The IOG delegation results were confusing enough before this 
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Hello, before this gets out of the hand:
When I opened this thread I didnât know anything about FIMI or the pool service they run and the fact that some of these pools like TIGER are no longer associated to them and that some of these pools belong to âseparate ownersâ, despite they are still behind same infrastructure. To be honest I believe this is something that this FIMI operator should be more transparent about, there were no easy ways to contact anyone, all WHOIS information for IP addresses and domains registered for individual pools were PRIVACY REDACTED with no contact information, just saying itâs registered in Hanoi / Vietnam.
I was running google translate on fimi.vn/ada but couldnât find any names or contacts.
Some people blame me here for causing fuzz without contacting individual operators - but how was I supposed to contact them if most of them provided no contact whatsoever and if they didnât appear on this forum we wouldnât have any contact still?
By scam pools I mean the imposter pools, like MELD4, EVE, EMURGO, PIGY that pretend to be part of project they are not. Other pools I mentioned in this thread were just associated with these scam pools through shared infrastructure I donât think or say they are scam pools (I did think they belong to scammer in past because I thought there is only 1 person or group behind all these pools, but that was explained already, so itâs clear to me now).
For me personally, I am happy with the outcome where all imposter pools were retired, that is much more than I expected from this. I am personally OK with people using some shared services of operators who provide pools in SaaS model and despite I donât think itâs good for decentralization, I donât think itâs any worse than Binance pools for example, so I am fine with that.
I would still recommend to other shared pool owners to improve the ways to contact them, many of these pools donât have any website, domain associated with their relays doesnât contain any website either, WHOIS information contain no personal information, many of these pools just have some github page or twitter link instead of URL. Most of them donât have any contact information filled in on adapools. This all makes your pool look less legitimate.
Thatâs my few lovelaces, otherwise I am fine with the current situation and outcome of this thread and I donât expect any further actions to be taken.
4 Likes
20+ pools operating behind the same set of infrastructure is not âfineâ. Not with respect to network performance, security, and decentralization. But it sure gives these pool operators a leg up with respect to ongoing operational costs. I appreciate that you put a bit of a flashlight on the issue. Itâs just one more thing where the protocol isnât sufficient to solve every problem. Education is important. SPOs do what you will with your topology config.
ADA01
ADAUP
ADPL
BIDO
BIDU
BIMI
FIBOT
FIDA
FIMI
GRAB
KID
KIRIN
MEKON
OSCAR
SAIGO
SODA
SONLA
TRALO
TROFI
YOGA
|relay1.bidu.online|14.248.132.20|
|grab0.grabpool.site|14.248.132.20|
|grab2.grabpool.site|14.248.132.20|
|relay1.fimi.vn|194.163.135.82|
|relay1.hudo.online|194.163.135.82|
|relay2.wefin.vn|194.163.135.82|
|relay1.forkid.site|194.163.135.82|
|r1.saigo.online|194.163.135.82|
|relay1.sonla.online|194.163.135.82|
|relay1.tralo.online|194.163.135.82|
|relay3.hudo.online|194.163.152.66|
|relay3.wefin.vn|194.163.152.66|
|relay3.forkid.site|194.163.152.66|
|r3.saigo.online|194.163.152.66|
|relay3.tralo.online|194.163.152.66|
|relay.amzpool.xyz|194.163.175.178|
|relay1.santapool.site|194.163.175.178|
|relay2.santapool.site|194.163.175.178|
|relay2.sonla.online|194.163.175.178|
|relay3.sonla.online|194.163.175.178|
|relay2.fimi.vn|194.163.177.187|
|relay2.hudo.online|194.163.177.187|
|relay2.forkid.site|194.163.177.187|
|r2.saigo.online|194.163.177.187|
|relay2.tralo.online|194.163.177.187|
|relay.bidenpool.site|222.254.90.96|
|relay2.bidu.online|222.254.90.96|
|relay3.bidu.online|222.254.90.96|
1 Like
This is probably not the first or last âstake-pool as a serviceâ entity that is going to exist on Cardano. So maybe the way to handle this is for these pools to be more transparent as to who is operating vs owning a pool as well as how many BPs share any given relay, This way delegators can make informed decisions, and our community will not devolve into scams and dishonest marketing.
