Cryptosi
Active Pivian
Reviving the PIVX Alliance Protocol — a vetted alliance registry, 8 years after AriseBank
TL;DR: In January 2018, a scam called AriseBank announced an official "partnership" with PIVX. Its founder went to federal prison. We drafted an Alliance Protocol days later to make sure that could never happen again — it shipped, and it worked very well. This pre-proposal revives it for 2026: a public alliance registry, a vetting framework, and 12 months of support, for 10,000 PIV.
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The wound — with receipts
In mid-January 2018, AriseBank — a fake "decentralized bank" promising FDIC-insured accounts and Visa crypto cards — published "AriseBank Officially Partners With PIVX" (archived copy). On 30 January 2018 the SEC halted the ICO (SEC press release 2018-8). What followed is on the public record:
We couldn't prevent AriseBank using our name, because PIVX had no framework that defined what an official partnership even was — no registry to point to that said "yes, real" or "never was."
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The cure was drafted 10 days later — then ratified using masternode governance
On 5 February 2018, community members (Crypto S.I + CryptoHB) drafted the PIVX Alliance Protocol. Its core rules:
The Alliances LitePaper followed — on why blockchains can't sign contracts, and why governance-ratified public alliances are the honest alternative. Two alliances have passed under this spirit: PIVX + ARK.io (2021) and BlockDX (2022). The framework is sound. It was simply never hosted, maintained, or owned. There were others, Allnodes, Zenzo and more.
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What this proposal builds
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Founding cohort — Ideas to get the ball rolling
These are just ideas, I havent approached ANY of these projects yet, but they seem like good places to start the discussion, they still require their own governance vote under the protocol.
Named candidates:
Allnodes — the 2018 template's first signatory — still supports PIVX today and remains the second-largest host of PIVX cold staking. That is precisely the kind of load-bearing relationship that currently exists with no official status at all. The registry exists so relationships this significant are visible and dated, not folklore — and if Allnodes ever seeks formal re-engagement under protocol v2, the door is open.
The point of the registry is exactly this: cooperations should be visible, dated, and revocable — not folklore.
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Budget
10,000 PIV, single installment (~$430 at time of writing — ~2.3% of one monthly budget cycle): domain, hosting, registry build, protocol v2 documentation, 12 months of support. Partners receive no treasury funds; any partner seeking funding files its own proposal.
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Deliverables
Not included: payments to alliance partners (they file their own proposals, if ever), legal advice, or enforcement of any kind beyond the registry's public record.
Success criteria after 12 months
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Questions for the community before this becomes a proposal
Fire away.
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Sources
TL;DR: In January 2018, a scam called AriseBank announced an official "partnership" with PIVX. Its founder went to federal prison. We drafted an Alliance Protocol days later to make sure that could never happen again — it shipped, and it worked very well. This pre-proposal revives it for 2026: a public alliance registry, a vetting framework, and 12 months of support, for 10,000 PIV.
──────────────────────────
The wound — with receipts
In mid-January 2018, AriseBank — a fake "decentralized bank" promising FDIC-insured accounts and Visa crypto cards — published "AriseBank Officially Partners With PIVX" (archived copy). On 30 January 2018 the SEC halted the ICO (SEC press release 2018-8). What followed is on the public record:
| Date | Event | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 30 Jan 2018 | SEC halts the AriseBank ICO | SEC 2018-8 |
| 11 Dec 2018 | Federal court final judgment: Jared Rice Sr. & Stanley Ford permanently enjoined, ~$2.7M ordered | N.D. Tex. 3:18-cv-00186-M |
| Mar 2019 | Rice pleads guilty to one count of securities fraud | Business Insider |
| 25 Aug 2021 | Rice sentenced to 5 years in federal prison; ordered to pay $4,258,073 restitution | Markets Insider |
We couldn't prevent AriseBank using our name, because PIVX had no framework that defined what an official partnership even was — no registry to point to that said "yes, real" or "never was."
──────────────────────────
The cure was drafted 10 days later — then ratified using masternode governance
On 5 February 2018, community members (Crypto S.I + CryptoHB) drafted the PIVX Alliance Protocol. Its core rules:
- An alliance is official only when a specific alliance proposal passes masternode governance
- Every alliance declares its purpose, envoys, deliverables, and duration — max 12 months, renewal by new vote
- A standard vetting template (filled example survives: the 2018 Allnodes alliance, with envoys, scope, risks, and a "no payments either way" clause)
The Alliances LitePaper followed — on why blockchains can't sign contracts, and why governance-ratified public alliances are the honest alternative. Two alliances have passed under this spirit: PIVX + ARK.io (2021) and BlockDX (2022). The framework is sound. It was simply never hosted, maintained, or owned. There were others, Allnodes, Zenzo and more.
