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Pre-proposal: Hackathon Sponsorship & Dash Giveaway

arjunyg

New member
Hi all,
I'm a little new to the Dash forums, but I hope you all like this proposal, and I would greatly appreciate feedback on how to make this viable.

I am proposing to have Dash sponsor a collegiate hackathon in my area. For those of you unfamiliar, a hackathon is an event where a group of individuals gather for 24-48 hours to build projects from start to finish to be submitted for judging and prizes. Hackathon events are typically free to attend, with all necessary transportation, venues, chairs, tables, food, electricity, etc. funded by sponsors. Typically sponsors are tech companies that use the opportunity to circulate their brand with students, to seek out hiring candidates, and to encourage innovation. Frequently, sponsors also offer prizes for the best use of their API/technology/platform (eg. IBM might offer a prize for the best use of their cloud services).

In particular, I would like Dash to sponsor CruzHacks (formerly HackUCSC) at the University of California, Santa Cruz in late January. Alternatively, we could sponsor SF Hacks in March, if the CruzHacks timeline is too aggressive. CruzHacks is an ideal candidate for sponsorship because they are going into their 5th annual event, and are well established with great and growing attendance (600+ students two years ago, 700+ last year). As a hackathon aimed at computer science and engineering college students, this event provides an excellent opportunity to encourage development of products and applications with the Dash payment system.

I propose to sponsor a 2.5 Dash prize for the team that creates the best product that adds value to the Dash ecosystem. This will encourage attendees to create products for Dash, resulting in numerous new Dash applications. Furthermore, I propose to give away 0.01 Dash to each an every attendee that installs the Dash wallet to promote the use of Dash in the college community. I also propose to purchase T-shirts with the Dash logo (from Custom Ink, or the likes) to give away as further advertising of the Dash brand.

To become a sponsor, I will reach out to the CruzHacks team and arrange logistical details. For 2500 USD (~2.4 Dash), CruzHacks offers sponsors a table at the event, to allow sponsors to interact with students, the placement of the sponsor's logo on the official CruzHacks T-shirt (given free to every attendee), and the opportunity to run a prize contest.

Personnel
Now that I've laid out the basic plan, I would like to take a minute to introduce myself. My name is Arjun Govindjee, and I am a third year computer science and computer engineering student (double major) at the University of California, Santa Cruz. I have been loosely involved in the cryptocurrency scene since around 2012, when I was primarily interested in the technology behind Bitcoin and the political implications of decentralized governance (first of monetary policy, now of anything via DAOs). I became involved via GPU, and later, ASIC mining (hobbyist stuff, not sitting on millions in Bitcoin profits :p), and have followed the technology ever since. I have educational backgrounds in mathematics, cryptography, and computer science that led me to my continued interest in cryptocurrencies and the change that they can bring to the world.

As for my relation to the hackathon scene, I have mentored at four hackathons: HackingEdu, CalHacks 3, CalHacks 4, and HackUCSC (renamed CruzHacks). These experiences have brought me in contact with organizers for all of these events, and make me a good candidate to organize a Dash sponsorship for one or more hackathons.

To orchestrate the giveaway of T-shirts and Dash, I will need some assistants to handle the high volume of students. I propose to hire 3 engineering students from UC Santa Cruz for 0.2 Dash each. These students will assist throughout the hackathon with logistical matters, such as transporting T-shirts and distributing Dash and T-shirts to attendees. This will occur over the 36 hour hackathon minus time for breaks and the arranged speeches.

Budget for 800 anticipated attendees:
Budgeted DASH/USD price of $800

Giveaway 0.01 Dash per person: 8 Dash
Misc. printing costs for tabling materials (posters, flyers, etc.): 0.6 Dash
CruzHacks sponsor fee: 3.13 Dash
Best Dash project prize: 2.5 Dash
T-shirt printing costs (650 Hanes Cotton T-shirts with Dash logo from Custom Ink): 4.3 Dash
3 staff assistants: 0.6 Dash
1 month sponsorship organizer's salary: 2 Dash

Dash Proposal Fee: 5 Dash
Investor returns: 5 Dash

I am looking for investors who would be willing to contribute towards the proposal fee for this project. I personally cannot afford to put forward any meaningful amount towards the fee, and would appreciate it greatly if the community could contribute towards this. I have added an extra 5 Dash to the budget, such that if the proposal passes the vote, any investor who contributed towards the initial fee will receive back twice their investment.

