The GRC was mostly returned once the seed funds were no longer needed, so that is highly unlikely. The disgusting thing here is asking for donations for A, and then using them for B.
If I collect donations to help the homeless, and then use the money for my own benefit, how is that ok?
If a project embezzles funds that were donated in good faith, people deserve to know so they do not donate again.
I have donated 1000 GRC to PrimeGrid back in March 2016 (when they started accepting GRC for donations). I must say it was never mentioned back then they will buy hardware with that money. Here is their donation webpage from that time. The donation drive for new hardware was started only few months ago and their donation page was then updated accordingly.
All said and done, I don't feel that my donation was embezzled in any way. Under conditions specified in March 2016, PrimeGrid admins could have taken it as their salary (normal procedure with SETI@home donations). After that, it's their private property and they can do with it as they like.
So they lent the GRC to another entity then got them back? So there has been a zero net loss of donated GRC? If it ends up going to the same equipment fund, did the donated funds not serve their purpose in the end?
This to me looks like one of the first times known BOINC entities have utilized Gridcoin as a cryptocurrency, and you want to drag them through the dirt for doing so? It doesn't make Gridcoin look that appealing for other BOINC admins.
From the article:
It was a 76% refund; PrimeGrid didn't get back 1200 GRC.
No, they got millions of core-hours of computing. Tens of millions.
Which you would know IF YOU'D BOTHERED TO ASK US BEFORE ASSUMING THE WORST.
If you guys were journos, you'd be sacked on the spot for this.
This information is public. To date, Pomegranate has earned 743,301 cobblestones on PrimeGrid.
That's about the equivalent of running one GeForce GTX 1070 graphics card on PrimeGrid for one day.
You're doing it again. We contributed to Prime Grid before GRC even existed at all.
Stop. Assuming. The. Worst. About. People!
How don't you know he bought the GRC off primegrid then donated GRC back once they began earning GRC?
Major assumptions here.