Balance Sheet Attacks

[Sabreiib]

@Phoenix, in 1997 SE Asia financial crisis, you can blame George Soros’ attack and some mistake/slow reaction of Thailand central bank, however, these are not the main problems, the basic rule is “impossible trinity”, the design architecture of Thai Baht.

If you cannot shrink NBT circulation quickly enough, i.e. within one month, your system is problematic.

[Phoenix]

Liquidity engine is proven to be a not-so-good method to shrink your money supply because it takes one year to recover from the crisis.

This is also incorrect. We started operations with a price of $0.20. Using a modified approach to liquidity (aggressive floating support), we increased the NuBit price by 400% in about 75 days, completely reversing the hyperinflation cruelly imposed by the American and Chinese signers that exhibited authoritarian behavior.

[Sabreiib]

This is also incorrect. We started operations with a price of $0.20. Using a modified approach to liquidity (aggressive floating support), we increased the NuBit price by 400% in about 75 days, completely reversing the hyperinflation cruelly imposed by the American and Chinese signers that exhibited authoritarian behavior.

From 2016 June till today, almost one year and Nu still in recovering, liquidity engine is indeed a method to shrink the supply, but when a better option available, why not give a try?

[MaVo]

completely reversing the hyperinflation cruelly imposed by the American and Chinese signers that exhibited authoritarian behavior.

@Phoenix I understand that all the crypto projects you are running must be time-consuming. Nonetheless, could you please answer my question once? I would like to know whether you are giggling while you are figuring out your posts. I need to know that, just whether you are giggling or not. When I read your stuff it puts a smile on my face. Are you also smiling?

[Sabreiib]

@Phoenix, to avoid conflict with “impossible trinity”, we should give up independent monetary policy, cancel the parking mechanism because free market decides the rate not shareholders. Also adjust the NBT circulation quantity as per free market, liquidity engine is a slow engine, not agile as Hayek’s short-term loan.

[ConfusedObserver]

There was ample reserve available at the time of peg failure, and plenty of capacity available from park rates and NSR sales. In the most direct and brazen violation of Nu contracts that could be possible, multisig signers decided to lock all funds down and cease operations.

You never get tired to tell that lie, to create that narrative?
The reserves were all but depleted, NSR sales were being conducted (afair according to the Standard and Core motion, the park rate was not raised very much.
The failure was in the design.

This decision, and this decision alone, was the SOLE cause of the temporary peg failure. There was no financial component or deficit involved.

This decision didn’t happen.
Nu was bankrupt. At least for the time being.
What made recovering hard was the shit storm initiated by JordanLee that alienated a lot of the community:

[Withdrawn] Make Firing and Replacing Incompetent Liquidity Providers Our Top Priority

Motion hash for voting: c070f654c2ff3e43a10fc5ff1dbf8ad74e36b18f This motion content is being managed on Daology here. Here is the full text, for convenience: tl;dr: The peg has not been lost. It has been abandoned. Replace everyone who abandoned it.

This hamstringed FLOT and made a lot of former supporters turn away.
Before they were quite active. FLOT acted according to their mandate and often far beyond that.
Don’t blame them for a flawed design and the results of the architect’s witch hunt at the worst possible time.

We started operations with a price of $0.20. Using a modified approach to liquidity (aggressive floating support), we increased the NuBit price by 400% in about 75 days

You managed to rob B&C to achieve this.
BKS holders were caught between a rock and a hard place. You took advantage of that.
I mean, for some actions there were at least motions.
But it’s not true that Nu did it by itself.

completely reversing the hyperinflation cruelly imposed by the American and Chinese signers that exhibited authoritarian behavior.

For the next crisis Nu will have no scapegoats and no extra funds to tap in.
Who are you going to blame then? Jooize?

@Phoenix, continue with your narrative built upon lies. I’ll chime in to correct the worst of them from time to time.
In between you might find time to tell how many NSR you “lost”. In difference to the lies you tell, it’s true that you lost Nu funds. Are you contrary to that?

