Introducing IDgeek - Identity Anchor Marketplace

General
44

Great idea, I was looking for this for a while. Put my Anchor 10002 on sale today :smiley:

45

I can give you few icps

1 Like
46

I am opposed to similar sales and purchases. This is actually a loophole. The value of voting rights is underestimated in disguise. Some people with ulterior motives can buy or even borrow voting rights at a low price to happen something we don’t want to see

1 Like
48

No, I don’t work for anyone, I bought ICP, I will only be responsible for myself! I will object to any behavior that harms ICP

2 Likes
49

Totally against buying and selling neurons. It has to be something outside of dfinity… :x: :x: :x:

50

I will be pleased to tell you that Dfinity is not behind the selling of neuron and are not wasting ressources on it ( unless they want to prevent it, which I think is bad )

52

I listed my internet identity with 11300 ICP for sale: IDgeek - Internet Identity Marketplace

1 Like
53

You still own the neuron if purchased but there should be a measure in place to properly address how this poses a security risk to someone gathering large amounts of voting power and using this power in aggregate to harm future governance.Why else would someone by a neuron other than for voting power? It can’t be for the ICP or assets listed because you can just buy those on your own. While it may be costly to try and take over the network it’s not completely impossible. What would stop a large player, say a competitor, from slowly gathering neurons over time to centralize votes, if not to otherwise use them maliciously? I think it’s significant enough to need to be addressed.

I think a way to perhaps implement this penalty is that purchased neurons through a marketplace should be delayed the use of voting power in one of a 3 ways.

  1. equal to the total dissolve delay that was intially set which as we know is at least 6 months

  2. a static delay of use that is determined through a proposal

  3. an equation that takes into account amount of ICP in the neuron, dissolve delay, and age bonus at the time of sale.

This way this marketplace is not completely eliminated, as I believe people should be able to trade their neurons if the wish, but is also handled in a way that preserves the security of the IC.

54

:rocket: Introducing a new feature! Buy and sell individual SNS Neurons on IDgeek! :rocket:

Sell SNS Neurons in 3 simple steps:

  1. Transfer Internet Identity with linked SNS Neurons to IDgeek Smart Contract.
  2. Unlink SNS Neurons to make them separate assets.
  3. Transfer Internet Identity back to your device if necessary.

After unlinking, SNS Neurons appear on “My Assets” page and can be either
sold on IDgeek or transferred to another NNS/ICDEX account.

P.S. SNS Neuron also can be transferred directly from ICDEX.

3 Likes
55

In the IC network, the voting rights of NNS are private property of individuals. In classical economics, private property and liberalism (the freedom of conservatism) based on the premise of not infringing on the private property of others are the innate rights of civilized people, and only in this way can the economy prosper and develop. The igeek market is very great and innovative, and it makes up for the stagnation of Dfinity’s work in this area.

Selling neurons at a discount is already a punishment for individuals’ property and freedom by the market. Why does the entire network governance still have the right to override the market and continue to punish these unsuccessful investors with fines (taxes)? The economics of IC should not violate the private property and trading freedom of individuals.

I am glad to see that the Dfinity developers are encouraging this igeek market. I have been in the IC network for almost two years. Although I have never sold or will not sell NNS neurons in the future, I have always hoped to see this neuron trading market earlier. Thank you to the great developer @alexeychirkov

2 Likes
56

The real wep3 is that the user can do whatever he wants. idgeek is a very successful project, I would like to see you again soon with much better features. I hope the next feature will be to sell our nns’ special locked neurons separately.

1 Like
57

The heated discussion about the project smoothly transitioned into a new thread. Just for your information, in case anyone is interested in the fate of this project.

3 Likes
58

Thanks for announcing this @alexeychirkov, and for providing a place for community discussion on these sorts of matters relating to IDGeek.

l’ve spotted what I believe is a fundamental issue with how the platform works, but I’d like to confirm my understanding of how it’s supposed to work first.

As I understand it, SNS neurons are first transferred so that they’re under the control of IDGeek, which then allows them to be advertised for sale and/or arranged as collateral for loans. I find the collateral functionality particularly problematic.

How can IDGeek garauntee that if the lendee of a loan defaults (and does not repay the borrowed amount) that the SNS collateral will end up in the hands of the lender? I believe I can see scenarios where lenders are left out of pocket, completely uncompensated for their loss of the lent amount. I think I can see other issues too, but lets start with this one.

59

Thank you for your question. To clarify, when SNS neurons are transferred to IDGeek for any activity (e.g., sale, loan, or holding), they are always held by a canister on the platform. The canister acts as an escrow, managing the ownership internally. Technically, the collateral never leaves the canister, and permissions are only updated when the neuron is transferred out. Let us know if you think there’s an issue with this approach or if you see any potential flaws.

