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Dash Core Group Q3 Quarterly Call - 29.10.2020

kot

kot

Moderator
Masternode Owner/Operator
Dear Dash Community Members,

I would like to kindly invite you to the Dash Core Group Q3 Quarterly Call, where we will provide you with the recent updates about the project progress, technology, and business development efforts, made during the last quarter.
We have prepared an update of the work made by DCG, company achievements, and challenges we have faced during Q3.

The call will take place on Thursday, the 29th of October 2020 at 16:00 UTC.
Link to the Youtube live stream:

Please prepare and submit your questions here or send them directly to me or @strophy.
I suggest sending one question per user, as there will be a limited time for the Q&A section.
Please be aware that we might not be able to answer all of the questions submitted before and during the call. In such a case, the remaining questions will be answered later, on the forum.

EDIT: Presentation slides are available in this location: https://dashpay.atlassian.net/wiki/...8550659/DCG-Q3-2020-Quarterly-Call.pdf?api=v2

Thank you,
Robert Wiecko
 
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1) When will DCG hire a CMO who has an extensive marketing background and someone who can represent Dash with passion and excitement to the public?
2) Why doesnt Dash Marketing start a warchest. This has been asked many times by the community but no action taken by CMO Fernando, yet he complains that marketing never has much of a budget and no marketing has been done by DCG for a very long time.
3) Why hasnt Dash marketing been incentivizing the testing of DashPay to get more participants and drum up excitement?
4) Has there been any work done from DCG on a Dash Platform release / marketing plan? - we always ask but never see or hear any concrete details. When will we see information?



Get my drift on why Marketing needs to go in DCG and be replaced with someone who knows what to do....
 
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@Stealth923
Thank you for your questions.
Which one of them should I put on the slide for Q&A section? I will not be able to put all of them, as I expect maybe 10 questions to be answered during the call.
 
Fully agree with Stealth923: " When will DCG hire a CMO who has an extensive marketing background and someone who can represent Dash with passion and excitement to the public?" - asked the same thing over a year ago and was just ignored!
Dash Roadmap needs updating - ends a couple of months from now at end 2020. Any news re what is in the works for next year as well as post Evo?
 
We spent much of our resources to marketing Dash in Venezuela market and we got many good news about opportunities to cooperate there. However, number of transactions seem no change in many months. Compare with Litecoin, distance of average number of transactions between Dash and Litecoin is becoming larger. I suspect about real number of transactions in Venezuela.

D1FCFA24-95B0-4ECA-B0C6-617A6E194E3F.jpeg


In the mean time, Dash Evolution still doesn’t have a specific date to release.

Moreover, Dash community seems losing many enthusiastic members.

My question is What do you define our market? Our users? And the needs that Dash should satisfy?
 
bhkien said:
We spent much of our resources to marketing Dash in Venezuela market and we got many good news about opportunities to cooperate there. However, number of transactions seem no change in many months. Compare with Litecoin, distance of average number of transactions between Dash and Litecoin is becoming larger. I suspect about real number of transactions in Venezuela.

View attachment 10390

In the mean time, Dash Evolution still doesn’t have a specific date to release.

Moreover, Dash community seems losing many enthusiastic members.

My question is What do you define our market? Our users? And the needs that Dash should satisfy?
Click to expand...

I think you'll find that recent spike is a game storing every move on-chain, thus hiding the real number of financial transactions. That's why Dash Platform is using a separate chain, to ring-fence and protect financial transactions. Just wait 'til you see the activity on Dash Platform, it will wipe the floor of all litecoin transactions.
 
Question 1: Why have we not set a budget aside for a person with real world sales and marketing experience? This is the most important skill set that has been missing from the Dash project since the start and the project has suffered because of it. I do not mean people that worked for large corporate organisations. I mean someone that has been through the trenches of thousands of face to face sales interviews to learn what makes effective sales communication. Effective marketeers build their skills first in sales and then they move on to marketing to apply their skills to mass media - which is marketing. The Dash project needs someone with *real world* sales and marketing experience to know how to showcase Dash's values and connect these values with the needs of our users. We need to show the user how using Dash will enable them to achieve their goals, in effect to show how the customer can become the hero in their own lives. Therefore why have we not set a budget for such a person to work with DCG?


