EIP-999 must not passed. It is a selfish and greedy proposal that expects all other Ethereum users to be accountable for Parity’s error.
EIP-999 is a specific request to restore all assets that were accidentally locked. This EIP is not a general request for all users who have also accidentally lost funds, but specifically, and only, for Parity. This brings up several questions. Why does Parity deserve preferential treatment with its own EIP? What merits does this EIP have over other EIPs?
Argument 1:
One argument is the high fiat value of the inaccessible wallets. This however, is a moot point. Take a look at this zero address here.
If by mistake no destination wallet is specified or a miner is not configured properly, then this default zero address becomes the destination address. There have been countless examples of lost ETH and tokens due to user errors or other code bugs. See here, here, here, here and here.
If EIP-999 were to pass, then naturally, it would make sense to also amend all past mistaken transactions, starting with presently documented cases of lost funds. Of course, this would never happen, and EIP-999 should not pass.
Parity does not deserve to step in front of others to recover their funds.
Argument 2:
Another argument is the Parity developers are influential in not only improving Ethereum, but also the entire cryptocurrency ecosystem as a whole. There is no doubt that the Ethereum space would benefit from having the Parity funds made accessible. However, the proposal is selfish. EIP-999 does not give two hoots about other Ethereum stakeholders.
EIP-999 was written specifically to restore the funds of Parity and Parity users. Moving forward with this EIP would demonstrate that Parity is valued more than other Ethereum network users. In other words, other users are not given the same respect.
Here is an example scenario. A non-developer user exchanged USD for ETH. Their USD was acquired through a business that provided an important, necessary service to people outside of the Ethereum ecosystem. This non-developer user later loses access to their ETH funds.
Does this non-developer user deserve their own EIP to recover their funds? Is their recovery important enough to be discussed at the Ethereum Core Dev Meeting? Or maybe because of this user’s anonymity and lack of status, their issue does not merit any sort of formal thought process?
Parity’s WalletLibrary bug was well publicized due to Parity’s popularity and Gavin Wood’s involvement with Ethereum. EIP-999 was reviewed, approved and merged within 40 minutes. Meanwhile, other EIPs take hours and days for the same review, approval and merging process. Lesser known developers and users deserve to be treated with the same respect as Parity.
EIP-999 is selfish and ignores the social problems of helping some and not others.
Argument 3:
Parity knew about the initWallet issue in August, yet they chose to deploy the code change “at a future point in time.”
As seen in the postmortem after the accidental self-destruct (shown above), it was clearly not as urgent as other issues at that point in time, and only when Parity felt the consequences did they realize its importance. The self-destruct on the WalletLibrary is an unfortunate, costly mistake for Parity. This does not mean they can bully the entire Ethereum community into changing the Ethereum blockchain for their own error.
EIP-999 is a band-aid solution that doesn’t address the core problem of negligence.
Argument 4:
As quoted from Gavin Wood below, Parity will achieve its goals regardless of the status of its locked funds. The Parity team planned for the possibility of the loss of funds, and the deliverables will still be built.
EIP-999 is unnecessary.
Conclusion:
Restoration of Parity’s locked funds through EIP-999 is unfair to all stakeholders in the Ethereum space. I recognize the Parity team’s work on improving the Ethereum ecosystem and their attempts at repairing their mistakes. Dealing with the loss of hundreds of millions of other people’s money is not a straightforward task.
EIP-999, however, is not the correct way to fix this problem. This proposal is a demonstration of greed and wanton arrogance. EIP-999 is a selfish proposal that does not fix any long term problems and will only serve to divide the Ethereum community.
