Investigation into potential L2DAO OP Mismanagement: Findings

Some research i’ve done. Note: There are thousands of relavent transactions and I believe an impartial and independent investigation should be done by a professional or blockchain analytics firm.

Similar team and only a 2/5 Multisig.

(all members weren’t online, but as you can see there are similarities)
Team - Layer2DAO Documentation (team members according to website)

Timeline:

Transfer from Optimism Foundation

Optimistic Ethereum L2 Explorer

Optimistic L2 Transaction Hash (Txhash) Details | Optimism

To L2 DAO ACCOUNT:
Contract Address 0xaf5a0068f5465260a1a88a6264d0dce4469609cf | Optimism

From L2 DAO ACCOUNT
TO NFTE ACCOUNT Optimistic L2 Transaction Hash (Txhash) Details | Optimism

Account associated with L2DAO (follow the money)

Optimistic Ethereum L2 Explorer

Contract Address 0x5a711a7aae4a270c05fb9d67544ddcd2694bdc2c | Optimism

MULTISIG:

app.safe.global

Safe

Safe (prev. Gnosis Safe) is the most trusted platform to manage digital assets on Ethereum and multiple EVMs. Over $40B secured.

OP DUMPED TX #1

Optimistic Ethereum L2 Explorer

Optimistic L2 Transaction Hash (Txhash) Details | Optimism

OP DUMPED TX #2

Optimistic Ethereum L2 Explorer

Optimistic L2 Transaction Hash (Txhash) Details | Optimism

Optimistic Ethereum L2 Explorer

Contract Address 0x5a711a7aae4a270c05fb9d67544ddcd2694bdc2c | Optimism

This is the most important link. Look at where the USDC is going. I visualized the apparent

Transaction flow so far…

There are 20 different wallets that the funds were sent to. Note this is only ONE multisig. There is also another address that was a 27,500 OP transfer from the team. I am requesting that the team provide transparent accounting. From my own research I have found 55,000 OP embezzled, but to keep things brief we will focus on this multisig.

Like I said before. 20 wallets the USDC/OP was sent to I will just post 5 here. Look at each wallet. At this point they have already violated the no-sale rule and are now just using the funds to buy: NFTE, Washtrade, and purchase other altcoins. Some addresses appear to be daytrading with the funds.

Optimistic Ethereum L2 Explorer

Address 0x533efe4be8ac3db73ace6a9693e32d9eb9766ada | Optimism

Optimistic Ethereum L2 Explorer

Address 0xaf416b6310840e372da03994ea778a118b7b844f | Optimism

Optimistic Ethereum L2 Explorer

Address 0x8cb2c246264fe4106edea4b86120d9555caa5d31 | Optimism

*NFT SALES (This wallet washtraded NFTs on their exchange.)

Optimistic Ethereum L2 Explorer

Address 0x9581c5df8ea9a0aa84e52f40a378d7339bedccc3 | Optimism

NFT WASH TRADES / $NFTE MANIPULATION This wallet also bought NFTE tokens.

Optimistic Ethereum L2 Explorer

Address 0x4e9df8fb6b266d7ca430fab6e8a2e8c8f0170595 | Optimism

5 wallets associated with them. FOLLOW THE MONEY.

https://twitter.com/op_whales/status/1621265630853734401

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UPDATED EDIT:
I’ve identified what I think is the origin of the second transfer of 27,500 OP to a multisig governed by L2DAO’s principals, who then market dump that OP for USDC.

This snapshot completes strong onchain and firsthand evidence that:

  • NFTEarth and this second multisig, called LFGROW, share leadership teams with L2DAO and can be said to be indistinguishable from it as far as management is concerned
  • Layer2DAO principals govern the multisigs dumping OP for USDC and proceeding with other onchain activities apparently inconsistent with the grant’s intention and violating the no-sale rule (regardless of whether it was in force when this grant was made)

I am going to selectively quote the linked proposal authorizing this transfer here, emphases mine:

This is a proposal to the Layer2DAO community to create a new DAO focused exclusively on educational and tooling solutions for L2 NFT creators, artists and owners. In addition to education; the new DAO would have a clear focus on connecting the new knowledge gained by creators/artists/owners to easily accessible infrastructure leading to pragmatic results and the proliferation of NFT development on Layer2 Ethereum. This initiative is to revive and support active NFTs creation (and thus trading) on L2 chains, which have a lot of benefits “by design” vs. Mainnet. NFTEarth is focusing on trading, however, without active creators/projects, there will be no trading; 2. If you are not having huge funding (to be able to develop everything on your own), as a creator/project, you need to use certain tools to create and promote your collections. Unfortunately, most of the tools available in the market as well information are not “tailored” to L2 and are scattered around. Most needed tools are – NFT Generator, Allow/WL list/raffles tool, Launchpad and specific in this case: tool to migrate NFTs from L1 → L2.

So this is supposed to be a separate DAO that receives this grant. However, this purportedly separate DAO comprises the exact same signers as NFTEarth and, like NFTEarth, cannot be credibly determined to be an arm’s-length ecosystem project, as the multisig is controllable by Layer2DAO signers.