Other supporting information:
Dash values connecting with people's needs has to be woven into all communications to be effective. That means Press releases, video series, educational programs, social media posts, interviews all need to be vetted by this person before release.

People do not become inspired by features - yet that is all we have been presenting and as a result the Dash project keeps slipping even though we have the best tech in the crypto space.

Take a look at these short ad clips for Apple, Nike and Virgin. You will see that the emphasis of these videos is on what the brand enables the user to achieve. It is about the values of their company. What they stand for. This is what inspires people. This is what makes people feel that they want to be associated with what the brand stands for.

Nike:

Apple:

Virign and Usain Bolt

The ads above are inspirational because they encapsulate the values of the brand and help the customer to see that using the brand makes them the hero. They show how the brand helps them to realise their goals. The ads above don't once talk about the features of the brand they focus completely on the values of the brand and links them to the customer achieving their goals.

I understand the videos and press releases we create are instructional but these videos and press releases could be both instruction and inspirational. They could have highlighted our values and shown how using DASH could help our users realise their goals. Currently our communications are focused on features, in other words boring, uninspiring and messages nobody really wants to listen to because they don't connect with the users needs.

I wrote an article on the forum about Dash Values:


The post was aiming to identify and clarify Dash's core values. The importance of knowing our values cannot be underestimated in marketing because these need to be woven into every interview, every press release every video presentation.

Are we going to continue to sell features and boring tech which do not inspire anyone other than some computer geek? or are we going to start highlighting what DASH stands for and how it makes our customers realise their goals and dreams?

It does not matter how good our tech is. Without the ability to present Dash in a way that inspires and connects our target audience Dash will continue to be ignored.
 
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Stealth923 said:
I would like all the questions answered.
Click to expand...

It is a perfectly reasonably request from kot to select 1 question to be answered during the call and the rest of your questions to be answered in writing later on.
You are not the only one having questions after all.

Please prepare and submit your questions here or send them directly to me or @strophy.
I suggest sending one question per user, as there will be a limited time for the Q&A section.
Click to expand...
 
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Question: There are online research sources that investors use to make decisions about which crypto coins to invest in. Some of these channels show Dash to be a poor investment due to inaccurate information (example given below in supporting information). Will someone at DCG or Dashpressroom be responsible for periodically and systematically checking these essential investor information sources to make sure that they remain accurate and up to date so that investors are making decisions based on reliable information?


Supporting information:
I made a post in the forum about this issue which you can review here:


At the time I made the forum post cryptomiso had Dash ranked at 88th in terms of coding activity and it had been like that for many years. However I notice, after my post at the forum the Dash position changed to what it is now which is position 38th. Presumably someone corrected our information. But the previous data was inaccurate for several years - meaning nobody appears to be keeping an eye on these investor online research resources. I also notice however that cryptomiso still has Dash described as a "Privacy -Focus Bitcoin Clone" which I don't think fits with our current narrative since we have substantially moved away from Bitcoin code base and we are focused on payments i.e. an "Ultra Fast, Near Zero Fees Payments Platform"

The investor research sites include

LunarCrush: https://lunarcrush.com

Messari: https://messari.io

Glassnode: https://glassnode.com

Skew: https://skew.com

Santiment: https://santiment.net

CoinGecko: https://www.coingecko.com/en

CryptoPanic: https://cryptopanic.com

Coinmarketcal: https://coinmarketcal.com/en/

CryptoMiso: https://www.cryptomiso.com

Coin Dance: https://coin.dance/
 
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Question on scaling of Dash.
1. What are the maximum number of transactions that Dash currently can process reliably?
2. What are the maximum number of transactions that were demonstrated that Dash could handle per second if we wanted to e.g. increasing the block size?
3. Is there a scaling with issue with Dash?
4. How does Dash compare to Visa in terms of transactions per second?
5. What actual demonstrable evidence can we use to prove that Dash is a scaleable solution and what number of transactions per second can we scale to?

We need to address this scaleable issue in our communications because it is a barrier to Dash being seeing as a viable long term payments solution.

Supporting information:
There is the perception by investors that Dash is not a scaleable solution e.g. in coinbureau's recent video on Dash he made a point of saying that Dash can only handle 56 transactions per second and will need to solve the scaling issue if it is to compete with Visa which can handle around 1700 transactions per second.

