OK, just returned home after a long day and read thru the day's messages.
Here is a summary:
1. The total extent of damage is approx. 7,000 XCP withdrawals + 80 BTC stolen by the hacker.
2. Everyone believes that Busoni is trustworthy and most believe he should be made whole, although a few have pointed out that he is at least partially at fault because he had weak / nonexistent risk management systems.
3. How much money needs to be collected to reverse the damages?
* Scenario 1 - If the hacker sends the 80BTC back to Busoni then we need to collect 7,000 XCP + an appropriate bounty to the hacker.
* Scenario 2 - If the hacker does not send the 80BTC back, then the community needs to collect 7,000 XCP + 80 BTC.
Even if the hacker sends the 80 BTC back, it does not seem possible that we can escape without some loss (due to the 7,000 XCP withdrawals), and therefore a community fundraiser / collection / tax / passing of the offering plate / whatever you want to call it is needed and inevitable.
4. There are three mechanisms for doing this being discussed:
(a) inflate the supply of coins on the protocol - zero people agree; bad precedent, slippery slope, defies sanctity of protocol.
(b) self-imposed tax - every address taxed 1/[380th]* of coins - several people agree, but a lot disagree.
(c) donations - largest number of people agree.
Note: the denominator cannot be finalized until we know if it is 7,000 XCP or 7,000 XCP + 80 BTC that need to be gathered.
5. What has not been discussed in a totally honest way is which of the three mechanics will yield the fairest outcome and the best precedent for the future of the Counterparty project?
Well, mechanism (a) is a non-starter.
For mechanism (c), if we could trust that everyone was benevolent, then clearly donations would be the best approach, both because this does not overrule anyone's freewill, and because it has not have any future negative implications on the project.
Notwithstanding, there is the possibility of a massive free-rider problem if we choose mechanism (c) with a few benevolent people sending donations and a horde of greedy people hiding behind the mask of anonymity and attempting to free-ride.
If we end up with a free-rider problem and donations are insufficient, then we won't be able to reverse the damages, as this is quite a large sum of money we need to collect, and it would also be a sad outcome for the project.
Basically, if everyone could trust everyone else to be benevolent, then every wallet owner would donate approx. 1/[380th] of its wealth, which, in essence, is exactly the same as a self-imposed tax.
A few questions to all of you who are suggesting donations as the mechanism of resolution:
Are you really going to donate? Or are you using this rhetoric to hide behind a mask of anonymity and watch as the rest of us bail out Busoni?
And if you are going to donate, would you be upset if other people on this list said they were going to donate but then secretly did not?
And, if we agree that there is a risk of free-rider behavior, wouldn't it be in everyone's best interest and self-preservation to vote for PhantomPhreak to collect 1/[380th] from every XCP wallet in an automated fashion?
For me personally, I am very tired out from all of this and hope it can be resolved quickly so that we can get on with discussing all of the important technical items and plans for building companies on top of Counterparty ...
This episode has been such a massive waste of time for everyone in our community. If you add up all of the time spent trying to unravel this mess far exceeds 7,000 XCP + 80 BTC.
I believe inevitably the freerider problem pales in comparison to a tax. There are going to be freeriders. Oh well. These people don't realize the severity of the issue. We should start another thread, where we can document who is donating and how much and make it public, so that there is no question who has donated. All we need is 70 people to donate 100 xcp... or 140 to donate 50..
I'm very eager to hear XNOVA, PHANTOMPHREAK, and BUSONI opinion on this. They have been earily silent on the matter.
