A proposal to return Sifu to Wonderland

[kryptonyte41]

This is not simple. There is no proof to these statements here. They need to provide full information at first.

[Shrop_99_Degen]

1. Does sifu even want to come back?
2. If he does, we need to discuss what checks are going to be put in place to keep him accountable.

With his background now exposed, there will definitely be outside investors not willing to take the risk without knowing checks are in place. And I’m sure there are investors now who feel the same

Otherwise I’m all for it

[woody]

I think the biggest value add of WL is the ability to access seed/private rounds. Regardless of what sifu did or didn’t do, I have concerns that after all that has happened our access to deal flow with sifu as TM might be affected. And if we don’t have access to good seed/private rounds than what is the point of WL? I can put my own funds in some basic farms and get the same returns.

[Abbadon]

This is absolutely insane. No.

[olikars]

I agree 100% with what kryptonyte41 wrote here. I like sifu, I think it was wrong to vote him out, I think he was treated unfairly because of fear, anger and mob mentality based on misinformation about him. BUT before we can even consider voting him back in, the community needs a lot more information about what happened during his time in Wonderland.

It is unfortunately very suspicious that the cascading liquidations happened multiple times before his doxxing. I think it was an outside coordinated attack on Wonderland and sifu & Dani contributed only by not putting mechanisms in place to prevent such an attack. But I don’t know. Nobody does at the moment. We need to be provided with facts and a detailed investigation and report of what really happened. And a detailed statement by sifu himself. And at least one AMA with him.

We need to clear this up until no single question is left about what happened and how it happened. Only then can trust and sifu be restored. Not before.

Also I really like everything I have read from The Professor and it would be a shame not to use his skill and experience to right this ship. If everything is cleared up and trust in sifu is restored, I would still only vote to reinstate sifu if we find a good way to have him and the professor on board.

[jeng3]

Proof, source and information based on all above has to be given.

It’d be super convenient to have all these (if all of the above is correct) and pin those facts in discord as well.

@dafacto if we want sifu to come back it is very important that the information above has to be given to all.

This can really help destroy all the fud going on.

[DrunkenMaster]

Never.

It would kill any chance of working with reputable partners.

[domain]

If sifu wants to come back, ama first, more than just proposal and vote

[lewylupo]

When zachxbt uncovered the SIFU bombshell and it spread like wild fire to every social channel out there, SIFU became an easy scapegoat at the time of Wonderland’s many missteps. All of us are invested heavily into this project and to hear the news about his past was the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back at the time…and Dani not disclosing his past only exacerbated the situation…we all reacted emotionally…with disbelief, denial, anger and whole host of confused feelings. But we all know how committed SIFU was to the project through his endless interactions with us. None of us truly knows the person SIFU…who he is, what his motives are, his true intentions, if he is truly contrite with his past, we can only go by what he did for us frogs in Wonderland…and he did a helluva job! This proposal lays out all these background details about SIFU…they all sound legitimate but it would be more powerful to “source” this information. There is so much misinformation out there, we truly don’t know what to believe or who to believe anymore. If SIFU were to be voted back into WL, and that is a very big IF, there needs to be a serious trust campaign (AMAs, Audits, etc.) put in place to win back the community, new investors and other entities. I personally think it is too much risk to bring him back even if all of this background information is true. It’s unfortunate but the world of cancel culture is real… realistically we should all consider voting on The Professor’s proposal and use that as a stepping stone for moving WL out of this purgatory that we’re currently in… cheers!

[Reubz]

I support this too. We should learn to not judge people by their past but by their current actions. He is a great asset to Wonderland.

[isthatlowfat]

@dafacto

Since Sifu anonymously appeared two years ago, he has been universally loved by nearly everyone who has come to know him, and has made financial achievements in DeFi surpassing those of most professional investment firms. Among other achievements, he was the founder of Wonderland, and grew its highly profitable treasury to over one billion dollars.

Yes, this is how conmen operate. They charm their audience and are likeable by definition, or else they can’t be successful.

