I can confirm on behalf of the foundation that we were in touch with @EnzoPlayer0ne@1eo and @dfisher to understand their current setup and plans for the future setup.
Current setup: As already pointed out in the original post by @1eo , the current setup is not compliant with the anticipated NP independence policy. However, that policy is not adopted by the NNS yet (even though we hope it will be adopted shortly) and more importantly, it was not known at the time when BlueAnt LLC and Zarety LLC purchased the excess nodes from DFINITY. The nodes have been onboarded in a new DC, resulting in monthly expenses for the two entities. Given this situation, we feel it’s not fair to fully enforce a policy that is not yet adopted, resulting in growing financial losses for the two entities. However, it was very important to us, to have transparency and see a solid plan to reach a setup that is compliant with the forthcoming policy.
Future setup: As per our interactions with @EnzoPlayer0ne@1eo and @dfisher, we see a strong willingness and likelihood to reach a compliant setup within the next few weeks. The only missing step is the sale of Rivonia Holdings nodes to a new and independent entity. Should that not materialize in the next 2 months (to give a rough timeframe), the community can still submit new proposals.
Should the new policy be adopted, it might also trigger other NPs to pursue ownership changes (in case that identified node clusters have more than 42 nodes). They might also ask for grace periods as such changes cannot happen over night.
In conclusion, we encourage the community to adopt the proposals and appreciate the effort to soon comply with the forthcoming NP independence policy.
Fisher financed both Enzo and Léo’s node operations, splitting the 84 machines between two shell entities. This structure is clearly Sybil-like, using separate legal wrappers to simulate independence.
“Fisher is providing loans and might be bearing some financial risk, but the companies operating the nodes are owned by different people.”
This confirms long-standing community warnings: WaterNeuron’s core developers used proxy infrastructure and undisclosed financial entanglements to circumvent decentralization safeguards and gain outsized control of the node layer.
2. Policy Not Yet Enforced — Used as Cover
DFINITY claims enforcement cannot occur because the new rules are not yet active:
“It would not be fair to reject these nodes now based on a policy that was not known when they were onboarded.”
But this is deeply misleading — the actors knew they were operating in violation of decentralization principles, and DFINITY’s own team confirms the policy was under discussion throughout that period.
They are punishing no one, rewarding insiders, and sending a message: if you move fast enough, the Foundation will rewrite the rules around you.
This is regulatory capture by delay — abusing the gray zone between announcement and enforcement to lock in cartel privileges.
3. Coordination with DFINITY Team
DFINITY admits they were in direct contact with the implicated actors:
“We are in contact with the parties involved (Enzo, Léo, Fisher)… we are working with them to ensure that the setup will be compliant…”
This is not a neutral stance — this is private guidance and conflict avoidance. Enforcement is replaced with back-channel negotiation, even as the policy violation is admitted publicly.
This undermines equal treatment and decentralized enforcement. It shows that compliance is flexible for insiders — and negotiated in private.
4. “Grace Period” Framing is Abused
The phrase “not fair to enforce now” is used to mask the exploitation of a policy gap.
Even more revealing is the following:
“They are currently losing money on those nodes.”
This detail is irrelevant to governance and inappropriate to weigh in a security-critical infrastructure context. Financial losses are part of free-market participation — they do not justify rule-bending.
DFINITY adds:
“There is a plan: Fisher is actively looking to sell the Rivonia fleet…”
That is not a solution — that’s asking the community to trust that the violators will fix the violation in future.
This framing transforms decentralization from a requirement into an optional suggestion — provided you know who to email.
5. Post Liked by Known WTN Cabal
Within hours, the post was liked by wallet-linked actors and forum accounts affiliated with WaterNeuron and Synapse.
This includes accounts that have historically:
Defended BOOM DAO’s rug proposals
Voted alongside Synapse neuron on sensitive parameter changes
Promoted WaterNeuron DAO minting while concealing token ownership
These likes are not expressions of agreement — they are pre-scripted validation from inside the same cartel network.
It’s a signal, not a consensus.