Total Budget = 31.13 Dash

Future Work

If this first hackathon sponsorship is a success, I would like to run another proposal to sponsor a handful of larger hackathons next Fall, or even create an ongoing hackathon sponsorship proposal. CalHacks and LA Hacks are both ideal candidates for sponsorship, as they draw thousands of attendees, and will result in incredible exposure for Dash, as well as likely some extremely high value student projects in return.

Thank you for your consideration.
Sincerely,
Arjun Govindjee
 
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Investor returns: 5 Dash
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Hmm... what's this? Are you proposing to pay 10 DASH (5 fee + 5 return) back to anyone giving you 5 Dash to submit your proposal? If so, it is a nice hack for the way to use Treasury system - find smaller investors, convince and incentivize them to submit your proposal to a larger one (Treasury). Smart move, I like that :)
 
Hmm... what's this? Are you proposing to pay 10 DASH (5 fee + 5 return) back to anyone giving you 5 Dash to submit your proposal? If so, it is a nice hack for the way to use Treasury system - find smaller investors, convince and incentivize them to submit your proposal to a larger one (Treasury). Smart move, I like that :)

Yeah that's more or less what I was suggesting. If 5 people give me 1 Dash, I would give them each back 2 Dash, etc.
While I personally think this is kind of a waste of treasury funds, the budget is well over half empty, so who cares, as long as it gets the job done and brings about a project for the Dash community that would otherwise be impossible. In the future I may be able to fund my own proposal fees, but this seems like a reasonable way of gaining support.

To those thinking "why the hell would I give you 5 grand and just let you run away with it..." I would like to remind them that if the proposal passes I would gain a lot more money to run away with, so I really have no incentive to spend your investment on anything other than the proposal. As for the possibility of me running away with the proposal funds, I have seen of a variety of escrow services that could be used to ensure that the investors get their funds back. If anyone has any specific suggestions on that front, I'm all ears.

Anyway, to reiterate, I am looking for people willing to give me between 0 and 5 Dash as soon as possible. You will get double your Dash back as soon if the proposal passes. I will post again here once I have received sufficient funding, and if anyone sends me Dash after I have received 5, I will simply return the original amount (investment is first come first serve). Please PM me the address you are sending from, and a preferred return payment address, if you decide to invest. Also feel free to PM me with any questions. Thank you!

Address: XrLGrjgugsKUkR8n8HVFLnjzch2Xum2CTg

Edit: Finally got my 3 posts in, so the address is a link now.
 
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Yeah that's more or less what I was suggesting. If 5 people give me 1 Dash, I would give them each back 2 Dash, etc.
While I personally think this is kind of a waste of treasury funds, the budget is well over half empty, so who cares, as long as it gets the job done and brings about a project for the Dash community that would otherwise be impossible. In the future I may be able to fund my own proposal fees, but this seems like a reasonable way of gaining support.
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I don't see it as a waste of Treasury funds at all, imo it a legitimate use. I see it as an ICO-ish thing where payout is done via native token and I think it's a brilliant idea to incentivize small investors to (kind of) validate proposals this way.
 
I don't see it as a waste of Treasury funds at all, imo it a legitimate use. I see it as an ICO-ish thing where payout is done via native token and I think it's a brilliant idea to incentivize small investors to (kind of) validate proposals this way.

I totally agree for the time being, which is why I put it in my proposal. However, it is definitely the case that at scale, we will want larger budget proposals to reduce the ratio of burned proposal fees to true value-creating expenditures.
 
To those thinking "why the hell would I give you 5 grand and just let you run away with it..." I would like to remind them that if the proposal passes I would gain a lot more money to run away with, so I really have no incentive to spend your investment on anything other than the proposal. As for the possibility of me running away with the proposal funds, I have seen of a variety of escrow services that could be used to ensure that the investors get their funds back. If anyone has any specific suggestions on that front, I'm all ears.
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Crypto is about to build trust-less systems. Your whole idea relies on trust!
You should use a smart contract (ex. ethereum). This is the trustless way of doing these things. Write the smart contract code for it:
if (my proposal passes) then pay 2 dash to demo who invested at me.

But wait, Dash does not support smart contracts! So better go to a smart contract enable crypto to sell you idea. Here in Dash, and in the absence of smart contracts technology, you may be a scammer. Most of the systems that rely on trust are scam. This is what satoshi nakamoto taught us.