At the end of the day it is paramount that our current and future delegators do not look at the offerings in our community and technology and find dishonesty or deception.
1 Like
Iâm not technically understanding what it is that they are doing that makes them fake?
Are they not operating producers and relays? Do they have access to other peopleâs relay configurations? How are they using the Cardano network architecture improperly?
If a pool is maliciously spoofing or itâs spoofing an ITN ticker then it could be delisted from SMASH. More info here https://docs.cardano.org/explore-cardano/cardano-architecture/smash-handbook#delistingastakepool.
They are pretending they are part of project they are not. For example pretending they are one of MELD staking pools, copying ticker name (MELD4), using same description, URL etc. and margin 99% except they donât give any MELD tokens because they are not MELD. And same for other projects. In my book this is a scam.
2 Likes
If the Cardano network protocol allows it then why is this considered a scam? How do you know this is not by IOHK design?..or lack of design maybe? Lotâs of academic papers but no thought given to managing the Cardano network from an infrastructure governance perspective?..smacks of technology immaturity where there shouldnât be given all the PR behind âpeer reviewedâ and adequate time for design and testing arguments. From a technical standpoint, they are operating normal pools with registered tickers. If the users get themselves into using these pools without first investigating them then whoâs fault is it? Maybe the delegators want to use them for some reason maybe? So now a band of vigilantes will request that these normally operating (from a Cardano network infrastructure perspective) pools be delisted? What about people who staked? I mean, you canât even run a pool with any regular success without first having a few million staked. That to me is a bigger problem then some delegators not doing their homework. Iâm all for anti-scam vigilance but the Cardano network allows whatâs happening by designâŚso is it a scam?
Hi All,
I just wanted to share my 2 cents and hopefully get some feedback from you as I might not think properly maybeâŚ
The only scammy behaviour here is using tickers that refer to a product/entity/project that one doesnât own.
Also, if there are 30 pools using the same 3 relays it is indeed a bad practice, but that canât be called a scam. Binance have many pools and Iâm pretty sure they do use a limited set of relays.
Those are the issues worth mentionning for me:
-
The IOG and CF delegation are a powerful help for pools who gets it and an amazing incentive to be a bad actor: the process must be refined, indeed pool BIDEN have received delegation thanks to votes it received and not for having a website or a clear statement of some kind of utility for the ecosystem.
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Ticker names stolen from other projects. The only way to control this is by delisting them from SMASH as mentionned by @benohanlon
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99% margin: if a pool is set to 99% margin and delegators falls for it, it is a problem of education. If someone delegates to MELD thinking he will receive MELD but actually does not, then it is up to him to do his research and change to another pool.
Finally, decentralization will be reached only if the protocol is well written.
The issue is not the bad actors, we should let them exist, and again, if the protocol is well written, they will disappear.
Simply put, if Ouroboros by its design, doesnât lead to enough decentralization then Cardano might fail.
Ultimately, what I want is decentralization to succeed and to happen by protocol and not thanks to good human behaviours. The whole idea is to remove the bad human side of the equation using a protocol.
1 Like
If one has 3 relays servicing 30 block producersâŚthatâs not necessarily bad practice. Best practice is to have at least two relays in front of block producers where the secondary relay is simply a backup so relays can be taken down one at a time to be updated when necessary without service disruption. The fact that the organization in question has three instead of two is likely more then what most so called âlegitimateâ pool operators are running. There is no best practice Iâm aware of out of IOHK that suggests there canât be 30 block producers behind the same set of relays. I donât see that as weird at all, maybe unusual versus what you as a pool operator is doing but not necessarily inappropriate or âscammyâ from an infrastructure configuration perspective. The configuration of the network services allows for it. Itâs more of a runtime resource questionâŚif the resources exist on the server to support relaying to 30 block producers then there is no argument against doing it. I donât believe it would take more then typical memory/CPU allocation to relay to 30 producers based on resource capacity/consumption Iâve seen with cardano-node services.
