The user contacted us and this is the information given to us:
1. He didn't save the Note Private Key
2. He didn't save the Note Public Address
3. He didn't save the Letter of Guarantee
4. He doesen't remember the exact donation % used
5. He can sign a message from the address used to deposit on Whirlwind
Think of it as losing their private key: if they lose it, they lose their Bitcoins. In that case:
Lost coins only make everyone else's coins worth slightly more. Think of it as a donation to everyone.
In your case, it's a donation to you. Just like losing access to Binance's made-up "wrapped" tokens is a donation to Binance.
We have the following options, if anyone sees a better solution please let us know:
1. Refund him from our reserve and risk setting a dangerous precedent while also risking taking the hit ourselves in case we were lied to. (The Note would remain valid because we wouldn't know which one to delete)
This is bad and
will get abused.
2. Temporarily disable all Notes with similar balances and wait for the other Note holders to contact us
This is also bad, it makes you look bad to people who didn't make a mistake and still doesn't rule out abuse
3. Treat Whirlwind as a network and respect the rules, in this case we will not be able to help in any way and the user would lose access to his funds assuming it's true that indeed he lost the private key
In my opinion, this is the
best only option. People should really make sure not to lose their private keys.