Developer: QuickMythril

In an older version of the UI, it was possible to enter a blank seed phrase, which directs to the account at QLdw5uabviLJgRGkRiydAFmAtZzxHfNXSs. Some people were accidentally accessing this account and did not realize it was insecure (having the weakest possible seed phrase). One of the users of this account registered the name "qinlei8866", received sponsorship, and was able to start minting, reaching Level 1 before anyone realized what had happened. Other people later accessed this account, and thinking it was theirs they began using it, including sending LTC to the Litecoin address associated with it. Other people immediately sent that LTC to another account causing some new people to lose their funds. Also the QORT that was accumulating was being skimmed and sent to various addresses. This can all be seen in the transaction history at the Exqlorer page linked above.

Later, the blank seed phrase was blocked by the UI, though there is nothing stopping someone from editing the code to do so. This was done to protect people from the various issues described above, but for anyone who had that account saved in their UI, it was still easily accessible. After finding all this information, and learning about the "transfer_privs" transaction, the minting ability was moved to a new address, to put a stop to any abuse of the account. The current owner of the private key for the new account now had a second minting account, which was a higher level than their own. Some of the people who were using that account were very upset that they lost their "exploit", while others praised the move, saying that whoever did it deserved to keep the account for themselves.

Once the situation had calmed down, QuickMythril admitted he was the one who had done the transfer. This is why someone changed the registered name of that address to "ǪuickMythril steal my account". The transfer was only meant to protect others and not at all intended to cause problems for anyone. However, not wanting the QORT and minting time of this account to be "wasted", he continued minting with the account, with the intent of using any QORT earned as a type of "community fund". To keep everything fair, the decision was made to not use any of the funds there until the on-chain voting system became fully implemented.

A Qortal chat group called "community fund (unofficial)" was created to discuss the purpose and usage of this account. The on-chain voting system would be required to approve any proposal to use the funds to help support community devs and other contributors.

Anyone who would like to contribute minting redundancy can add the minting key "4YMDVeZrxEYNbvtWPh23QHHHRr1zE7KFTs7V3r5334qv" to their node. This will not currently affect their own minting, but is not recommended for those who already have two keys assigned to their node. More than that will cause problems.

This account is now Level 5 and able to sponsor people. The plan is that anyone from the community can nominate someone to be sponsored. Then to approve that, it would require additional accounts totaling level 5 to agree. That will allow people who cannot yet sponsor to still contribute to that process in a way. (There are more details on this in the following section.)

Ideally these processes will eventually be automated using AT smart contracts, and no single person will be able to control the account manually. This page will be updated with further information once any new developments occur.

There are some decisions to be made regarding exactly how this system should work. The basic purpose of this plan is to include minters who cannot yet sponsor others in the sponsorship process, using the Community Fund account at QVqE3qG2CjgUjJZre76pr17z549B5FjbHz.

There is a poll available so that the community can help decide on some of the details, including which Levels should be involved, whether or not there should be a small fee for people who want to vote and how that fee should be used, and how many votes are needed to approve someone for sponsorship. Anyone who would like to contribute their feedback on this idea can complete the poll at https://strawpoll.com/polls/GJn4G3D06yz.