Hello Alex and Jack and the rest of the OP Collective,
Thorough time has been taken to prepare a response to all your questions here, and hopefully this can serve as a form of resolution and for the Collective to move forward at this point. Please see all questions and responses as well as the disposition of every single token that you have inquired about and the corresponding Tx hashes which can all be viewed on chain and are linked here. First off I believe it is important to clarify that although a contributor to multiple DAOs, I was not acting on behalf of Layer2DAO while spearheading these efforts to revive the NFT landscape on Optimism. I was a community member concerned about the future of NFTs, and felt compelled to do something about the situation. That being said, if anything I was a part of here was against the rules, I ask that you understand from the perspective of someone looking to bootstrap some projects. No rules were intentionally broken, if they in fact were it was not malicious. I believe that acting in good faith needs to count for something, and I am speaking for not only myself here, but all of the team that I’ve assembled and put together over the past three months.
I understand that we are competitors and have some history. I’d ask that for the sake of the OP Collective and ecosystem, that we choose to move forward for the benefit of all parties involved.
To get right into it. First thing I will address is NFTEarth and the Txs in question here to clear up any concerns. NFTEarth is an L2 NFT marketplace that was founded in direct response to the news of Quix closure. I wanted to fix this. There was much discussion in Layer2DAO community about how to go about this, a couple ideas, and I finally chose to go for leading this effort, apart from my role in any capacity of L2DAO. We held a vote as a DAO, and it passed with an overwhelming percentage of the community (99%) voting in favor to incubate the project. My understanding was that any grant funds received from L2DAO were to be used as the team saw fit, given the immense challenge we had ahead of ourselves and the necessity for operating expenses when bootstrapping a project like a new NFT marketplace. My initial forecast was 3-6 months time and $500K-$1M would be the necessary funding required to get the exchange operational. We did it in 1 month with significantly less funding.
Here was the Txs from NFTEarth Safe that account for the use of the 27,500 $OP tokens here:
On the second matter of LFGROWWW. A community member who has a strong interest in NFTs took the lead on this initiative, although I additionally have contributed and so am able to provide insight into your questions. One of the things we quickly realized while working on NFTEarth was the massive lack of infrastructure support for NFTs on Optimism. No one supported the L2 network, and it was like pulling teeth to get basic infrastructure needs in place, and so an idea came up - what if another DAO is created, but one to serve a different purpose, to be a hub of resources for NFT developers, creators, and collectors. Naturally this fit well with the ambitions of the NFTExchange and I got very involved with this project as well. The goals were to build educational resources, a bridge for NFTs from Mainnet to Optimism, a launchpad, and a Quests platform (learn and earn style) that combined education and tasks, all into one platform that could then be monetized by being used as a service. This is how NFTEarth envisioned using the resources that LFGROWWW would create, by integrating all these aforementioned tools directly into the exchange, so that not only would the exchange be unique from having its own token, unique tokenomics, etc., but additionally could offer an NFT-type hub for users of the marketplace. The bridge has been completed, the launchpad has also been completed, and the Quests platform was also completed as well. Getting these items into their own interfaces is where the current state of the platform is, and largely has been on hold for the past couple weeks due to running of out funding. Here is the Txs from the LFGROWWW Safe that account for the use of the 27,500 $OP tokens here:
There is overlap on the projects in terms of contributors and leaders, but again although they are similar and will be able to create synergies, they are distinct and that plan has no changed. The reality is that it is extremely difficult to find NFT developers, let alone any who are able/willing to come work on L2 NFTs, and so we have done the best we can, with what we had.
Whatever the situation is here right now, I believe the best path forward is to put one put in front of the other and all get back to building. I have poured so much time and effort into seeing both of these projects succeed, and in experience strong early results, and it is saddening to see the project and the community not receive RGPF funding, nor cycle 11 funding, nor any form of emergency funding, when I still believe that the potential for NFTs on L2 is one of the largest addressable markets that exists. Please see answers to your questions below.