[jooize]

There was at least $25,000 withheld from NuBit holders.

Investors later covered all US-NBT leaving circulation albeit partially at some devaluation, meaning there was will to buy NSR and bet on future success of Nu at some price point. There was at least 21 BTC of buy side support just before the peg break. Nu is still alive at 300x lower NSR value than the time. Did the Standard and Core motion prohibit sales exceeding The Standard? Even if it does, that can not be said to be the cause because the proceeds weren’t used and no further sale was performed.

FLOT sent NuShares to @masterOfDisaster who placed them on the orderbook. Proceeds were 6.9 BTC, which he offered to NuBit holders at 90% devaluation of their US-NBT.

You blame the reaction to his actions. Saying that the firing motion made FLOT not do its job is false, as they already didn’t. If they refused to do their job because they were hurt by angry words (which of there wasn’t even any) that’d be even more incompetent.

I keep saying incompetent because it remains accurate by the terms I uncover. I harbor no hard feelings for most of FLOT because I think they meant well. I don’t understand how you can consider 90% devaluation to be doing the job of liquidity provision (before a peg break).

FLOT NSR Operations (buy side)

You can’t decrease it below the standard. As FLOT you can increase the amount you sell, but you have to do the mandated sales.

FLOT NSR Operations (buy side)

Nah, the motion just says 2.4 mil by the end of the week.

Creator of the Standard and Core motion said that at least 2,400,000 NSR should have been sold that week, and more being allowed if deemed necessary. Please correct me if I misinterpreted.

Timeline of events related to the peg break 2016

2016–05–28

@mhps notices there is someone with 21 BTC on the buy side. Whether that’s the total is unclear.

— FLOT NSR Operations (buy side)

[…]

2016–06–02

@masterOfDisaster announces 6.9 BTC total from NuShare sale ($3,677 at that time) and places them at 20% 180% spread.

All BTC proceeds (6.9 BTC, at $533 per BTC at the time of writing valued $3,677) from the NSR sale have been put on order at the NBT/BTC pair at offsets of 90% and above - in case someone desperately wants to get rid of NBT

— It is time for immediate use of tier 6 liquidity (NSR sales)

[…]

2016–06–06

• FLOT has 35.74 BTC
• @zoro’s gateway has 12.28748625 BTC, spread undetermined.
• @masterOfDisaster’s gateway reports 10568.606 US-NBT worth of BTC, reportedly at a spread of 4% or more.

@ConfusedObserver

You make Nu appear as a scam with your lazy slander. Beyond what you never make any effort to prove, you simply question the model and spread uncertainty across the forum. You take anything we haven’t proven in detail and use it to say we’re hiding something.

You never get tired to tell that lie, to create that narrative?

I mean, for some actions there were at least motions.

You managed to rob B&C to achieve this.

continue with your narrative built upon lies.

In between you might find time to tell how many NSR you “lost”. In difference to the lies you tell, it’s true that you lost Nu funds. Are you contrary to that?

I’ve taken on the task to determine the loss, and only recently the block explorer was fixed, enabling me to. I have not been able to do it yet, unfortunately. In a reply to you earlier I told you no Nu shareholder NuShares appear to have been compromised.

[mhps]

You blame the reaction to his actions. Saying that the firing motion made FLOT not do its job is false, as they already didn’t.

This is not true. FLOT did what they promised: act according to shareholders will and sign with a specified effort (once a week for me. I even asked @JordanLee the required reaction time before signing up, and he said about a week). As it turned out the shareholders including JL were mostly silent on specifics of operations. The FLOT had to invent rules as they went. For example there was almost no feed back beyond the FLOT on Standatd and Core.
When JL came with the firing post I clearly remember myself hesitating initiating actions because I didn’t know if I was supposed or still authorized by the community’s consensus to do anything. JL was enormously respected by the community at the time. If he said no to something, people took it seriouly.

