that consists of hiring a lawyer to get to the bottom of this - should move forward. (If it’s proven that POKT was purloined, other compensation may be appropriate.)
As noted in my previous post, I am working on an initiative to make POKT staking as welcoming and safe an investment as possible. If you’d like to collaborate, DM me.
I’m curious if the DAO would be open to granting the lost funds here as a one time gesture (not to scape goat the unfortunate events that aspired with N4A, tho…). To be the devils advocate, POKT Staking has been extremely inefficient since genesis of the networ until recently. Starting off with the lack of non custodial option (and then it being extremely inconveinent due to lack of rev share/ui-ux), delegation (effectively pooling), and much more. It is really unfortunate that many of stakers had to resort to custodial staking. I know a couple of individuals impacted by this, they were extremely crypto savy and believe in ‘not your keys not your crypto’ mentality, but it’s not like the protocol offered that many solutions until recently. One of my largest crypto losses at the time was RaiBlocks (now Nano) was impacted by a CEX hack. Never saw it recovered. Sucks.
This is reasonably sensible,were the DAO to get involved,IMO the most impactful way would be to aid the victims to achieve their tokens back through legal or other means,which cycles back to the above questions…
Hey everyone,
A quick note from my side here. I’ve been working to be a middle-man to assist in the process of refunds from Nodes4All. Per my comments above, I’m mostly trying to keep the N4A team accountable to respond and update individuals, leveraging my position at PNF to facilitate.
Over the last few months, Henry (and only Henry) has been moderately responsive. He typically responds to me within a few days, but has not been specific on any timelines or deliverables, which has made it hard to communicate with those affected other than the ongoing promise that he will get back to you.
At this point it has been many months, and I am going to close this workstream. I believe there are a few people who have (long-time) outstanding payments still, and zaatar has been collecting that information.
I will continue to help direct people to Henry and the form to be compensated, but i’m unable to do anything more than encourage the N4A team to be on top of the requests. There doesn’t seem to be more I can do here to help either side.
So to be completely clear here - I’ve done my best to support both sides here and be fair, but at this point there are outstanding payments that could have been made many times in the last month that have not been. What the community decides to do from here is up to the community.
To address @poktblade re: lost funds; I would be hesitant to spend DAO funds on this, as it sets a precedent that the DAO would be responsible for business losses for any number of reasons. I’ve had a couple of messages in the last month around people making mistakes and losing money, nodes, keys, etc. It’s tough - i empathize with everyone who has lost money in this space; it’s sad when it’s their own fault but even more frustrating when it’s through no fault of their own.
Speaking for myself, crypto is volatile and people lose money in this casino for all sorts of good reasons. If we’re looking to build a protocol that lasts and creates positive impact in the world, and ultimately a token that has true value, we must be long term aligned and thinking in how we use funds.
We have many ways to contribute to the protocol that can help people who have lost funds earn some back, including grants programs that can support new ways to protect user funds if the community wants to build it. We’d quickly support a proposal that would add protection and value to our community.
Fair objective point on why we shouldn’t. Agreed
I am preparing just such a proposal. If anyone is interested in collaborating - or providing early feedback - please dm me. I’m especially interested in hearing from anyone who operates custodial staking services or has expertise in contract law.
The proposal I’m drafting will draw on the findings of the investigation into the Nodes4All scandal that will be carried out if the revised version of P.R.I.S.O.N. is passed.
Can you expand on what this means in practice and the nature of that proposal?
Ultimately, POKT can not and should not be responsible for custodial staking solutions for the reasons seen here and in the myriad other instances across web3 like celsius, gemini earn, ftx etc. I think the historical context @poktblade described re our staking practices is helpful context in consideration of what to do here, but our future should 100% be in educating stakers that this is wholly their own personal risk if they choose to stake custodially.
Yes, I will provide more details on the proposal shortly, likely once the P.R.IS.O.N. Revision proposal is put to bed.
Currently, if you stake under a node’s worth of POKT you must participate in a pool where the sole option is custodial. Is non-custodial fractional staking even possible technically? If so, is work underway on this - or on some other workaround?
I like the spirit of this. But I don’t think it’s the DAO’s responsibility. I do think the DAO should consider funding legal action, however.
Again, in. my opinion, this should not be put on the DAO. When you move tokens to just about any major DEX you don’t have a non-custodial option. I was very concerned about this when I first looked at staking. Because there wasn’t a non-custodial option, I learned how to set up and manage nodes myself. I feel like this was an option everyone had.
It’s incumbent on us as individuals (investors/speculators/opportunity seekers/whatever) to educate ourselves on the risks associated with this stuff. I think the DAO bailing everyone out would be more harmful in the long run. Setting the expectation that bailouts will be there causes people to drop their guard and take unnecessary risks. I’m very sympathetic to all those who might have lost their investment forever. I’ve been there - I lost a lot - and it sucked big time. But because of it, I’m way more cautious now.
There are multiple community members who could assist in finding a killer attorney to go after the key players behind Nodes4All. So someone motivated should create a DAO proposal to provide funds for legal costs. Work it out with the attorney so that they get a much bigger payout when the tokens are recovered. The individuals behind this are in the US I believe. I also suspect they wouldn’t be hard to track down and that they probably have enough personal assets to convince a good legal team that this is a case worth taking on. Get creative so the legal team is highly incentivized to recover the funds and/or get a criminal indictment. Maybe all the recovered tokens are staked and the attorney gets 50% of the rewards for the next x years or a big POKT bonus. A legal win would go a long way to making future scammers think twice while letting the community know that the DAO takes this kind of thing seriously.
I would vote in favor of a proposal to back something like that.
“…for any number of reasons”.
From my perspective, I find it unreasonable, illogical and out of the question for the DAO to be held responsible for personal mistakes of any sort.
I believe it’s an entirely different matter when there’s criminal activity involved.
The crypto space as a whole has been, and still is in many ways, comparable to a casino, but I feel this is changing slowly but surely.
I believe this is an excellent opportunity to ensure and let the world know PN isn’t one of those places.
I know who they are, where they live and there are most certainly assets to recover. This is not one of those games of ghosts with unknown creators hiding behind stock profile photos in offshore jurisdictions. Also, we’re not dealing with complicated transaction histories involving all sorts of scrambling, bridging and trickery.
I was just pointed to the proposal and sent in for a return of all staked POKT since I never did and am unable to unstake it with Nodes4All.