@dafacto

Shortly after creation, Sifu felt it important to reveal his identify to the Frog Nation founder, Dani Sestagalli, as it involved mistakes made in his youth.

In short, he played Dani. Identifying himself after the protocol was launched is at best grossly irresponsible, at worst outright malicious. You’re also making a lot of assumptions about how that conversation transpired between Dani and Sifu. This holds water if Dani backs up your claims, otherwise this is an outright fabrication.

Either way, the reality of this situation is that it truly doesn’t matter if he exposed himself to Dani 1 day after Wonderland launched or 1 day before it was revealed by ZachXBT, the damage is already done. He lied by omission to Dani. He also put Dani in a no-win situation where he either outs Sifu now and deals with the PR disaster (and potential death of Wonderland) he was hoping to avoid, or let it slide in hopes that it stays under the radar. Dani made a difficult choice, impossible to know if it was the right one, but ultimately we’ve weathered the storm thus far.

@dafacto

Recently, Sifu’s identify became known to the public, and in a possibly emotional reaction, was immediately voted out of his position in Wonderland. (The emotions of the moment were also flamed by two preceding and unfortunate wMEMO cascading liquidation events.)

The response was appropriate. The possibly emotional reaction you’re trying to frame this as was that of thousands of investors realizing they had been lied to.

Those cascading liquidation events were a direct result of Sifu’s mismanagement. First time he failed to uphold the backing price despite the various assurances he made. Second time he got liquidated with his personal position, leading to Dani also getting liquidated, causing thousands of investors to lose their stake. This level of incompetence alone is reason enough to boot Sifu out.

@dafacto

However, with time and reflection on both the specifics of his past, and the achievements of his present, we perceive a sentiment shift happening in the community, and a desire to bring Sifu back to shape Wonderland’s future.

Interestingly, over the last week or so, I’ve noticed Time Cops and various others with authority in Discord vehemently defending Sifu and downplaying his history. Based on this, we can reasonably infer that the sentiment shift you’re seeing is artificial because you’re fanning the flames in the direction you want this to go. Those with authority should always have remained neutral, not picking sides. Most in Discord (who don’t end up getting silenced or banned) will agree with the statements made by those in positions of power for a variety of reasons.

@dafacto

We now propose to reinstate Sifu as treasury and operations manager at Wonderland, continuing its former trajectory of success and benefit to the Frog Nation.

Can we get a list of the names of those endorsing this proposal? You say some of the Time Cops & Cheshire Cats, some can mean 2, but it can also mean 20. It’s important that the community knows who supports this.

@dafacto

What happened in Sifu’s past?

In assessing, understanding and ultimately judging Sifu’s past, it’s critical to separate what is fact, from baseless speculation.

• In 2001, when Sifu was 18 years old, he committed credit card fraud, for which he paid $35,000 of restitution. In 2003, he sold an early form of digital currency on the internet to a group of youths who committed burglary, credit card fraud, identity theft. He did not commit, nor was charged of, those crimes, but was included in the arrest for having sold the digital currency to those who did, accused of knowing what they would do with that cryptocurrency, and as a consequence served 18 months in prison for conspiracy.
• (As an aside: The author of this proposal, at the same age, used stolen credit card numbers to make long distance phone calls, and was expelled from school for simply being present in the car with a group of kids that broke the law. Many of us make mistakes in our early years, and sometimes get in trouble simply by association.)
• Of greater significance, Sifu was the co-founder of Quadriga, the Canadian exchange that came under suspicion of various misconduct. The title of “co-founder” was honorary, not formal, as Sifu was a large investor and advisor.
• Any misconduct that may have happened at Quadriga happened during the three years after Sifu left the company due to a disagreement regarding its listing on the stock market. The Canadian government’s extensive investigation of Quadriga, did not implicate Sifu in any way .
• The only formal Sifu-related allegation of misconduct at Quadriga, is trading with customer funds at Bitmex. When Quadriga came under public scrutiny, Bitmex froze Sifu’s funds to investigate their source. After two years of investigations by both Bitmex and the FBI, the funds were legitimately determined to belong to Sifu, and were returned to him.

