Recently, Huobi has been accused of colluding with some other EOS block producers in order to exchange to get things for its voting power. Obviously, this has caused some controversy among the community as the case is investigated. Because of this, a new initiative called WHISPER has been created by a dev known as BlockchainKid.

The BlockchainKid has affirmed that all the discussion about the EOS block producers and collusion has been creating some deep trouble in the EOS community, so he recently released a new article about this initiative WHISPER, which he defends as a very important tool to protect the EOS community and its stakeholders from creating incentives that can cause corruption.

In the article, the developer affirms that the program is an effort to address these issues while ensuring the right set of incentives for the governance of the EOS blockchain.

A Whistleblower Program Based On The SEC’s Version

The main inspiration for the program was the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, which was created by the American government in 2010 and made reforms on how finances were regulated after the crash of 2008.

According to the BlockchainKid, one of the most universally approved changes that the program brought to the table was the whistleblower program, which was made by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Officially started in 2010, the program sought to incentivize the rewards and to protect the citizens who could provide tips related to violations of federal securities laws like stock manipulation, collusion and insider trading.

In return for this information, the whistleblower was provided with employment protection and financial rewards that could range from 10% to 30% of the monetary sanctions imposed on the guilty parties.

$266 million USD was awarded to 55 people since the beginning of the program and $1.5 billion USD in sanctions were imposed with the help of the SEC’s whistleblower program. BlockchainKid believed that this is the exact kind of incentive that the EOS community needs badly right now.

He has also taken his time to write about how you can simply copy and paste complex legislation and put it on the blockchain, but that it was an excellent idea to be followed, even if the blockchain is decentralized, so it is very unlike a government.

However, block producers have the power to ban people from using the EOS system in corrupt ways, so the only missing point is how to incentivize people to find proof that corruption was happening.

The WHISPER Program

The basic framework for the program is presented in the article. It is stated that the program will have to be governed by trusted and independent members of the EOS community and nobody with block producer affiliations could be chosen they would have obvious conflicts of interest at stake.

What would be ideal for the creator of the program is that four to eight well-known and active but unaffiliated members of the community could be chosen. They would have to be long-standing members of the community and have a track record of transparency and impartiality, as well as being willing to disclose their ID and past affiliations.

It should also be as geographically diverse as possible to avoid bias and to represent the community well with people from at least four different continents. They should also be elected by vote using referendum tools in order to be elected. Even without a vote, the community should choose the representants.

As funding is concerned, the main problem that would be faced is that the SEC program is self-sustainable while this one would need the help of the community because the money stolen or deviated could not go back easily to the network. Because of this, BlockchainKid has affirmed that RAM trading fees, funds and other sources could be used.

The funds would have to be well protected and any transaction would require the approval of the committee, which would administer the fund to reward the whistleblowers.

Will WHISPER Be Really Effective?

It is certainly hard to tell whether this system will be effective or not at the end of the day. While WHISPER looks like a great idea, the devil is always in the details and its implementation will be paramount to define whether this will be a program that we will talk about for the days to come and that will inspire other initiatives or if it will be forgotten soon and only remembered as inefficient.