Conclusion: Coordinated Whitewashing of Policy Violation
This DFINITY post is not a disclosure — it is a strategic cover operation designed to:
Normalize centralized infra grabs under the banner of “participation”
Delay accountability until insiders can extract full benefit
Frame rule-breaking as fair business risk instead of structural attack
Create an illusion of transparency while avoiding hard enforcement
It omits key facts:
Fisher’s multi-front involvement in WaterNeuron’s treasury (Sisyphus AG), proposal strategy, and NFT/DAO deployment
Enzo and Léo’s pattern of silent coordination on node infrastructure, token issuance via “Grants”, and voting weight
The real-world consequence: 84 nodes of network-level infrastructure currently reside under effectively one financier’s influence, openly, using Waterneuron DAO, and with Foundation’s permission
I can also provide a lot of links if you like. This is the first draft. I hope you guys like reading this.
Why is this post hidden? There are no personal attacks. It literally just thanks another person for posting their perspective? Can we just flag posts we don’t agree with now @Leadership?
I realize that related proposals have already been executed by overwhelming majority.
It is concerning to me (and likely others who remain silent) that there were many legitimate questions and concerns raised by @BANG and @volibear . None of these have been answered (publicly).
This does not help the confidence of investors whose feet are not already in the door.
Thankyou for providing the history and current situation regarding your and Enzo’s node provider entities and for the disclosure of the finance provided to you both by David Fisher.
While I understand the difficult situation in which you have found yourselves regarding node provider independence I want to focus on the solution that you, Enzo and David are proposing to remove the interdependencies between your node provider entities.
First, for clarity, let me summarise the current situation as I understand it (please let me know if I have anything wrong here):
Blue Ant LLC, Zarety LLC and Rivonia Holdings LLC are all companies registered in Delaware (USA) and are each controlled respectively by Enzo, Leo and David.
Blue Ant LLC, Zarety LLC and Rivonia Holdings LLC have been identified by Dfinity as a node provider cluster, based on the financing provided by David to Leo & Enzo.
As an identified cluster, your three node provider entities would be limited to 42 node machines in total and therefore would require offloading 84 node machines to other independent node provider entities if there was no change to the current situation.
David has wholly financed the purchase of 84 Gen1 node machines thereby enabling Leo and Enzo to submit their winning bids in DFINITY’s Gen1 node machine auction.
The financing provided by David to Leo and Enzo was in the form of “unsecured loans” which would mean the loans were not secured by the node machine assets themselves; the nature of any loan security or repayment arrangement is otherwise unclear.
Sisyphus AG is a corporation registered in Zurich jointly owned by Enzo, Leo and David; Enzo, Leo and David are listed as the only members of the Board of Directors.
Now to the proposed solution to the current clustering of the three node provider entities:
“BlueAnt LLC, owned by Enzo, will be sold to Sisyphus AG”
this would make Blue Ant LLC a wholly owned subsidiary of Sisyphus AG.
Enzo, Leo and David would then all be UBOs of Blue Ant LLC because they are members of the Board of Directors of Sisyphus AG, the parent company.
“Zarety LLC, owned by Léo, will be sold to David so he owns it outright”
Zarety LLC would now be sold to David as a “going concern” with 42 node machines operational in the Isle of Man “Douglas 2” (im2) datacenter which are now being remunerated monthly by the NNS for a period of 24 months.
as a going concern, the sale price of Zarety LLC would overcompensate David as repayment of his unsecured loan to Leo for the purchase of 42 node machines in the DFINITY auction.
“Rivonia Holdings LLC sells its 42 US-based nodes to a third-party”
What is the imperative for David to sell all of the node machines he currently owns through Rivonia Holdings LLC?
Is this only to enable David to purchase Zarety LLC and its 42 nodes outright?
Is this preferred because of the additional ~35% in monthly remuneration received for the Zarety nodes located in Isle of Man compared to the Rivonia nodes located in the US?
Who will operate and maintain the nodes machines in the Douglas (Isle of Man) datacenter for David who is based in the US?
