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"Wonderland votes out QuadrigaCX co-founder Sifu and is considering shutting down"

2022-01-30 [vendor] Wonderland
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Incident Details

The Wonderland protocol had a rough week, first experiencing massive losses in “cascading liquidations” and then the unmasking of the previously pseudonymous lead developer as Michael Patryn, a shady operator with a long history of financial crimes. The project team decided to hold a vote on whether the project should wind down: “giving every wMEMO holder back the funds from the treasury that they are entitled to and declar[ing] the OHM Fork experiment closed”. The project leaders wrote that they “strongly believe that this would be the cleanest way of moving forward”. The vote began on January 29 and was slated to end on January 31.By raw numbers it appeared most investors opposed the idea, as many will receive miniscule amounts compared to their initial investments. However, the larger holders (most of whom bought in at low prices) stand to make money from the liquidation and some have supported winding down. Because the DAO voting operates in a plutocratic model, where people can vote based on how many tokens they hold, at one point votes from a relatively small number of whales were trending the vote towards supporting winding down even though 90% of individuals wanted the project to continue. The votes to continue had begun to beat out the votes to wind down when Daniele Sestagalli announced on Twitter on January 30, before the vote’s scheduled end, that the “Wonderland experiment is coming to an end.“Ultimately, Sestagalli ended up respecting the wishes of the community, who decided to continue the project despite having lost 90% of their money, presumably in hopes of regaining some of the losses.

Technical Details

Vendor / Product
Wonderland

Timeline

  1. 2022-01-30 Breach occurred
  2. 2022-01-30 Publicly disclosed