Coinbureau's recent review of Dash (see time code 11.09 for transaction speed of Dash Vs Visa)

Other bitcoin based coins such as BSV claim they can scale up to millions of transactions per second by simply increasing the block size to Gigabyte blocks. If BSV can do this why can't Dash?
 
The Dash Platform should get a decent marketing funding before it is released to the main network.

Why not take a residual budget every month for marketing, either as a proposal or automatically?

Thanks, AjM.
 
With the recent github take-downs of applications like youtube-dl, it's only a matter of time that coin mixing technology - e.g. Dash Desktop Wallet - is also taken down. I'm assuming Dash Core has a backup plan but it seems to me Dash Platform is the perfect opportunity to Eat Your Own Dog Food by moving all development code and docs to Dash Platform. This would, of course, be extremely valuable, not just to dash but to many other open source projects facing a similar dilemma. To what extent has this been discussed and prioritized?

Here's the relevant link citing DMCA, and keep in mind youtube-dl is a multi-purpose tool used for other sites and file types:

 
Will the next imminent decision proposal from Dash Core Group that focus on changing the Dash budget system, be pre-discussed on the Dash forums (DashPay Reddit, Dash.org/forum, Dash Nation Discord), before the decision proposal gets launched on the network ?

So far feedback seems to have been collected from the DashTalk Discord only, other official Dash sources for gathering feedback seems to have been largely ignored. This undermines the guidelines from Dash Core Group itself (from strophy), with regards to proposals and the need to gather feedback through pre-discussion on several official Dash channels at the same time.

Run a pre-proposal discussion

Get feedback from the community before you post your proposal to the blockchain. A discussion period of around two weeks will help you find out if someone has proposed something similar in the past, and whether it succeeded or failed. There are pre-proposal channels on the forum and Dash Nation Discord, and Reddit also attracts a lot of views - consider the discussion on these channels to be the research phase of your proposal. Later, you can post a link to the forum discussion when your proposal goes live to show you are including community feedback in your work.
Click to expand...

Source : https://www.dash.org/forum/threads/8-steps-to-a-successful-proposal.18377/

I feel these guidelines are particularly important, when doing a decision proposal / polling proposal of the network.
The possible risk of delay should never outweigh the need to have a proper pre-discussion phase, to collect as much feedback from the Dash community as possible.
 
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What is the vision for Dash? Why should we be excited, and in turn make others excited? What does Dash represent?

We need to focus on the answers to these questions and rally around a campaign to hammer this message home. Currently, we are not inspiring many people, even I, as one of the most vocal and hard-working community members, am losing a reason to want to keep going.
 
Question: Can we consider investing in more clearly defining the Dash Brand, what we stand? There are companies that specialise in clarifying and helping identify an organizations core values and what we stand for. This information is very important to maintain enthusiasm and for us to more clearly know what Dash is about.


Supporting information I feel Evo has been delayed for so many years. Where is the inspiration for the project? No agreements on when it will be launched. No deadlines and even if there were we know that they aren't kept. It feels very disheartening. And even if Evolution was released So what? What then? We have usernames, a platform and a decentralized cloud ... and? so what? What is inspirational about that?

I have to agree with @TaoOfSatoshi and fits with what I've been attempting in my form posts to do which is define what does Dash stands for i.e. what are Dash's values? what do we stand for? What is Dash's key markets? Who is our target customer?

I feel we need to do a reassessment about what the Dash Brand is all about. There are firms which will work to define and clearly identify what a brand stands for. I tried to do this in the following post



But I have very limiting experience in brand building. I know however values are very important to a project and these need to identified and woven into the fabric of what Dash is about along with all our communications.

Stating a tag line . "Financial freedom for everyone" this is so broad that I don't know if it really means much. I don't seem to feel motivated even though it sounds a noble cause.

Where I feel motivated is to see the real benefits that Dash can bring to solving real world payment problems for people who have no option like those in Venezuela. It is very rewarding to see people who had no hope but now having some hope - all down to Dash. I have worked to support the Dash Mall Parking team and I find that inspirational. To know we are making a difference there all be it on a small scale. But we are not focused on it and the team are working with a minuscule budget. It seems weird to me that our target market does not get more focus from the Dash entire community to make it happen in Venezuela. The problem is that Dash has so diluted its objectives that I feel we are not focused enough on projects that really matter like Venezuela where Dash has a real chance to make a huge difference to the entire country and to set an example of what can be done in other countries such as Argentina. I would like to see a multifaceted approach to getting Dash established in Venezuela as the leading payment solution. We must overcome barriers e.g. making payment simple enough for anyone to use, even without a smart phone e.g. with the tap and pay cards. We need focus. We need to get some successes under our belt. Venezuela is the place to start in my opinion.

