It's funny you should mention that, because when I was looking into the transactions to try to understand the LBRY blockchain, I did see what I believe to be evidence of exactly this.
Specifically, here is what appears to be Odysee/LBRY staff donating 2000 LBC (and another separate transaction of 100 LBC not pictured) to Ethan using the wallet bHi3b7diCyKSiCNvKSNQsMnbmvwS2MV7Sf:
View attachment 1998976
https://explorer.lbry.com/tx/56757f...Nngod7uKhU#bJke1hUZdNGS7c7r3xXyXBZnNngod7uKhU
(the bottom transaction where the wallet is sending coin back to itself seems to be how the LBRY blockchain handles change, but I'm far from a blockchain expert so maybe
@CrunkLord420 can weigh in)
This 2000 LBC was sent to a wallet associated with @theralphretort on Odysee, bJke1hUZdNGS7c7r3xXyXBZnNngod7uKhU, and was then sent forward to the bYwaDEmBruqupqxoWYi7KkUV7iUReoFNr2 wallet Ethan currently uses. Here is the transaction showing that bJke1hUZdNGS7c7r3xXyXBZnNngod7uKhU is associated with Ethan's Odysee account:
View attachment 1998975
View attachment 1998974
Here is the transaction sending forward the 2000 LBC plus anything else lying around in that wallet to the wallet we know to be Ethan's (the full image is too large to post on this site due to image size limits):
View attachment 1998973
And here is Ethan's known wallet showing the transaction came in and he has the 2000 LBC originating from bHi3b7diCyKSiCNvKSNQsMnbmvwS2MV7Sf:
View attachment 1998971
We can see that the source of the 2000 LBC is from LBRY staff because staffer
Tom Zarebcyan used this wallet address, bHi3b7diCyKSiCNvKSNQsMnbmvwS2MV7Sf, in sample code he wrote last year and posted on LBRY's official support forum:
View attachment 1998970
https://forum.lbry.tech/t/how-to-sign-in-and-upload-video-using-the-lbry-sdk/312/2 (
archive)
This address is also listed as the #166th wealthiest wallet on the blockchain:
View attachment 1998967
https://explorer.lbry.com/stats?_ga=2.130205964.220125991.1590503633-15831098.1590503633 (
archive)
Due to the huge amount of transactions it has processed, it is likely an official institutional LBRY/Odysee account of some sort, likely shared among staff, so I am not accusing Zarebcyan of personally associating with Ethan since I don't have any reason to believe that's the case. This address is definitely some sort of official dummy/test account that has seemingly been used to contribute several hundred USD worth of LBC to Ethan, however, and we should keep an eye on it moving forward.
There is no actual malfeasance here, as far as I can tell, but definitely what appears to be a terminal case of guntguarding.
Please tell me if anything in this analysis is wrong and I will correct it as soon as I can as there are a lot of moving parts in here and I want to be sure everything is nailed down tightly.