2 Likes
60

Hey @alexeychirkov, thanks for your quick response. This escrow functionality is as I understood it, and seems to make sense for transferring Internet Identities. I don’t support II transfer, but I do like that there is an escrow period (during which time the seller cannot vote via that II, on NNS nor SNS proposals, as far as I understand but correct me if I’m wrong). ← I thought I’d try and start off with a positive :slightly_smiling_face:

Unfortunately I think there are fundamental problems with trying to provide similar functionality for the sale, loan and/or collateral of SNS neurons (independently from the II they were attached to). These features appear to operate on the faulty assumption that if the SNS neuron is transferable now, this means it will also be transferable in the future (allowing the neuron to both enter and exit escrow). This is in fact not the case, and the transferability of SNS neurons can be disabled at any moment by the collective will of the relevant SNS DAO. This is something that is completely outside the control of an individual SNS neuron owner, and outside the control of IDGeek.

For one thing this makes SNS neurons a terrible form of collateral (offering no guarantee to the lender). It also means that SNS neurons can become trapped in escrow, meaning the seller looses their neuron indefinitely, no buyer can receive it, and therefore the original owner is left out of pocket and uncompensated.

Is this a known issue and/or do I have the wrong end of the stick?

61

Lorimer, are you referring to the situation that recently happened with the WTN neuron, specifically the proposal https://dashboard.internetcomputer.org/sns/jmod6-4iaaa-aaaaq-aadkq-cai/proposal/602 that passed in the WaterNeuron SNS? Because right now, there are two WTN neurons being used as collateral on IDGeek. Am I understanding the situation correctly?

image
image1070×966 73.4 KB

1 Like
62

Thanks @alexander, this illustrates the problem yes. WaterNeuron was designed to align with the NNS in terms of non-transferability, for multiple reasons.

The default SNS config is for neurons to be transferable. This cannot be set on initialisation. The SNS DAO needs to submit a proposal to disable neuron transfers if that’s part of it’s intended design. These plans were actioned recently, making NNS and WTN neurons the only non-transferable neurons on the IC (as I understand it).

Any SNS DAO could submit a similar proposal at any point to do the same. I suspect many are not aware that this is a possibility (I think transferable stake undoes the point of staking).

Those two neurons that you’ve highlighted are now owned by IDGeek, as they’re trapped in escrow and cannot be transferred to any other owner.

Is this consistent with your understanding?

63

How it currently works:

The neuron_grantable_permissions change does not alter the permissions of existing neurons - it only affects future attempts to grant or modify permissions for a principal. As a result, all SNS neurons, which have the ManagePrincipals permission, can still transfer all permissions listed in neuron_grantable_permissions to another principal.

Before Proposal 602 was implemented, we updated idGeek to prevent transferring WTN neurons to idGeek contract or unlinking them from Internet Identity. This was done to ensure that neurons don’t get permanently “stuck” in the idGeek canister.

Neurons currently held by idGeek can be transferred out without ManagePrincipal and ManageVotingPermission permissions.

2 Likes
64

Thanks @alexeychirkov, your understanding regarding neuron_grantable_permissions is consistent with mine :slight_smile:

Could you point me to the commit (presumably IDGeek is open source)? Surely IDGeek didn’t need to ‘prevent transferring WTN neurons to idGeek’, that’s what the SNS proposal did. Are you saying you updated IDGeek to avoid accidentally removing the original principal without first transferring all permissions to the escrow principal? To protect against future scenarios with other SNS neurons, surely IDGeek should be verifying that all permissions can be / were transferred to the escrow principal first and if not abort? There shouldn’t be a need for an explicit special case for a specific SNS (that sounds very brittle). This information is retrievable via each SNS’ governance canister.

This statement is not accurate (or just misleading). Please correct my understanding if you disagree.

If we take ‘ownership’ of an SNS neuron to mean possessing all possible permissions for that neuron, then as you’ve confirmed (‘transfer all permissions listed in neuron_grantable_permissions’) IDGeek cannot transfer ownership from the escrow principal (just a limited set of permissions, which could in fact be zero depending on the SNS config). All it can do is relinquish its ownership (leaving the neuron without any owner), and before doing so it can assign a limited set of permissions to another principal (not a sufficient set to pass ‘ownership’ over to that principal). Implications of this include:

  • The principal receiving permissions for that neuron would:

    • not be recognised as the neuron ‘owner’ by the SNS

    • not have full control of that neuron (e.g. no ability to add hot keys, or potentially do anything really, such as vote or disburse. It all depends on the SNS in question and how they’ve configured transferability)

  • The value attached to that asset (the neuron that was held in escrow) would largely have been destroyed by IDGeek’s incomplete attempt to fully transfer it out of escrow, requiring it to be dissolved and after a long wait re-staked into a neuron that’s finally fully owned by a specific principal.

Neurons have not been designed to act as tradeable commodities (that’s what the underlying tokens are for, when they’re not staked). Ultimately no individual has control over the transferability of any SNS neuron. This makes neurons an inappropriate form of collateral, and something that cannot be safely traded.

It would be disingenuous to make any user believe that they’re receiving a neuron that they have ownership over, when they don’t (this issue should not be swept under the rug). At the very least these dangers should be made clear to users of IDGeek if you’re going to continue offering this service.

65

I understand your point, but it’s not just black and white. Some people will prioritize reducing risk, while others will focus more on maximizing rewards. The market will balance this out. For some, getting a neuron at a big discount might be worth it, even if there are limitations, especially if their goal is just to sell the tokens later and earn rewards. Different people will see value in different ways.

1 Like