I think blacklist will against the meaning of permissionless blockchain.
Maybe we can put something like a warning or theft icon next to the address for people/users to identify this as a previous scammer and avoid being scammed by this specific address.
Also, we will need to have some sort of tracking system to follow this scammer’s actions and put a high alert icon next to his/her other address to avoid him/her using another wallet address for scamming in the future.
It’s kind of like a virtual jail for the scammer that he/she will be identified as a scammer forever, and people will easily notice and avoid interacting with all the addresses that are related to this scammer. And the scammer will be extremely hard to move out the funds/ take further scamming actions.
Whilst rug pulls/scammers etc are terrible for the crypto community as a whole, the concept of blacklisting addresses is against the core principle of both a permissionless and decentralized blockchain.
If a group of validators have the ability to blacklist an address then it’s centralized, and if we’re going to be blacklisting addresses then we can no longer call Harmony a permissionless blockchain.
A few others have raised points above:
Who decides whether a wallet should be blacklisted
What is the consenus required? Could this result in a few large validators working together to blacklist any address they want to?
What would be considered a rug pull / scam?
I saw someone post on reddit that Etherscan / Etherscan like features in the explorer could help tremendously - e.g. having the ability to tag/name certain addresses. This would allow scammers/rug pullers and associated addresses to be tagged and visible to anyone who views it on the explorer.
The fact that this is even being proposed for a permissionless blockchain baffles me tbh.
We would be much better placed as a community to continue raising awareness and education around how to keep safe, avoid being victims of scams, and red flags to look for when investing in a project.
If this passes Harmony would be going in wrong direction from decentralization. Protect your asset not other people address. There always be hack but doesn’t mean let people control the address. That would be completely flaw from decentralize.
Please no. This goes against everything blockchain is building. Let’s educate people instead, put money and effort there instead of blacklists. There will always be scams in every industry.
Look at it from this point of view:
You can be robbed outside your house (heck even inside your house). Does that mean that government should have a power to close people that seems dangerous to you?
In theory this sounds good. BUT…
What protections would be put into place to prevent this power from being abused?
Can a user appeal if their wallet get blacklisted?
Who would be the judge and jury?? What protection would users have if they were blacklisted falsely?
Could someone simply falsely accuse a user of theft when the transaction was legit, reversing the scam?
Coin bureu just raised awareness how centralized we are and proposals like this do not help harmony. We’re permissionless and open for billions not for who we see fit
Probably off topic. But this kind of votes should be pushed to public. I got to know about this from reddit. I am sure not a lot of people comes to the forums (there was 55 votes when I voted). Is that enough to determine whole projects future?
Weird to see all comments saying NO, while the voting shows 60vs40% @Slamas I think this is just to it gets passed on for put to real vote, not the voting itself to implement it.
Or someone correct me if I’m wrong
Ps: I voted NO myself Reasons have been stated by a lot of members above already so I’ll save some typing
Even if I see where you’re coming from, I feel like this would go against the very principles the blockchain was built on. No one or no organization should have the authority to blacklist a wallet, not to mention the fact that this wouldn’t prevent the malicious actor from committing rugpulls/scams in the future, since anybody can create a wallet at any time.
This goes against the entire idea of being permissionless. My vote is no. We cannot have a supposedly million user chain be centralized by a smaller group, this would effectively defeat the purpose.
Can’t see how anything could be done fast enough. Anyone who knew what they were doing would be done and gone before any voting strategy could be implemented
I appreciate the intent here, but I think the implications and potential side effects might far outweigh the benefits. I also think malicious actors could potentially abuse a proposed system like this.
I do not think that means there should be no effort made to implement or come up with additional safety features however. I would rather see optional timelocks being able to be built into wallets or things of that nature.
I understand the idea and the reason behind it, but what got me personally into this space is the freedom and the sense of actual, true, 100% ownership. I know that everything I have in my wallet is truly mine. No one can touch my assets, unless I’m reckless enough to share my passwords or allow the greed and lack of education get me into trouble. Blacklisting reminds me of the way banks, governments and other institutions enforce their power - rightfully or not. Blacklisting, for me at least, is in conflict with what I believe crypto represents - freedom and true ownership. The moment we start adding layers of rules and laws one above the other is the moment we start looking like government entities where, to quote George Orwell, “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others”.
I believe that self-interest is the strongest motivator, so I’m thinking of something else. A some kind of 'WANTED" (like in the wild west) contract on Harmony in which people could post bounties, like Facebook, Google and all the big companies do to motivate talented hackers find bugs or to find other hackers who damaged their systems in some way.
I appreciate the proposal and I thank you @ben2k_Stakeridoo for bringing it to the public. It really sparked a lot of attention in our community, which is a sign that people care.
Honestly before I respond here further I let calm this done and request everybody to act in a manner way. To shout out now for unstaking is in my opinion against our values and cultures: Harmony’s Culture and Values
I hope everbody in here understand the way of proposals? We post it, we discuss it and if feasible and enough aggree it goes to a Vote.
I feel a lot of people in here came after a Youtube Video where outdated and wrong informations was spreaded. Just an example there was HIP-5 mentioned which is on Mainnet since JULY!
In theory I think that it is a great idea. I would love to be able to protect delegates from malicious activity if at all possible in the case that a clear issue has arisen.
I think that most validators would agree that we are here for Harmony and we are here for the people who delegate with us. We would never do anything to harm anyone and will do everything in our power to protect our delegates. However I have voted No as I have been reading the comments and concerns and agree that a blacklist goes against the idea of a permissionless and decentralized blockchain. It could also potentially be abused or misused in a way that causes more harm than it helps.
If it is possible to implement a protection without negative repercussions and causing distrust with Harmony holders, I would definitely be interested in discussing it further.
You are mixing things up to make this look not such a bad idea. There’s definitely no wrong information about this proposal. It clearly is proposing the ability to blacklist wallet addresses so they cannot make transactions.
Your reply makes it even more worrisome since you are trying to use other misinformation as example for something that has nothing to do with it. This is the problematic proposal. This proposal if implemented would make Harmony one of the worst, if not the worst blockchain out there. No one wants for entities or groups to be able to essentially freeze accounts.
This cannot happen on a blockchain. No such function should even be coded in the first place.
Reasons have been stated by a lot of members above already so I’ll save some typing