Dash also needs to be a stronger store of value than it is right now. I feel we have the payments moving along but the store of value is still not that great, unlike Bitcoin which has proven to be a great store of value - in fact more than a good store of value it is an appreciating store of value. What Bitcoin lacks however is the speed and efficiency of fast payments that Dash has. So we lack the store of value and Bitcoin lack the payments? Could it be that we could find a way to work together in some way to build the perfect money solution for countries with distressed currencies? - store of value plus Dash instant spending? Some form of atomic swapping between Bitcoin and Dash? Bitcoin also needs to do something itself. DeFi is taking off and Bitcoin needs to be more than just a store of value if it is to thrive.

Dash needs to be there when people don't have a viable alternative - like in Venezuela. We can solve the currency problem in Venezuela. It's a small country of only 30 Million people, Now only 26 million. Some people believe in diversifying but actually that leads to a lack of focus. Sometimes you just have to take a chance and put all your energy into making something worthwhile happen. If we took all our resources and all the community worked together to get Dash established in Venezuela I think we could do it. We could alleviate the suffering of 30 million people. Now that would be a cause worth the risk and something I would be motivated about.
 
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@kot - Please use this as my first question to be asked during the call
1) When will DCG hire a CMO who has an extensive marketing background and someone who can represent Dash with passion and excitement to the public?

I expect the others will be answered in writing post call
 
@Ryan Taylor

Today, both their attempt to strengthen DASH as a store of value and their incorporation into the DIF (a key extension in the DASH ecosystem that the new team will surely continue to consolidate) converge.

Question : Have you considered a treatment closer to the DIF box as STRATEGIC RESERVES of the entire DASH ecosystem? (Rather than simply as investment-oriented "savings"), thus shifting accumulated DASH to BTC? (and, therefore, subjecting our deposited wealth to the respective volatilities and trends of BTC and the Gold already used in that sense ... to separate them from the negative conditions that our main asset suffers?).

In that way, we would face two problems, not just one.

Thank you.
 
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kot said:
Which one of them should I put on the slide for Q&A section? I will not be able to put all of them, as I expect maybe 10 questions to be answered during the call.
Click to expand...



Question: Could DCG management find a way to commit to just 1 extra day to answer all questions posted by the community in the DCG call questions? This would not only help community members gain confidence but also be excellent PR marketing material to post on the Dash youtube channel. If community members have these questions so will investors. It would be most effective if we could also see the people answering the questions. This helps give a "human" face to the Dash project. Currently the DCG quarterly call is invariably without showing faces of the DCG members. This is OK for the presentation for showing the slides however the questions section affords an ideal opportunity to build a human connection with the community and the investors. The questions section could be in separate videos as explained below. Dash does not have a leader for the project, who answers questions about the project, unlike many other coins do.

Text answers to questions do not have anywhere near the same confidence building effect and investors most likely are not reading written answers buried in blog posts. Video answers showing the participants faces helps to build trust with investors because they can see real people are behind the project and start to build a relationship with the project.

Supporting information

Questions lead to doubts. Doubts lead to loss of confidence, loss of confidence leads to lack of trust, lack of trust leads to lack of investment.

DCG receive approximately 600K every 3 months and only have one DCG presentation during this period for that quantity of investment I think it reasonable to at least answer all questions and not limit it to just 10. These answers are valuable assets to increase investment in Dash through increasing confidence in the project. If DCG had someone who had real world success in sales and marketing you would realise the great value of questions posted by the community as a marketing opportunity. We want people to object and object and object and then for those doubts to be answered in videos with real people present. This is one of the best marketing opportunities that exists for Dash. To limit to only 10 questions and to answer the rest in text answers is simply throwing away valuable marketing opportunity.

I would suggest one short video approx 1 to 2 minutes long answers each question. This way the youtube search algorithm will also pick up these answers and we will get additional traffic from youtube search for the keywords. e.g.

"Can Dash crypto compete with Visa for numbers of transactions per second"?
 
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