Lisk GDT (Global Delegate Team)

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Soon Lisk will have its first birthday.
I think these two post have to be made public outside the LSK ANN Topic.

Part 1:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1346646.msg17598010#msg17598010

Notice to the Lisk Community

This post is about concerns with GDT (Global Delegate Team), the group of mutual voters that has 80+ members and accounts to a very significant percentage of forging delegates.

GDT is in existence since the early testnet for Lisk. Its core comprises participants from the testnet as well as from the former Crypti community. It was always said or widely perceived that GDT is good for Lisk since it were supposed to invest forging rewards into the Lisk ecosystem. Within the concept for Lisk it is envisaged to fund various projects for Lisk by way of forging rewards, and it was expected that the benefit exceeds the inflation that comes with the comparably high figure for block rewards that characterizes Lisk.

It is assumed by many that GDT would provide for an organizational structure that is beneficial for Lisk, for all of its community and the investors. Recent developments however indicate that GDT is in a process of monopolizing forging rewards primarily for its own benefit and with a view to achieving insuperable voting power through accumulating most of the newly issued LSK.

GDT has no statute for its governance. Basically there is a single individual who creates a list of its members. Part of the conduct of GDT is maintaining a rather high number of 80+ members that keeps it ahead of any other potential competing group. In recent weeks the style of governance had changed in that members were pressed to vote each other (while before basically everybody had to go for his own votes), and in that GDT implemented a vote tracking database and regime of questionable practices in regard to improve its ranking and having a tight grip on its members. More details on this are to follow...

This is not to say that all or the vast majority of its members are bad or untrustworthy delegates. For most there is no other choice than being part of GDT.

This post is done with the intend to break up GDT and prevent it from finalizing its grip on forging rewards. It can become very important that the Lisk community and all outside voters use their voting weight against GDT and its established leadership. In this context there is also a warning on pools that promote certain delegates without saying why it is good to vote them or what their alliances are.

Lisk has a great potential. It is important that the Lisk community makes use of its voting power and actively supports trustworthy candidates. Many delegates who are in GDT absolutely deserve votes from the community, as for instance they provide necessary technical support in order that the Lisk blockchain works. There are also many other important tasks done by several active delegates in promoting Lisk etc. A good indication for outstanding delegates is when they have the votes from both Max and Oliver. The more votes they get, the less dependent they are on GDT.

Attached to this post are the logs from the relevant Slack channels of GDT for the last few weeks. It is seen as fair giving every Lisker access to information that has importance with the affairs of Lisk.

With fairness seen as paramount, it should be attempted to break up mutual voting groups when they act as cartel and deliberately don’t let space to other groups or individual delegates. Acting for competitiveness can have a beneficial effect for the Lisk ecosystem and requires support from the community.

https://yadi.sk/d/7L3krpjz3AWJYB

http://carolinaliskdelegate.wordpress.com

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Part 2:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1346646.msg17620995#msg17620995

This is a follow up on my recent post with some more details. I will also later do another post in reply to some of the recent responses that were given.

As is documented here I was voted out of GDT https://electionbuddy.com/elections/37932/results/ud2fkynx7 . The reasons were that I had not voted one particular individual with my personal holding, and that allegedly I wrote negative words about GDT in my transparency report.

In the first weeks of January the Slack channels of GDT were given some bots for vote tracking (made by Hagie) that could indicate if a member of GDT had not given votes to another one. This bot was then played several times by a new member with name Hagie (who I did not know then) in order to make his cause that I would have to vote him. This came also with a threat from other sides that if I do not vote as they want there will be head-rolling by Jan. 15. It was then unclear to me why Hagie was in GDT and on what criteria he was selected. From what I found out he came into the Slack channel on invitation in the role of observer for another new member. From this status he gained permanent access to the Slack channel, and finally was declared a member from above. It then also came to my attention that he obtained many outside votes from the Robinhood pool where he was presented as “mentor”, through running a scheme that required to vote Hagie for getting a higher payout. Besides that, Hagie acted very bossy, was pressing for votes, calling me with the a-word and became the key-figure in establishing a totally new regime at GDT. There were many more red flags for me then (and even more later) for why I would not vote Hagie for personal reasons (more details can be provided).

There was also the issue that at that time GDT had brought in many other new members based on their voting weight without requiring them to make a significant distribution or contribution for the benefit of Lisk. This was the reason for my comment in the transparency report.

Then there was also the issue that GDT was never interested in choosing certain qualified delegates. For instance I previously had made the proposal to support some developers from Shift (only with votes from forging reserves). As many might not be aware of, Shift is developing an ambitious project based on Lisk https://www.shiftnrg.org/newsletter. Some developers from Shift also work on the code for Lisk, while Shift is much worse funded. I also made the proposal to consider a candidate who had a background as cryptographer and was one of the winners for his delegate proposal (he even had some voting power). There was also the issue that they ignored a certain other candidate who could claim some trajectory in Lisk based on early participation. In the months that I participated in Lisk a number of developers showed up in the chat and forums, but there were no visible attempts by GDT to acquire valuable human resources. The concept of high block rewards actually attracts qualified developers, but GDT is preventing it from how it could work.

If some might want to know why I was in GDT. The answer is that I previously was in a different group that was merged with GDT, without me personally consenting to it and being left with no other choice. At that time it also appeared that GDT was in a new beginning. Some might recall that I had posted a critical comment about the governance of GDT on the Lisk forum in May, pointing out that the list of members is created by a single individual, Vega.

The short outline above is a summary of my experience with GDT. In addition, I would like to be explicit on why I see GDT as a scam and a threat:

GDT is centralizing delegates, as basically a single individual is doing the list of delegates. GDT has no statute or real democratic organization.
GDT is a cartel. They are not just a group of some mutual voters. They deliberately seek to maintain a number of 80+ members in order to seize all forging rewards and prevent competitors.
GDT is a buddy scheme. Everything goes if it is to the liking of the leadership.
GDT is undermining the consensus mechanism and is practicing collusion. With most recent conduct there is direct enforcement of the voting of its delegate members.
GDT has no benefit for Lisk. GDT is not operating in a way that it seeks to return a surplus for Lisk from forged LSK. In particular it is not attempting to acquire valuable developers for Lisk projects as it was envisaged for the forging rewards.
GDT is not preventing whales, or the “rich from getting richer”. Recently they rushed in many high stake holdings, even some of those they had previously labeled as their adversaries. The members of GDT themselves are striving to amass a holding from forging rewards that would make each a whale.
GDT is not a better alternative to pools (as they promote themselves). In fact, GDT is associated with pools, used them for pushing some of their members, and members even proposed to launch GDT pools.
GDT is not essential for the operation of the testnet and the mainnet. While in fact a lot of work was contributed to this, most work on scripts, applications, snapshot servers, real feedback on testing etc. is done by only a relatively small number of participants.

https://carolinaliskdelegate.wordpress.com/