You left out plenty in this recap: Omar Dhanani – Amy Castor.

Sceptre on TalkGold: Sifu involvement from 2007-2012

Cotten and Patryn on BlackHatWorld: Sifu involvement from 2012-2017
Most interesting post by Patryn made in response to this thread:

1. 10K+ Budget Need Suggestions on Passive Income Streams*** HELP!

This comment in 2013 is interesting because he co-founded Wonderland, which advertises a ~9% return in 5 days. By his own words, he would consider Wonderland a scam. Maybe he has changed position since then, but to me this is damning.

Attempting to prune the internet and reform his image in 2018 Quadriga co-founder served time in U.S. prison for role in identity-theft ring, documents reveal - The Globe and Mail : Online rumours about Mr. Patryn’s past in the United States dogged him for years, and there were frequent whispers in the Canadian cryptocurrency community about his history. As The Globe recently reported, Mr. Patryn sought to suppress those rumours last year by hiring Reputation.ca, a Toronto-based company that offers services to bury negative search results and promote positive content. He was most concerned about a post on the website Complaints Board related to Omar Patryn and Midas Gold. Reputation.ca also alerted him to posts on Reddit linking him to Omar Dhanani.

Reputation.ca created 10 different websites, articles and profiles about Mr. Patryn touting him as a “go-to spokesperson on fintech” and a “popular presenter at industry conferences.” An article on the website Young Upstarts said he did a stint as an MMA fighter “notching up an impressive 7-1 record” and that he was an expert poker player, having won $2-million in various tournaments.

@dafacto

On the question of whether Sifu can be trusted with handling user funds today, it should noted that, at times while managing Wonderland’s treasury, and by necessity, Sifu held almost half a billion dollars of Wonderland funds in his wallet. He could have taken those funds, but he did not.

He was already doxxed to Dani at that time, so he can’t make that play. If he went that direction, the best case scenario for him is that he ends up in jail, worst case scenario is that the people he ripped off are not those willing to go the legal route. Either way, it’s unnecessary to do this as he already was raking in a steady % of funds through the initial team allocation.

@dafacto

What happened during Sifu’s present

If we inspect Sifu’s activities over the past two years, we discover a journey of good citizenry and amazing financial achievements.

• In the early days of Pickle Finance, Sifu was an active community member, and ended up suffering the largest financial loss in the pDAI hack. In the midst of an angry community, Sifu was the voice of calm and compassion, asking people to be mindful that the developers are human, subject to making mistakes, and we’re all beta testers in the creation of these amazing products in crypto.
• Sifu was the largest provider of coverage at Cover, and was the largest investor and advisor at Ruler.
• When Ruler failed, and the project leadership left, Sifu sent the project’s $800K treasury to Andre Cronje with the statement, “I know of no more trustworthy person in crypto to hold these funds until the current situation is resolved.” What’s particularly notable, is that those $800k were to be distributed to token holders. Sifu invested $1M in Ruler, and could have considered those $800k as his own. But in favor of token holders, he took the full loss.
• He tirelessly helped Discord and Telegram users as a moderator since nearly launch at Yearn, Cover, Ruler, Cream and Pickle.
• He was an advisor at Spiritswap, revamping their farm economics, which led to a 3x in token price
• He was an advisor at Morpheus, responsible for their ve33 token.
• He was an advisor at Abracadabra, contributing to the design of the UST and TriCrypto CDPs, after which the SPELL token price increased in value by 100x.
• He was an early supporter and major liquidity provider near launch of nearly every major protocol in DeFi, from Yearn to GMX.
• He grew his own wealth from $3M to nearly $70M, in a public wallet, the activities of which are fully transparent on-chain for anyone to audit.
• He generously offered his time to countless people who followed his wallet, needing help understanding the sophisticated investments he was making in DeFi, so that they could also benefit from them.
• He founded Wonderland, worked tirelessly in community support in Discord, growing its treasury to over one billion dollars, and leading its first VC investment in BSGG, which in a span of a month has 5x’d in value.
• He donated $1.5m of his personal funds to the treasury in order to help fulfill hisand Dani’s joint promise to repay back those who were liquidated under them.
• Recently he bought over $10m worth of wMEMO, reflecting his continued belief in the potential of Wonderland as a worthy investment.