Then in a few days I realized other FLOT members were doing the same and that the fly-by-micromanagement Nu machine had stopped functioning. I realized that it is a matter of time when the peg broke below 0.9, where I had expected panic would ensue and the peg would head to irrationally low points. I thought aboutt this sequence when the reserved was below 20 btc which was about one week;s need to feed the peg machine in the then-mild btc bull trend.

After seeing only several btcs can be had in a week selling nsr (by @masterOfDisaster) I saw that several btc/week rate was the best FLOT can do with its signing speed and Standdard and Core mandates. I suggested him to place a second line of defense at $0.1 so that if the first line is lost, Nu would get 20 - 30 btc worth NBT back per week, which is an viable way to rapidly reduce Nu’s liabilty.

FLOT showed that the design of Nu was not up to the speed requirements of an effective peg, @Phoenix with @jooize assisting proved it by taking a centralized approach, which did restore the peg in several months, but has shown risks such as unexplained missiing funds, a result of unchecked one-person operation, which doesn’t inspire confidence as a money issuing business.

FLOT is needed but don’t expect the Nu version FLOT could do better.

[ConfusedObserver]

I’ve taken on the task to determine the loss, and only recently the block explorer was fixed, enabling me to. I have not been able to do it yet, unfortunately. In a reply to you earlier I told you no Nu shareholder NuShares appear to have been compromised.

I think I misunderstood earlier.

NuBits v3.0.1ban2 Release – Urgently needed Nu upgrade now available

There has been a theft of approximately 200 million NSR.

was nowhere saying it were private funds. How could I have imagined that the Chief of Liquidity Operations bothers Nu with his private problems.
Do I understand this right: @Phoenix lost own funds and caused that mess with urgent, unscheduled client updates?

Now I understand why he didn’t answer this question

NuBits v3.0.1ban2 Release – Urgently needed Nu upgrade now available

From whom have they been stolen?

I seriously didn’t understand that @Phoenix bothered Nu, all NSR holders who run wallets including exchanges with a personal loss.

NuBits v3.0.1ban2 Release – Urgently needed Nu upgrade now available

This means it is possible to release a version of the Nu client that won’t accept transactions using the stolen NuShares as inputs. I have asked sigmike to do this

Who paid Sigmike? @Phoenix or Nu? Thanks for all the transparency.

And now you are determining his private loss?

[cryptog]

There has been a theft of approximately 200 million NSR.

The circumstances of the theft remain indeed very unclear to me too.

[jooize]

This is not true. FLOT did what they promised: act according to shareholders will and sign with a specified effort (once a week for me. I even asked @JordanLee the required reaction time before signing up, and he said about a week). As it turned out the shareholders including JL were mostly silent on specifics of operations. The FLOT had to invent rules as they went. For example there was almost no feed back beyond the FLOT on Standatd and Core.

Reading the FLOT BTC operations thread, I was wrong about FLOT not signing before the peg broke and I conflated the peg breaking spreads by liquidity providers with FLOT’s performance. I apologize. I’ll correct my statements where if I’ve spoken with this assumption when I come across them.

Nu has always advertised a $1.00 peg as what customers should expect their US-NBT be valued at. The plan had been for a long time if not forever to use NuShare sales for peg support. Not recognizing this means a failure to understand the NuBit reserve model in its current state.

Velocity of FLOT’s peg support can be argued to have been too slow with the expected signing intervals. If signing is expected less often, increase the amounts. That’s easy to say, but there’s always a limit. It was a stressful situation and I didn’t do much better as part of FLOT BTC until after the firing motion and peg break when only 3 out of 8 signed (of 5 required) to release funds to NuBit holders.

After seeing only several btcs can be had in a week selling nsr (by @masterOfDisaster) I saw that several btc/week rate was the best FLOT can do with its signing speed and Standdard and Core mandates. I suggested him to place a second line of defense at $0.1 so that if the first line is lost, Nu would get 20 - 30 btc worth NBT back per week, which is an viable way to rapidly reduce Nu’s liabilty.

It’s a way, but not the expectation of NuBit holders or according to the NuBit liquidity model.

