Guys, do y'all remember that wild song that was on Instagram a while back? You about to lose yo' job! Well, I guess somebody at Compound's currently on the hunt for a new job, and I'm thinking they can hardly look to their former employer for a reference, not after costing the company $89 million worth of crypto tokens. Yep, according to reports earlier today, a technical glitch in the crypto marketplace and Compound was dolling out crypto the way some guys shell money at a strip club. Some reports say users on the marketplace were rolling in crypto worth tens of millions of dollars. Man, some people have all the luck!

Let's get into it. 

What is Compound?

According to Yahoo Finance, Compound is a DeFi protocol that hosts lending pools to earn interest on various cryptocurrencies. These pools allow token holders to supply their tokens to others who borrow those tokens at algorithmically set interest rates based on supply and demand. On its website, Compound promises to unlock a universe of open financial applications. Well, it did do some unlocking all right. 

Compound's Technical Glitch

Last week, the platform conducted what should have been a routine update to the code that governs users' transactions. Unfortunately for the platform or fortunately for users, depends on which side of the fence you sit, the update contained a bug that mistakenly sent up to $89 million worth of COMP tokens into some users' accounts.

Oh, and for reference, over the past seven days COMP traded between $300 and $350. Today it's trading near $318. Here's a seven day chart from CoinMarketCap.

Now Compound, which one of your employees did you guys piss off?

Anyhoo, so the bug went unnoticed until late Wednesday, when Compound noticed some pretty "unusual activity". By that time, the tokens were out and folks were pocketing coins like crazy!

Get this. According to a report by CBS News, when the tokens were mistakenly issued, the company's founder Robert Leshner initially said he was hopeful that users wouldn't claim them, but by Friday nearly all of them had been claimed.

Image by LillyCantabile from Pixabay 

I am in tears, y'all! 

Now Compound wasn't about to let all that money go and chalk it up as a bad day, right? I mean would you? So this is what Leshner does. He heads off to Twitter.

And if you're clapping your hands to your foreheads at this point, man, we are sooo buddies, because I did the exact same thing!

Return the Money or Get Doxxed!

All right, so Leshner wanted the crypto back and he wasn't about to waste any time cajoling anyone to return it. Nope, he got straight down to business.

On Twitter, he acknowledged the bug (that employee must have been soooo fired by then) and told users they could keep 10% of the funds as a bonus if they returned the remaining 90%. Those he didn't, he warned, will be doxxed and the funds reported as income to the IRS. Y'all know I love to paraphrase. Those aren't his exact words. Here's the Twitter feed. This is exactly what he said. 

So, in case you don't know what doxxing is and you're mad at me for not sticking to the Crypto Lexicon thing I was including in my articles a while back, let me fill you in real quick.

Doxxing is basically exposing a user's private information, and I mean, cryptocurrency is all about privacy, right? Look at me, for example! I-HODL!

Anyways, so the crypto world wasn't feeling that threat... AT. ALL.   

Guys, I was just spilling popcorn trying to keep up with the responses. Some ridiculed Leshner for the error in the first place, like this guy.  

Others took direct issue with the threat. 

Leshner later called his own tweet boneheaded and thanked the community for their ridicule and support. 

Near half the tokens returned

On Monday morning, Compound reported that about 117,000 COMP tokens (approximately $36 million) had been returned.    

So guys, what would you have done if you were the lucky recipient of COMP tokens following the platform's bug error?

Would you have returned the coins in the interest of the company's reputation and growth or would you claim it as your own, finders keepers sort of, and blame it on the platform's error? I'd love to know. Because the community is pretty divided on this one.

I'll tell you what I think. Y'all know I love a good story, so for me, as a writer, COMP's debacle was gold. But I'll tell you this. My bank sometimes credits extra money to my account that ain't mine and I daren't take it either cuz I don't want to get in any sorts of trouble. So I think the same should apply in the crypto world even though they aren't governed by the same rules.

I am gonna be honest though. I'm not gonna deck myself in lily white shoes on this platform for y'all and pretend to be a saint! We're talking millions! That money would tempt me like crazy.

I'd probably take the 10% bounty. I'm sure that's still a huge windfall. All of this, of course, is conjecture, because I wasn't on COMP. Didn't get any COMP coins. Didn't get the opportunity to show Leshner how honest and helpful I am. Hey, Lesh, if you're reading this, my wallet address is... Nah, I'd get blocked by Publish0x if I tried that. Well, tough luck for me then.

But guys, seriously. What are your thoughts about this story? What would you have done if you were one of the lucky users receiving COMP bonuses last week? Would you have returned the coins? Also, what do you think of Leshner's threat to dox users who didn't comply? Does that strengthen your faith in using the platform in the future or are you gonna steer clear?

I'd love to hear your views, guys. As always though, to my 203 supporters, I see and appreciate every one of you.

Thanks for the support and encouragement, and until the next one, be safe!