Ampl INSIDER TRADING

Ampleforth Governance
1

Let me give a brief recap on the situation.

FORTH was airdropped to Ampl holders sometime in early 2021. Someone with insider knowledge of airdrop mechanism effectively gamed it, by creating approximately 8000-10000 fake Ampl addresses. It was estimated at a time, that total initial investment was approximately 200kUSD covering 5-10ampl per address and tx fees. Total proceeds from this scam were around 20 million USD.

Even if it was an innocent gamble, it must have been a very brave one executed by someone who had 200 thousand USD to gamble and technical expertise to execute this. As you might have guess, it is impossible to populate that many addresses manually using metamask, you would have to code this.

Some of the most obnoxious trolls within community later on dismissed any concerns about FORTH insider trading citing that “it is old news”, “been discussed a lot before”, “not worth talking about” etc.

Latest “official acknowledgement” by the team regarding this incident can be found here:

And let me quote:
05/05/2021
Evan:
Hey everyone! We are aware of concerns around the on-chain wallet activity with respect to the FORTH distribution. We are evaluating all possibilities and are taking the matter seriously.

That was 5 months ago and so far no explanation or any statement was given by the team.

So the matter was indeed discussed heavily in the community, but seems like it was so easily forgotten. Nothing of substance has been declared by Ampl team since the incident.

Those 20 million USD were stolen from Ampl holders, there is no other way to put it.

Would @evankuo or maybe @Brandon would be so kind to explain what is it they’ve been doing for 5 months in relation to that incident? If it was indeed taken seriously, then where is the outcome of that investigation if there ever was one?

If you are not going to give any substantial comments, that just means by the very least that Ampl team keep mocking Ampl holders, or simply was involved in that situation and now quietly enjoying 20 mln USD retirement fund extracted from Ampl community.

1 Like
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You threatened SEC action after people pointed out that what’s done can’t be undone. I take it that was a failure? Curious that you grasp at anything you can to throw doubt and suspicion at the project every time it experiences high upward velocity. One might start to question motives.

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Ok, let me see …

You threatened SEC action

I don’t control how SEC works, whether or not SEC decides to follow with prosecution is entirely up to them, in the event that SEC successfully prosecutes AMPL team for insider trading I would be glad to receive some tangible answers, unless of course AMPL team stops hiding and steps forward with answers. Apart from that I don’t see the relevance here anyway

after people pointed out that what’s done can’t be undone.

Are you saying that it’s ok to steal millions of dollars from investors?

On the contrary it can easily be undone - whoever is responsible for this would admit that money was stolen, he then burns stolen FORTH reducing supply and hence removing stolen tokens from circulation. Faces appropriate punishment. The moment you see FBI knocking on your door you will give them private keys and anything they want just to make them go away without any serious consequences.

Curious that you grasp at anything you can to throw doubt and suspicion at the project every time it experiences high upward velocity.

I also do not see the relevance. Situation in question took place half a year ago. I kept raising those questions ever since the problem surfaced. You can’t seriously argue, that those question do not have substance in them.

One might start to question motives.

You don’t need to question my motives, I will tell you what they up upfront! Generally speaking people (myself included) dislike thiefs, its pretty obvious in this case that malicious agent acted on insider information which was known only to team members of AMPL prior to actual airdrop announcement. That person performed a very complicated preparations months in advance of airdrop. @evankuo himself said above that they are “taking the matter seriously”.

Given how much money was stolen and public acknowledgement of the incident by the team, I think it is only fair that community and AMPL investors are entitled to answers. Half a year is more than enough time to figure out what happened.