Behind the Scenes: The Curious Case Of 273 EOS Accounts And Lost Private Keys

EOS project is facing issues since the time it has moved to its MainNet, as some members of the EOS community either lost or failed to receive their private EOS keys and are looking for a way to recover their funds. EOS happens to be one of the prominent projects in crypto industry and was successful in keeping up with its roadmap despite the sluggish markets.

273 accounts with a total balance of 891,361.74514 EOS are locked

While the problem with some of the EOS community members losing their keys is known for quite some time, an EOS node “CryptoLions” published a Medium post called “The Lost Key Situation in EOS, a Comprehensive Overview”. The note gives an in-detail insight on what is wrong with EOS and also put forward an astonishing scale at which things have gone wrong.

According to the post, Cryptolions states that one community member has compiled a list of lost key cases and the number stands out to be around 273 EOS accounts with around 890,000 EOS locked permanently.

The post further speaks about the argument that is in favor of the EOS community, and against it, to help its community members.

The points that argue against providing the help are:

• EOS governance structures or Block Producers are not responsible to fix users’ problem
• There are chances of creation of a “moral hazard” and also people may start assuming block producers and EOS governance team as password recovery departments
• Key recovery mechanism also opens doors for hackers and malicious elements to steal keys. This could be an overreach of block producers’ powers and could raise issues of centralization
• The security and integrity of the blockchain will be compromised if block producers start transacting on behalf of users’ accounts

The points that argue in favor of providing help are:

• EOS did not design the sign-up process well and it was somewhat confusing. Apparently, there was a small window of time when the emails generated from the sign-up process were not working.
• The EOS governance team and Block producers should help because they are in a position to. However, the scope of this is limited to keys which have never been used on the EOS Mainnet.

The post further states a precedent case where  EOSIO Core Arbitration Forum had asked block producers to create new keys for the account ‘hezdqnjxgmge’ and further discusses whether it would be right for EOS governance team or block producers to intervene.

It also gives a piece of further information about how efforts are being put forward to recover keys Independent of ECAF.

Will EOS Block Producers intervene to help the community member? Do let us know your views on the same.