The proposed solution does achieve the separation of Rivonia LLC from this node provider cluster by selling all of its node machines to a third party. However it does not separate Blue Ant LLC and Zarety LLC from the cluster; in fact it clearly compromises the independence of these two node providers further by linking Enzo, Leo and David more directly as co-owners and co-directors of Sisyphus AG; it also does not explicitly remove the original cause of the clustering which was the unsecured loans provided by David to Leo and Enzo.
Here is a simpler, more transparent solution which would actually lead directly to a financial separation of the three clustered node provider entities in the short term:
Rivonia Holdings LLC does not sell its 42 US-based nodes to a third-party; David retains ownership and control over the 42 Gen1 nodes he is currently being remunerated for at the monthly rate as agreed for the 2 year extension of Gen1 node machine operations.
Zarety LLC is sold as a going concern to another independent node provider entity (current or new) based on the full 24 month period it has just begun being remunerated for, at a sale price commensurate with the current operating net revenue margin; Leo pays David 50% of the sale price of Zarety LLC, reducing his unsecured loan to David by much more than half.
Leo becomes a 50% owner of Blue Ant LLC paying Enzo the other 50% of the proceeds of selling Zarety LLC for his share; Enzo pays David this 50% of the sale price of Zarety LLC, reducing his unsecured loan to David by much more than half.
Leo and Enzo repay the remaining portion of the unsecured loans from David over the course of, say, 12 months from the net revenue of Blue Ant LLC.
The final outcome of this alternate proposal for dissolving the cluster is that we would have three existing registered node provider entities with no financial relationship to each other (through loans or share equity), no shared UBOs and no operational interdependence.
This does seem a simpler and clearer solution. It does seem strange that Rivionia sells their nodes when they are not the node provider being queried.
I agree that the solution proposed by Enzo, Leo and David does seem a rather convoluted way to go about things that still leaves the three parties intricately linked with twice the node allowance currently permissable for a cluster.
To clarify: the DFINITY Foundation never stated that identified clusters should be limited to 42 nodes in total. We do have an agreed 42-node limit per individual node provider (NP). That said, the practical usefulness of any cluster is constrained by the number of subnets on the Internet Computer at a given time. And since the intention is to place a single node from each cluster into each subnet, a cluster with 126 nodes would only be able to utilize as many nodes as there are subnets, which is currently 37.
Thanks alot for the background and explanation of the plans going forward. Could you please offer evidence that @dfisher only owns less than 25% of Sisyphus AG?
That way we as the community should be able to indeed conclude that @dfisher is only a minority investor in the new node provider entity that will be in charge of 42 nodes going forward.
This has been brought up in the Node Provider Technical Working Groups, where it was discussed and agreed by all attendees (including ‘DFINITY’) that 42 would/should be a limit that’s applied to clusters. I understand that this is a conversation that’s unfolding as we go, but your statement above is inaccurate / misleading.
In any case, what’s the utility of establishing and tracking clusters if not to apply decentralisation constraints defined by the IC Target Topology? Let’s not start taking backwards steps again…
I agree that the 42-node limit should also apply to clusters—otherwise, it would be easy to circumvent the limit. We should consider formalizing this, for example in a follow-up motion proposal after the pilot for the independence assessment.
As previously mentioned, some flexibility could be applied to existing clusters: A slight breach of the 42-node limit, say up to 50 nodes, is not a major issue and could be acceptable for an interim period. If a cluster significantly exceeds the 42 limit (which I hope is not the case), it becomes more urgent to restructure the node ownership to maintain fairness, especially given that other node providers have sold excess nodes to meet the target.
I know that is what was agreed on the call, but wouldnt Zarety/Blue Ant/Riviona count as a cluster per new rules.
Would they need to reduce to 42 over a specific period?
Not any point them having 84 if only a max of 42 could ever be used in subnets per @alexu 's earlier explanation.
I just want to make sure the rules are consistent for all NPs. We want the IC to expand and have many more NPs. Clustering is something that needs to be clearly explained and dealt with fairly.
NPs do not get to decide what or how many nodes get into the subnets, this is up to the NNS to decide optimal config based on deterministic decentralization. So not paying or paying less for the nodes that aren’t in subnets isn’t really fair.
This is regulatory capture by delay — abusing the gray zone between announcement and enforcement to lock in cartel privileges.