https://twitter.com/Justin_Bons/status/1492561186310733824
1/14) Polygon in its current state is insecure & centralized!
It would only take 5 people to compromise over $5B!
4 of those people are the founders of Poly!
This is one of the largest hacks or exit scams just waiting to happen
Reckless & irresponsible, a warning to the wise:
2/14) The Polygon smart contract admin key is controlled by a 5 out of 8 multi-signature contract.
This means that polygon can gain complete control over Polygon with only 1 of the 4 outside parties conspiring.
The other 4 parties in the multisig where also selected by Polygon.
3/14) This also means that these 4 other parties are not exactly impartial.
Control over the contract admin key equals the power to change the rules.
At which point anything becomes possible.
Including emptying out the entire Polygon contract which is currently worth over $5B!
4/14) What is even worse is that Polygon has been completely opaque,
In terms of their operational security & cryptographic ritual around the creation of this multisig.
Which is important to at least establish trust in the multisig, as bad as that might already be.
5/14) Without any of these guarantees,
It is within the realm of possibility that a single individual already controls the admin key!
The use of admin keys at the very least requires very high standards of security.
6/14) To make things even worse @ChrisBlec from @DeFiWatch formally requested this disclosure
The Polygon team actually refused to respond!
This lack of response on its own should be considered as a giant red flag!
Transparency is severely lacking.
Second letter to Polygon about multisig
7/14) I know that this practice is already far to common in cryptocurrency as a whole.
But that does not justify that it is wrong & reckless.
I am focusing on Polygon because they are one of the largest cryptocurrencies that has this issue.
It is a disaster waiting to happen!
8/14) This is not about the quality of the founders.
The founders of Polygon seem like good people besides from this one weakness.
They might have confidence in themselves.
But they are exposing themselves to a grave danger as they become targets as points of centralization.
9/14) The higher the value locked, the higher the incentive & sophistication of potential attacks becomes.
Organized crime could target these individuals, potentially even through kidnapping & blackmail!
The 4 founders meeting in person could even lead to a accidental loss!
10/14) The point I am trying to make is that a 5 out of 8 multi-sig is wholefully insufficient for $5B!
I could continue to provide examples where loss occurs but I think I have made my point.
Polygon criticized @ChrisBlec for not providing an alternative, which is unfair.
11/14) I will provide Polygon with a clear alternative so that there is no excuse:
First of all Polygon has to decentralize their own governance based on the Matic token holders.
Currently this is still far to centralized following a DPoS model with a low number of validators.
12/14) Once Polygon has decentralized their governance.
They will have to transfer the smart contract admin key to the Matic token holders.
Effectively turning control over to the "Matic DAO".
This would most likely require a migration over to a new Polygon Smart contract.
13/14) This would obviously be very difficult & costly to do.
However that is the price to pay for not doing things right to begin with.
It is the price we pay for decentralization & the security that comes along with that.
This is what cryptocurrency should be all about.
14/14) Pretending to be secure & decentralized is not good for anyone in the long run.
There is a clear path for redemption here.
A simple acknowledgement of the problem & a commitment to fix it would go a long way.
I hope this message can serve as a constructive criticism.