Train claims in his response the following:

Train’s claim downplaying their role is misleading and demonstrably untrue. The shapshot’s author, 0xadventurer (whose identity could be an alt of a known principal given the relative lack of historic activity in L2DAO), says so themselves:

funds will be sent to multi-sig controlled by current L2DAO leaders, for them to oversee fund distribution.

This proves by the author’s admission that NFTEarth, whose multisig is identical to the one described here, is in fact run by Layer2Dao’s principals. This is proof that the Layer2DAO team market sold granted OP on two separate occasions.

A follow-up post will describe in greater detail what this wallet has in fact been doing. Suffice it to say it calls into question the stated intentions of the grant.

As a reminder, Layer2DAO’s original proposal states:

Layer2DAO’s stated mission as a DAO is to expand the Ethereum L2 ecosystem and invest in L2 ecosystem projects. As such the DAO aims to use part of its Optimism Fund grant to incentivize high-impact Optimism protocols.

Layer2DAO is proposing to use 240,000 OP tokens to create the OPIncubator project that will incentivise projects that run on Optimism.

I think anyone would take this to suggest that this grant is intended to incentivize outside projects in the ecosystem. If L2DAO had spun up 6 entities with the same two principals and gave them OP to be market dumped, I think that would be correctly understood to be against the spirit of the application or the Grant program as a whole.

What we have here is just this, for at least 2 subgrants (research ongoing).

Finally, I’m not going to address Train’s claims about me, but I do want to make an illustrative point here. Train quotes me to claim that I am being inconsistent in my application of Grant guidelines:

This is a crucial point I want to make. Decentragora is a separate organization that, after interviewing its principals, I judged to be completely at arm’s length from L2DAO. They do not pose the same risk of self-dealing that I am observing in L2DAO’s self-granting two ecosystem grants, one for NFTEarth and one ostensibly for this other DAO described above. Surely anybody can tell the difference here.

But don’t worry, of course, the Layer 2 Dao team assures you that the funds are in good hands:

Moreover – here is my promise that I personally will not “take” any penny from this initial LTIP-7 funding. I’m not doing this for short term benefit, I’m doing this for L2 and way too bigger aims/goals! With this new initiative, we would like to support NFTEarth focus on the Layer2 NFTs market development as well as grow the L2 NFT ecosystem in general!

Future disclosure will discuss what in fact has occurred on these multisigs.


Original post

I can distill some of this info @Dicaso presents into what I think is the key fact here:

There are two multisigs controlled by L2DAO signers that receive and market dump OP. If you grant that one of these is ostensibly NFTEarth’s official multisig receiving an L2DAO grant, I can’t find public justification for the second.

Regardless of what these addresses then did (among other things, sell OP for USDC), the ownership of these multisigs is what to focus on.

Layer 2 Dao’s multisig is Safe{Wallet} – Settings – Setup – addresses are:
0xD131F1BcDd547e067Af447dD3C36C99d6be9FdEB - westonnelson.eth
0xE7a2d53dA40Ba37495d4Cf84811a59AAcE2f04A5
0x1CabC3e62e0527cBe09917F5Ca8e6D9999502d82
0x357990585a6BB953DCBA126de48585ed27E22319

The first multisig, 0x56d, which we’ll say is the main NFTEarth multisig, gets 27,500 OP from 0xaf5 on Jan 10. Its owners (2/5 structure) are:
0xD131F1BcDd547e067Af447dD3C36C99d6be9FdEB - westonnelson.eth
0x062a07cBf4848fdA67292A96a5E02C97E402233F
0x1CabC3e62e0527cBe09917F5Ca8e6D9999502d82 - on L2DAO’s multisig
0x119a849400dd8b61c8AB8995cb37AF32dBBD2D8B
0xa2f0F2265DbB5636Ca2dE35a2E4A01b518d5c620

I’m not sure but can surmise that this is the transfer corresponding to L2DAO’s ‘official’ grant to NFTEarth. But because this is a 2/5 multisig, L2DAO principals can be said to control this wallet.

Interestingly, an owner is removed and replaced on Feb 3. The previous owning address had been 0xeafcb5b9f0be74296d89182c9915117e59882f2a and was evidently sunset on Optimism. It was replaced by 0x119a849400dd8b61c8ab8995cb37af32dbbd2d8b, an active L2DAO owner called 0xadventurer.eth.

This may be relevant because the previous day, the 2/4 L2DAO multisig performs a second transfer of 27,500 OP to a different 2/5 multisig. The reasoning behind this transfer is unaccounted for and is suspicious because this multisig has the exact same signers as the first - i.e., it comprises Layer2DAO principals and is functionally controlled by L2DAO signers. This address also methodically dumps all of the sent OP.

So there are two multisigs controlled by L2DAO signers that receive and market dump OP, and one of these transfers I can’t find public justification for.

I think future research should uncover the actions and linkages involving these multisigs and their signers, and I call on @0xWeston or @Exosphere to explain why there are two identical multisigs, both with L2DAO signers, that receive and sell large amounts of OP.

This of course in addition to assembling further information on what ultimately gets done with the funds once they are swapped to USDC.

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Our response to these lies can be found in this thread:

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Can you explain specifically which on-chain transaction is a lie? These are indeed where the funds went, and are adresses belonging to the team as confirmed above.

Well thought out and investigated. Thanks for the hard work on this.

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