Read about smart contracts, then come back.
 
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Crypto is about to build trust-less systems. You whole idea relies on trust!
You should use a smart contract (ethereum style). This is the trusteless way fo doing things.
But wait, Dash does not support smart contracts! So go to a smart contract enable crypto to sell you idea.
Over here, and in the absence of smart contracts technology, you may be a scammer.

Couldn't agree more. But reality is reality, so you'll just have to trust me and hope that if I'm a thief, I'm at least a reasonably rational one.
Perhaps, now that I've reached the minimum post count, a link to my LinkedIn would lend a little more credibility. It shouldn't be too difficult for you guys to verify my identity from that. I stuck a mention of this proposal in the bio at the top to prove its me (may have to click "show more" to see it). It wouldn't look too great for my future career if a half dozen people on a publicly searchable forum claim that I stole their money, now would it?
https://www.linkedin.com/in/arjunyg/
 
Couldn't agree more. But reality is reality, so you'll just have to trust me and hope that if I'm a thief, I'm at least a reasonably rational one.

Wait . There is a hope. Bitcoin's script language may be used for smart contracts.
https://medium.com/@maraoz/smart-contracts-and-bitcoin-a5d61011d9b1


OP_IF
<expiry time> OP_CHECKLOCKTIMEVERIFY OP_DROP
<consumer pubkey> OP_CHECKSIG
OP_ELSE
OP_0 2 <consumer pubkey> <provider pubkey> 2 OP_CHECKMULTISIG
OP_END

The consumer is the one that sends funds into this contract, opening the payment channel. The code has two separate branches of execution.

One is only valid after a certain time has passed (expressed in the expiry time parameter), and requires only the consumer’s signature. This corresponds to the refund clause of the contract, and is what makes it safe for the consumer. If the provider fails to collaborate, or disappears, the consumer only needs to wait until the expiry time, and can claim the funds back. No risk.

more read:
http://davidederosa.com/basic-blockchain-programming/bitcoin-script-language-part-one/
https://github.com/bitcoinbook/bitcoinbook/blob/second_edition/ch07.asciidoc
https://medium.com/@maraoz/smart-contracts-and-bitcoin-a5d61011d9b1
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Contract
https://bitcointechtalk.com/what-is-a-bitcoin-merklized-abstract-syntax-tree-mast-33fdf2da5e2f
http://bitfury.com/content/5-white-papers-research/contracts-1.1.1.pdf
https://eprint.iacr.org/2013/784
 
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So if you want I give you some Dash, write a bitcoin script for it.

For example, why do you expect me to trust you, and you do not require you to trust me?
Put some dash in your wallet, lock them until an expiration time, and lets reverse the trust. You should trust me that I will not take back the dash I gave you, in case the proposal fails. We all know when a proposal fails or succeeds, this is where the expiry_time script parameter applies.

One is only valid after a certain time has passed (expressed in the expiry time parameter), and requires only the consumer’s signature. This corresponds to the refund clause of the contract, and is what makes it safe for the consumer. If the provider fails to collaborate, or disappears, the consumer only needs to wait until the expiry time, and can claim the funds back. No risk.
 
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Yes, I am familiar with this. It is the method used to implement cross-chain atomic swaps between various "dumber" currencies (relative to Ethereum).

The point of this is to raise funds that I do not have. I cannot put 5 Dash in a wallet, because I don't have $5K lying around. I'm not sure I fully understood your second post.

Regarding the script design, I think it would be challenging/impossible to design this. The contract we need is for you to give me 5 Dash, and then for me to be able to guarantee you payment from the funds given by the treasury, if I get it. If we could predict the TX hash (???), I could write and sign a transaction sending you your 10 Dash from the future payment of treasury funds. But I don't know that that is possible.
 
I like the idea of your project and that you "hacked" the pre-proposal idea with an offer to double down the initial funding if your proposal passes. Please round up to whole numbers and don't use fractions in the final proposal amount, I will lend you the 5 DASH for your proposal and I will hold escrow if others will feel better voting yes since you are a newer member of the community, This would be a great project to have going on in the bay area and after speaking with you I do not feel it is required to escrow 32 DASH.

Please post your updated budget and I will either submit your budget request for you or lend you 5 DASH to put this up for voting ASAP so you can start planning.
 
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