ETH owed due to false premise ("Accept post-sale purchases?")

[sbosshardt]

@vbuterin's question on line 30 has a false premise.

A customer checks out, sends Bitcoin, receives confirmation emails thanking and congratulating them for their purchase, views their (nonzero) presale balance on Ethereum.org, and is led to believe that the Ethereum developers intend to hold up their end of the deal. Code written 10 months after the purchase should not be pondering the question "# Accept post-sale purchases?".

The genesis sale agreement had no provision allowing the foundation/devs to “sell” at a rate of zero ETH. Even if it were ethical, notice would need to be provided to the affected customers (and no such notice was given to me).

Because I trusted the presale balance checker on the Ethereum.org website (which indicated 175.29 ETH), it took nearly two years after the launch of the Ethereum blockchain before I realized that my presale wallet actually had zero ethereum. Getting the silent treatment from the Ethereum Foundation is something that I didn’t expect. Not one reply to me about this, after numerous respectful emails to various Ethereum.org email addresses. Even after a friend of mine got someone from “Communications” to reply last month, and got me on an email thread with them, they would not reply once I provided documentation and asked for my 175.29 ETH. I can see that my accepted Bitcoin was transferred and spent.

There are two presale wallet addresses that were assigned a zero balance for the genesis block. These addresses were reported as having a balance on the Ethereum.org website prior to late 2017. The Ethereum Foundation never once replied to my numerous emails, but their balance checker was afterward updated to show a zero balance instead. Something that at first appeared to be an honest mistake now feels a lot like theft, as I’ve gotten burned several times:

1. Made the sale ("congratulations" email) but didn't get the ETH
2. Contacted the Foundation numerous times about the discrepancy with the balance checker but never got a reply
3. Foundation quitely updated the balance checker to show zero. Altered the records to complete the embezzlement?
4. Contacted the Foundation again, mentioned that I noticed that the balance checker had been altered - still no comment back.
5. Follow up years later. After an initial reply from “Communications ⟠ EF” to my friend, total silence once I’m looped in and send my message and documentation explaining what happened. Follow up three weeks later to ask when I can get a response, still total silence. Two more weeks go by, and here I am.

This is not an acceptable way to treat an early supporter. Yes I am aware that the Ethereum.org website claims: "Are you looking for the official Ethereum support? The first thing you should know is that Ethereum is decentralized. This means no central organization, entity, or person owns Ethereum, and because of this, no official support channels exist."

That’s no excuse. I shouldn’t have had to resort to opening a public Github issue and tagging @vbuterin to attempt to resolve a matter that could have been handled in private. Perhaps the Ethereum Foundation and the devs aren't communicating well. Because at least one of the devs should easily be able to afford 175.29 ETH to honor the genesis sale agreement. They have orders of magnitude more ETH, i.e.: https://etherscan.io/address/0xde0b295669a9fd93d5f28d9ec85e40f4cb697bae

My genesis address: https://etherscan.io/address/0x5ed3f1ebe2ae6756b5d8dc19cad02c419aa5778b

My payment (which generated a “congratulations” purchase confirmation email): https://www.blockchain.com/btc/tx/3d4e17efa6c9e1eac81d950deafc9b4abd905694358bbfd39cedcc82336f1ca5

When checking out on the genesis sale website, users were told to read and agree to contracts and disclosures (which takes time to carefully read). Users weren’t warned that the checkout should be completed by a particular time. On the contrary, after I completed payment and checkout, I was congratulated.

This Python script had no warning output indicating which addresses got the “post_rate” treatment (Bitcoin taken with nothing provided in return). If it did, it would have helped avoid launching the genesis block with the affected addresses, by helping the team identify the inconsistency with the presale balance checker.

Even the other address (of someone I don’t know) was shown to have only around 15 times as much ETH as mine (prior to the update to the balance checker). Assuming they’re (still) owed, even it is a drop in the bucket for the devs to compensate. For some reason communication isn't happening, and I've tried since May 2017. I've only been asking for what I paid for; what the presale wallet checker indicated I should have: 175.29 ETH. I’m owed at least that much - given the hassle, opportunity cost, not having a balance on forks (e.g. Ethereum Classic), feeling ripped off, etc.

Whether I’m paid by @vbuterin, the Ethereum Foundation, EthDev smart contract, someone else involved with the presale, etc - that is a detail that I shouldn’t need to concern myself with. I’m tired of the silent treatment and the waiting - it’s almost 2022. Please don’t make me wait longer - let’s settle for the original amount. Legal action ought to be unnecessary. I still have access to my presale wallet key, so ETH can be transferred to my presale address at your earliest convenience.

[sbosshardt]

Hey @vbuterin or @frozeman, any updates on this?

[xparq]

Has anyone heared anything from anyone ever since?

Has this been in the press perhaps, where Ethereum's side was also addressed (so we could see some reaction at least indirectly)? Or was it discussed anywhere else?

Also, how many other cases like this are there?

[delta1]

in b4 lock