Best regards,
Weston
- Why do you refer to LFGGrow and NFTEarth as two separate entities when they have the same multisigs owners?
Because they are separate entities, each with their own purpose. People can create different companies and still be a part of both. One can own a pizza shop while also owning and operating an accounting business.
- Can you provide any evidence as to the existence of a LFGGrow DAO? Is there a Discord? Any record of DAO governance? Snapshot votes?
Yes, please see the proposal for the creation of LFGROWWW here. Snapshot
The project started in February about 45 days before all of this discussion started. The goal of launching the DAO and the discord are in the works. As the proposal states the goal was to have everything up and running by May 2023. Although this has clearly set back that progress.
- Who were the decision makers and signers in moving all funds from the LFGrow multisig to 20 different wallets and for what purpose were they moved?
The decision makers on this multisig are Weston and 0xadventurer. The payments were for the development for of the NFT bridge (80% done), the launchpad (90% done), the Quests platform for learn and earn activities (complete) and the educational resources for creators to serve as a one-stop shop for all things NFTs could be accessed, on L2, which were a part of the proposal. What the ENS do with their funds is up to them and out of control of the project. The claim that all of these wallets belong to me is incorrect and I am prohibited not just by Optimism but by general principle from doxxing all the people who did work for the projects without their permission.
- Given it has been documented that NFTearth and LFGGrow have the same multisigs signers and the Layer2DAO team itself has said they control them. Why are you referring to them as “affiliates” if your team (per Weston’s own words) controlled their mutlsigs? Wouldn’t that make them an extension of L2DAO if all granted funds were controlled by L2DAO?
Layer2DAO does not control either project. Exosphere, Train and I have the ability to control the multisig, a point that will be rectified when we find another signer we can trust to work with. Please see the statement previously made by Exosphere. I believe this has already been addressed.
- To clear up this point, can you please formally document the signers on the L2DAO / NFTEarth / LFGrow multisigs to help us understand the composition of each team / multisig?
Each has 5 signers on the Safes, but the Team’s are composed of different people, 12 on NFTEarth, and 5 on LFGROWWW. We respect the request from the anonymous advisors that have assisted Layer2DAO and will not doxx them in any way.
Layer2DAO Multisig
Exosphere
Train
Weston
Private Signer
Private Signer
NFTEarth Sigs
Weston
Exosphere
Train
0xAdventurer
Private Signer
LFGROWWW Sigs
Weston
0xAdventurer
Exosphere
Train
Private Signer
- Can you explain why any payments Weston to cover costs would require funds to be moved through multiple wallets before hitting the Coinbase deposit account used by Weston?
Other than what has been documented here which was used to pay off chain costs, I have not received any additional distributions to Coinbase that would constitute personal enrichment. I am willing to share my account information with the Foundation if they would like to see it.
- Can you explain what costs were required for LFGGrow, a project with no discoverable footprint or product, to expend it’s expend $27,500 OP in such a short time?
Yes, as was stated in the incubation vote, there was an urgent need to take action on the items mentioned, and so developers were hired at as fast of pace as possible to complete tasks such as development work for all aforementioned objectives.
- You mention “compensating developers, AWS, GCP or any off-chain vendor”, but Weston mentions explicitly above these funds were NOT meant to support the “NFTEarth = Exchange”. So what developer costs, AWS costs, and GCP costs did LFGDAO have?”
LFGROWWW is still in development, again with a goal to finish the stated objectives by May of 2023, but has been severely derailed by this string of continuous accusations as to its efforts to genuinely build useful tooling for the L2 NFT Ecosystem. See above comments on project status.
- Why did wallets connected to NFTEarth developer wallet ryuzaki01.eth receive payouts from both NFTEarth and LFGROW if they were separate entities? Why was NFTEarth team member @milkywave paid by the LFGGrow multisig?
