Lost Key Cases and Scalability

ECAF are delighted to inform the EOS Community that our first Lost Key case has reached its conclusion with a ruling returning the EOS genesis account in question to the rightful owner.

What this case means for the community

We will now be accepting claims for lost key cases relating to EOS genesis accounts provided the following criteria are met:

• The Claimant must be able to show ownership of the ERC-20 EOS account linked to the EOS account for which the keys have been lost. They can do this by signing a transaction with a memo specified by ECAF.
• The EOS account in question must be a genesis account with no transactions showing on the block record since the launch of the EOS main net.
• The Claimant must be prepared to provide a form of official government issued photo ID and sign a waiver accepting liability for losses incurred as a result of fraudulent claims.
• The Claimant must pay total costs of 15% of the EOS value of the lost key account up front before their claim is processed.

Scalability

ECAF’s ability to handle our caseload by increasing our throughput is one result of this ruling. From now on cases where the situation for the claimant is identical or very similar can be handled much faster. The result is that existing claims of this nature where the claimant has paid the fees should be cleared within the coming months.
This represents the beginning of our broader plans to scale our operations.

Other ways in which we intend to improve our efficiency:

• The hiring of additional staff such as Case Managers to aid our internal workings and the rate at which we can respond to community correspondence regarding claims.
• The transition from a volunteer workforce to one where we envisage having the budget in place to pay. This will enable our current staff to commit more time to ECAF.
• The reallocation of case fees to enable us to have more disposable income available with which to grow the organization in general.
• The possibility of introducing semi-automation for lost key cases to further increase throughput enabling us to deal more effectively with greater volumes of lost key cases being filed. In the future we intend to always employ semi-automation, where possible, to increase our efficiency across multiple case types. However, with regards to Lost Genesis Keys we intend to be putting the wheels in motion for this as soon as possible. Once we have finalised our workflow - which in all reality will probably be after a few more rulings - we intend to put development of the automated part out to tender to the EOS community.

-- Ben Gates
Interim Administrator