Regarding ticker namesâŚthere is a limit of 50 characters I believe and there is no rule about what you can use as a ticker name so as long as one does not use the same exact ticker as someone else. I get that they used a ticker name in close relationship to some other pool systemâŚif that ticker name is not already claimed they have 100% right to do soâŚscam or no scam. Some people create DNS names like yahoooo.com to get accidental hits for ads, etcâŚI see it as a similar thingâŚitâs more of a douchbaggy thing to do then a scammy thingâŚso maybe thatâs the worst thing they have done. People who fall for that is more of the issueâŚ
The network allows for the freedom to configure ones cardano-node service any way they wish according to current release feature capabilities.
Personally, I think the ticker thing is stupid and the way Cardano delegation works in general. I believe people who delegate should have their stake evenly distributed among all currently on-line pools in a given epoch that meet specific resource requirements automatically validated by the cardano-node service. Human configuration of their individual cardano-node service in regards to reward distribution and fees should not be a factor. All operators should always get a specific percentage based on their own private stake on their own pool. That would level the playing field and not require all this silly configuration crap we have to go through to bring up pools. Then have it so that if a pool goes off line for a set period of time itâs delegation getâs redistributed across current operating pools during that given epoch. No private pool operators, rewards always shared equally according to delegation. Maybe itâs to simplisticâŚbut seems to be a more fair way to do it and would basically result in the same rewards % for all users. I donât get why it needs to be tied to whoever is most popular sociallyâŚthat has nothing to do with technological reliability or whatever. The cardano-node service should decide technological reliability in an automated fashion so the human element is removed from the equasion.
3 Likes
Was this info released somewhere?
Itâs not just about the ticker name, they replicated everything, description, metadata, URL for project etc. If this is not a scam and legitimate in your book, then people asking on YouTube âsend us N ADA and we will send 2x backâ are also not scam, but a legitimate project. In both cases people end up losing money and reputation of project suffers.
Just because itâs technically doable doesnât mean itâs correct.
2 Likes
With POW miners extract value, however, with POS people have a stake in the ecosystem. SPOs need the ability to differentiate both themselves and through other means. Agree?
yes agree but has nothing to do with the case, if one person will run many pools and he can manipulate votes
Hi,
It is true that I didnt find this information somewhere, I made an assumption because that new round of delegation was done thanks to votes.
Also, I have concluded it must votes because I donât see how their support come from: they have only 8 delegators, low pledge and a dead website.
I meant bad practice in term of âserving the common goodâ.
A good practice, as you say, is a minimum of 2 relays per producer nodes.
The reason why pools with less staked are not doing better has nothing to do with some people being douchbaggs (however, I agree with you, itâs not right that they are copying website content in an attempt to bait and switch, itâs just used car sales person like tactics). The issue is that it takes millions of ADA to run a productive/ROI stake pool. The reason for this is Cardanoâs algorithm for deciding on which pools generate blocks. The system favors the rich by design. This factor is likely what is compelling douchbaggs to be douchbaggy. We can request that these âscammyâ pools be taken down but due to the unfairness the algorithm creates those same people and others will just do the same kind of thing again the next day. Cardanoâs design is what is causing this.
In IT âbest practiceâ is a term for describing the best way to technically do something or how best to govern data/configuration.
The system is designed to allow one person to operate more then one pool. This is by Cardano design.
ok and can you propose to us technical implementation of a system that allows 1 person to run only 1 pool? Because nobody knows how to accomplish that. Maybe you know better design than that one Cardano has right now?
We notified the community about the dishonest behaviour and outcome was that the scammer shut all their pools down. I would say that we have achieved more than anyone expected. So I donât think there is any problem with design.
Yes in stake based ecosystem like Cardano you need to keep community of delegators aware of frauds, scams and similar problems, so they can reconsider who they support, but I donât see that as a design flaw. Dishonest pool operators, if uncovered, will always end up losing delegators, but if nobody points to the problems, then you canât expect any action to be taken.
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