Because we are all free to contribute to many DAOs, I personally have contributed and received forms of compensation from many various DAOs over the past few years and don’t expect this to change. It is not ok to dox developer wallets and would ask that for the respect of others you please refrain from posting ENS names of those who contributed to the projects when it is not relevant to them. Contributing to one DAO does not preclude you contributing to another, in fact, this trend is continually accelerating in the age of remote work, and sometimes people join to contribute for a specific task, join for a trial period, or ultimately determine it is not a good fit. This is a common occurrence in web3, and the fact that developers who have overlapping skills in NFTs then should stand to reason that they might be able to add value for both entities being discussed here. Hiring a dev and then after they perform well, referring that dev more work when it is good is just good business practice.
- Can you explain why only two signers sign multi-sig transactions? And the evidence that suggests they may both be wallets controlled by @0xWeston?
We are a new project and it is not uncommon to have only a few signers. There is no evidence as you purport, only your continued suggestion that the two of us are the same person. No, I will not doxx this person as the security of the Safes and the procedures to ensure they are kept safe is not to be disclosed by design to avoid those with malicious intent figuring out who to target if they wanted to attempt to steal funds. This is a strategy you use all the time to discredit those who disagree with your point of view.
- Can you explain the purpose and justification for the other….
- Depositing at least five figures of value directly into a Coinbase deposit wallet used by westonnelson.eth -
Costs that required payment in USD or from a debit card needed to be reimbursed Vercel, SimpleHash, Google Cloud, ReadmeAPI, TypeDream, Loom, Cloudflare, Google Workspace,
Alchemy - on-chain payment of $USDC of 2,000 and 5,000, respectively.
- Taking unusual action to obfuscate wallets, duplicating actions across several wallets and using contract integrations that make flow tracking more burdensome -
What the developers do with their compensation is entirely up to them, once it leaves the Safe’s control and that of the team, the signers cannot control the actions of others. As far as my own wallets I have verifiable expenses that the funds were used on. Again happy to share my coinbase wallet activity with the Foundation as well as the receipts for services paid for.
Buying up large amounts of NFTE and then exiting these positions at a profit using Uniswap v3 LP positions in a low-liquidity pool
Engaging in activities such as pulling liquidity before buying up more NFTE and manipulating price upwards only to re-exit the positions later through liquidity pulling
Ultimately pull nearly all liquidity out of the token, sending it to close to zero, its current value, mostly after after public evidence of misuse was surfaced
These three questions force the answer to operate under the assumption that public misuse of grants funds - with evidence - was surfaced. This is misleading and I would like to point out it was a comment, just like this, that started the entire issue now being resolved and careless statements have now caused serious harm to the entire ecosystem, not just Layer2DAO nor the OPIncubator grant recipients. Again, when it comes to liquidity management, it is not my choice who decides to provide liquidity on Uniswap. It is a decentralized exchange. Anyone can do so and also remove it at any point. It would appear some users traded well during the airdrop for themselves. Also not uncommon. Good for them. To accuse me of profiting from this is inaccurate. The liquidity reached nearly $150,000 at one point, there were 1,800 users involved in the airdrop, events like this attract many new people looking to speculate. As far as any POL we focused on trying to create LP with what little funds we had and had to manage it tightly to keep funds coming in to pay the bills and keep the project moving forward. Having any liquidity at all as a new project was a major win.
- Participating in the exchanging and wash trading of NFTs on NFTEarth between them, obscuring value exchange and juicing NFTEarth stats highlighted in public comms
This has been discussed repeatedly as well but to clear this up again, the NFTEarth team has been working on an XP leaderboard system like Blur used to attract new users to the system, incentivizing listings and offers. The team experienced severe bot attacks at first launch of this, due to the cost of placing Txs on L2 being so low. To respond to this, we redesigned the algorithm for gaining XP, and was set to start the official round for airdrop 2 campaign 1 week and 1 day ago, the precise time that the first misleading and untrue accusation was posted by Dicasso, claiming NFTEarth was a scam - to attempt to harm the project in his own interests for personal gain and the attempted NFT Exchange he is looking to create.