FLOT NSR might not even have needed to sell NuShares more aggressively had the proceeds of the only sale not been kept away from NuBit holders and FLOT released all reserves.

The spreads were set breaking the expectation of the $1.00 US-NBT. That must have eroded confidence more than anything. It’s not shocking to me in hindsight to see the firing motion. An action to fix the underlying problem can not be blamed for symptoms that were only a matter of time.

We need to be clear with what happened and what didn’t to know which conclusions we’re able to draw.

I thought aboutt this sequence when the reserved was below 20 btc which was about one week;s need to feed the peg machine in the then-mild btc bull trend.

When did the tier 1–4 reserves go below 20 BTC? July 3 there was 25.74 BTC in FLOT BTC multisig and about 13 BTC at @masterOfDisaster’s gateway.

FLOT showed that the design of Nu was not up to the speed requirements of an effective peg, @Phoenix with @jooize assisting proved it by taking a centralized approach, which did restore the peg in several months, but has shown risks such as unexplained missiing funds, a result of unchecked one-person operation, which doesn’t inspire confidence as a money issuing business.

The core design has not been shown flawed by the events, not even the implementation. I thought FLOT wasn’t up to speed, but they actually may have been after all, just they didn’t use the acquired funds and continue operations.

There has been no lost shareholder funds in Nu with @Phoenix as Chief of Liquidity Operations as far as I’m aware. The B&C Exchange development fund is not Nu’s. Nobody has explained where funds would have been lost. It’s stubborn hearsay for what I can tell.

Thank you for a post with real substance.

[jooize]

I don’t have more information on the first theft than anyone. Such a large loss could have a significant negative effect on the NuShare value, which is in shareholder interest to protect.

[creon]

I don’t have more information on the first theft than anyone.

Hey you are also still here, nice flair. Are people still buying that you are just a naive observer who wants the best for the project?

[mhps]

Nu has always advertised a $1.00 peg as what customers should expect their US-NBT be valued at. The plan had been for a long time if not forever to use NuShare sales for peg support. Not recognizing this means a failure to understand the NuBit reserve model in its current state.

Which is better: a 1% peg which couldn’t be kept becuase there is no mechanism to keep up faster than ~1 week and has 0 profit, or a 5% peg that can be on all the time and earns profit to last?

When did the tier 1–4 reserves go below 20 BTC?

That was not the indicator i looked at. I was saying the 3Hik address. It had less than 20 at some point.

The core design has not been shown flawed by the events, not even the implementation.

I don’t agree. The missing part was an automation infrastructure at T2-3 that allowed human FLOT to only sign once a week, mostly mechanically as a gatekeeper.

[jooize]

Which is better: a 1% peg which couldn’t be kept becuase there is no mechanism to keep up faster than ~1 week and has 0 profit, or a 5% peg that can be on all the time and earns profit to last?

That’s beside the point. US-NBT were expected to be worth $1.00 (not $0.975–1.025) and supported at that price until no support remained. That’s the model. It can be changed, but devaluing currency is a strong action.

It would be interesting to see a stable currency with 5% spread, but US NuBits is a stable currency with 1% spread or less.

I don’t agree. The missing part was an automation infrastructure at T2-3 that allowed human FLOT to only sign once a week, mostly mechanically as a gatekeeper.

I find that the implementation fell by human error. Acquired tier 6 funds weren’t used (they were placed at 90% devaluation). The system should be improved anyway. Right now I lag behind with refilling walls several times a week.

A server (which could be run individually) tracks network liquidity and shareholders directives such as reserve ratio and equilibrium velocity. When it senses an exchange running low, it sends a push notification to all its subscribers with the exchange name, the asset, and an amount it calculates automatically. The signers open the notification to verify, sign, and distribute the signed transaction.

The notification may open a local or online coin utility (Cointoolkit). Exchange names are mapped to addresses in the utility to avoid trusting the more complex and vulnerable server that sends the call to action. Distribution of each signature can be done via blockchain or a central server. They can be merged and the transaction broadcasted by anyone.