I'd like to clarify one or two things about Poloniex's position here. First of all, neither Poloniex nor anyone at Poloniex invested $17,000 in NEM. I personally own 1 NEMstake, and MobyDick owns 0.5. The $17,000 is minimum estimate I made based on the number of NEMstake that have gone unclaimed. As I understand it, there are several more people who tried to redeem, but did not do it correctly, and would not receive their shares if the deadline were enforced. I am not sure if anyone is actually suggesting enforcing the deadline so strictly as to shut those people out as well, but that would be unconscionable.
I made this thread because I think it's a serious problem that that many investors are having the rug pulled out from under them. Obviously, the communication about the deadline never reached them, and I don't think it's fair to blame them for that, no matter how many times the announcement was posted on the forums. I think it is perfectly reasonable for someone to read about the project, decide it's a good investment, then buy some NEMstake with the intention of sitting on it until they see it on an exchange.
These people WILL feel cheated when they see NEM doing well and find that their investments have been taken away from them. Do you think it is good for NEM to have however many people invested a total of $17,000 feeling cheated by the project? When I first read about NEM, the general feeling I got from it is that it aimed to be as inclusive as possible. Knowing that there are people who paid to invest and will receive nothing in return shakes my confidence in that aim.
So far, the biggest objection I have seen to extending or eliminating the deadline is that a promise was made to have a deadline. To mean, promising to shut people out doesn't make it any more right to shut people out. Is it a breach of trust to realize you made a mistake, revisit the issue, and correct the mistake? It seems there was a lot of confusion and miscommunication, even internally, about this entire matter, and many agree that it was not handled well. I do not see the sense in throwing the word "promise" around and forcing NEM to stick to a bad decision. Aside from the holy principle of never breaking a promise, pinky sworn or not, the only other objection I'm seeing is that it would not be fair to people who dumped their NEMstake on unsuspecting buyers on the AE. I have no sympathy for those people whatsoever – it is obviously immoral to sell something you know is worthless to a buyer who is unaware that it is worthless. The bigger problem there is the people who bought. I recommend allowing these people to redeem, though I think that is less important than allowing people who bought earlier to redeem.
You have to expect that people will misunderstand things or fail to follow instructions. This could be because of a language barrier, because the concepts of crypto are still a little confusing, or because they're simply not good at following instructions. I deal with this at Poloniex all the time. People deposit the wrong coin to the wrong address, or they send CryptoNote deposits without a payment ID, despite an extremely clear warning in a place that they can hardly avoid seeing. I always recover coins if at all possible, even though I am well within my right to turn these people away. I do not presume to judge them for making the mistake; I have no idea what their thought process was or why they were under the impression that the procedure they followed would work. Shutting them out because they misunderstood is morally repugnant to me.