It would be hard to overemphasize the positive impact he has made in the broad DeFi community, over the past two years.

You left out:
Failing to uphold backing price as promised.

Failing to deliver on Revenue Share Dani confirmed on 2022/02/10 in Discord that delays here were not Sifu’s fault.

Failing to deliver on Major CEX listing

Failing to deliver on BSGG Airdrop Dani confirmed on 2022/02/10 in Discord that delays here were not Sifu’s fault.

Failing to plan for 24 hour coverage in protecting the price in a 24 hour market.

Lying to the community about his past.

Promising to reimburse those liquidated from personal funds

Without even looking at his criminal history and his shady actions following his conviction, we would be right to have asked for his removal for failing to deliver on anything that has benefit the investors so far.

@dafacto

Sifu regrets the mistakes of his youth, has apologized and paid retribution for them. As evidenced by the past two years, he has participated in our community, and the DeFi community at large, in ways to which most of us could only aspire.

Bringing Sifu back to Wonderland returns us to the path we previously knew — a growing and profitable treasury, promises made and kept, continual innovation, vibrant support of our community, and a passion to deliver value to each and every frog in the nation.

Let’s bring Sifu back, along with the passionate community and treasury performance in which we all want to participate, and make this the greatest comeback story in crypto history.

I could not disagree more with this conclusion. We need to explore better options. Reinstating Sifu at this stage will kill any credibility Wonderland hopes to rebuild. Let’s not go back to the abusive ex, let’s get our shit together and move on.

[bonti]

Let’s bring him back now

[Argates]

Thanks for the excellent reminder that we shouldn’t bend to somebody who caused the entire cascade to happen.

[Mrstill]

Fuck YeaH, The Man has a frog tatted on his face. I’ vote yes on this.

[R0ckstar911]

Let’s get the captain of the ship back… Hail Sifu

[Pete011]

I support this 100%. Let’s bring Sifu back!

[Skywater]

I have done my own researched and what was said here is true. Sifu have done a great job w Wonderland and I definitely want him back.

[dafacto]

It will take some time to provide sources for everything. I had actually hoped that the entire context is what would matter here. But for the following:

3. Provide the blockchain proof of the following statements,* When Ruler failed, and the project leadership left, Sifu sent the project’s $800K treasury to Andre Cronje with the statement, “I know of no more trustworthy person in crypto to hold these funds until the current situation is resolved.” What’s particularly notable, is that those $800k were to be distributed to token holders. Sifu invested $1M in Ruler, and could have considered those $800k as his own. But in favor of token holders, he took the full loss.

Is that enough to give you confidence in the rest of the statements?

[matjai]

with so many conflicting proposal around with so many people trying to act smart and reject everything, I dont think this dao will go anywhere.

Heck ya bring back sifu. So many people accuse him with so many things but until now he is the only whale that’s trying to keep wonderland price afloat right now. Remove your emotion and look at facts only people.

[sourabh]

Thank you for this thread. But, I have some concerns. I would like to have your views on a particular section of this thread The Secret Life and Strange Death of Quadriga Founder Gerald Cotten | Vanity Fair. It says, “In HYIP chat rooms, Cotten and Patryn defended each other against angry investors and posed as satisfied clients of each other’s various businesses; Patryn’s tended to be payment processors, Cotten’s were marginally more sophisticated iterations of S&S Investments.” Now, this statement suggests that in time later than 2008, Cotten ran seemingly fraud HYIP schemes and Patryn was aware & still decided to support Cotten.