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What this proposal builds
- Alliance Registry website — the single public source of truth:
- Active alliances: scope, envoys, start/superblock dates, expiry
- Full history — expiries and renewals, nothing quietly disappears
- Disavowal banner: if a "partner" goes rogue, a review notice goes up immediately — no waiting on a governance cycle. The exact mechanism January 2018 lacked.
- Alliance Protocol v2 — the 2018 protocol, updated:
- Mandatory vetting sheet: legal name, jurisdiction, entity registration, litigation history
- 12-month hard expiry, renewal by fresh proposal (kept from v1)
- One rule eight years of hindsight adds: an alliance is a cooperation instrument — never an endorsement, investment, custody arrangement, or promise of returns
- 12 months of alliance support — intake, vetting reviews, forum stewardship, quarterly status reports to governance.
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Founding cohort — Ideas to get the ball rolling
These are just ideas, I havent approached ANY of these projects yet, but they seem like good places to start the discussion, they still require their own governance vote under the protocol.
Named candidates:
- Mask.ID — pseudonymous identity + reputation layer built on PIVX: a Mask is a self-custodied PIVX wallet; no KYC, fees paid in PIV, no token of its own. See their own Why PIVX? page.
- Vector Privacy — open-source, no-KYC E2EE messenger on a Nostr relay network, with an SDK for community apps. Privacy infrastructure that speaks PIVX's language.
- PIVX.name — shielded name service on PIVX mainnet; the registry lives in the blockchain itself, no custody of keys. (Disclosure: authored by this proposal's author. Will use an independent envoy and abstain from that alliance's vote — or hand the alliance proposal to a separate proposer, per community preference.)
- masternode.space — multi-language masternode hosting & monitoring ("run a masternode without running a server").
Allnodes — the 2018 template's first signatory — still supports PIVX today and remains the second-largest host of PIVX cold staking. That is precisely the kind of load-bearing relationship that currently exists with no official status at all. The registry exists so relationships this significant are visible and dated, not folklore — and if Allnodes ever seeks formal re-engagement under protocol v2, the door is open.
The point of the registry is exactly this: cooperations should be visible, dated, and revocable — not folklore.
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Budget
10,000 PIV, single installment (~$430 at time of writing — ~2.3% of one monthly budget cycle): domain, hosting, registry build, protocol v2 documentation, 12 months of support. Partners receive no treasury funds; any partner seeking funding files its own proposal.
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Deliverables
| # | Deliverable | Specification | Acceptance criteria |
|---|---|---|---|
| D1 | Alliance Registry website | Public site, domain + hosting for 12 months. Registry page per ratified alliance: scope, envoys, start/superblock date, expiry, status. Full archive | Live before the first superblock after funding passes |
| D2 | Disavowal banner system | Any registry entry can carry an under review or disavowed banner: date, rationale, link to evidence thread | Banner live within 48h of a steward/multisig decision — no governance-cycle wait |
| D3 | Alliance Protocol v2 document | The 2018 protocol updated: mandatory vetting sheet (legal name, jurisdiction, litigation history), 12-month hard expiry + renewal rule, no-endorsement clause. Includes the downloadable alliance proposal template — the 2018 ALLnodes template, revived | Published as PDF + public repo, linked from every registry page |
| D4 | Alliance intake & support (12 months) | Processing of incoming alliance applications, envoy coordination, forum thread stewardship | Every application acknowledged within 7 days |
| D5 | Quarterly reports (×4) | Public governance-forum posts: registry status, alliances processed, incidents, disavowals | Delivered months 3 / 6 / 9 / 12 |
| D6 | Open-source + handover | Site repo MIT-licensed; registry data exportable as JSON | Month 12: full data dump + repo handover; renewal proposal or wind-down filed |
Not included: payments to alliance partners (they file their own proposals, if ever), legal advice, or enforcement of any kind beyond the registry's public record.
Success criteria after 12 months
- Registry live and cited in every alliance thread
- 3+ alliances processed through the v2 protocol
- Zero unregistered entities publicly claiming PIVX partnership without a thread pointing the other way
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Questions for the community before this becomes a proposal
- Disavowal banner governance: maintenance multisig, or an elected steward re-approved annually?
- Own-project alliances: independent envoy + author abstention sufficient, or separate proposer required?
- Should expired alliances auto-archive, or must even dormant cooperation renew by vote?
- Should the registry list unofficial, expired, or dissolved alliances (clearly labelled, disavowal-ready), or track only currently-ratified ones?
Fire away.
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Sources
- SEC press release 2018-8 — ICO halt (30 Jan 2018)
- Final judgment, N.D. Tex. 3:18-cv-00186-M (11 Dec 2018)
- Markets Insider — Rice sentenced to 5 years, $4.26M restitution (26 Aug 2021)
- AriseBank × PIVX "partnership" announcement (archived)
- PIVX Alliance Protocol LitePaper (Steemit, immutable)
- PIVX + ARK.io Alliance (2021, passed)
- BlockDX Alliance v1 (2022, passed)