How to onboard 300,000 new users in one geographic location

[GrandMasterDash]

Sponsorship for the trip? My budget is looking like $2500. If my vlogging rig gets stolen, $3700.

EDIT: And in return I'm fully willing to say the videos are sponsored by someone. I can produce a set of videos in a certain style, I can talk to certain people, or whatever. I pitched it to DFN as them sending a reporter to a refugee crisis that both nation-states and the non-profit sector are dropping the ball on (mostly true). We can frame it that way to show off how Dash can roll in as a stateless institution to fill a desperately needed role.

Let me know how it goes with DFN. If it falls through, am willing to donate a little towards this trip.

 

[DavidHay]

How do you calculate a budget of $2500 for 3 days in Cucuta?

I'm flying from the US and my budget is less than that.

 

[George Donnelly]

How do you calculate a budget of $2500 for 3 days in Cucuta?

I'm flying from the US and my budget is less than that.

My budget includes flights (Medellín > Cúcuta > Bogota > Medellín, secure hotel, transportation to and from airports and within Cúcuta, money to pay migrants for interviews, money to cover the expenses of a second (or third) person / security / driver depending on what I am able to arrange (I have to take care of my personal security and may be able to bring a local indie journalist or videographer), some other possibilities I'm not ready to go into and a cushion.

I might be able to do the whole thing on a shoestring at $750 by myself, risking my safety, or it might go as high as $2500 if I can bring along other professionals who could add a lot of value to the endeavor.

It is better to ask for a little more than I need because it's less problematic to come in under budget than it is to come in over budget. It's also better to be prepared because anything can happen when traveling, especially to an area as chaotic with as high a crime rate as Cúcuta right now.

I'm willing to provide a detailed accounting to interested parties who feel I can add some value to what they're already doing. The budget and plan are still evolving and I am looking for collaborators to work on this with.

Hope that answers your question, David.

 

[DavidHay]

My budget includes flights (Medellín > Cúcuta > Bogota > Medellín, secure hotel, transportation to and from airports and within Cúcuta, money to pay migrants for interviews, money to cover the expenses of a second (or third) person / security / driver depending on what I am able to arrange (I have to take care of my personal security and may be able to bring a local indie journalist or videographer), some other possibilities I'm not ready to go into and a cushion.

I might be able to do the whole thing on a shoestring at $750 by myself, risking my safety, or it might go as high as $2500 if I can bring along other professionals who could add a lot of value to the endeavor.

It is better to ask for a little more than I need because it's less problematic to come in under budget than it is to come in over budget. It's also better to be prepared because anything can happen when traveling, especially to an area as chaotic with as high a crime rate as Cúcuta right now.

I'm willing to provide a detailed accounting to interested parties who feel I can add some value to what they're already doing. The budget and plan are still evolving and I am looking for collaborators to work on this with.

Hope that answers your question, David.

Thanks for the update. I wasn't trying to be critical, I was worried why my budget was so low.

 

[AlejandroE]

A couple other benefits that come to mind:

- The Venezuelans here (I'm in Medellín) are more stable and settled. They're less likely to move on, as the economy here is better than elsewhere. IOW, they came to Medellín for a reason and are not just passing through (like in Cúcuta). With a stable group of people, we can build a more stable Dash community. Let's say there's an initial trial for 1,000 families. We now have 1,000 families who have an incentive to work together to spread adoption of Dash, especially to merchants. These folks are getting jobs in the local economy and can influence their employers. In fact, we can employ some of them to be full-time merchant liaisons. Dress them in Dash vests, produce Dash adoption materials, and we can visit tens of thousands of merchants, have merchant conferences, teach merchants en masse - because I can assure you the merchants here are very business-oriented and are thirsty for an opportunity like Dash.

- We can do better follow-up with the recipients to see how they used their crypto, learn from this and adjust our next trial for greater success. Whereas Venezuelans in Cúcuta, a lot just move through to other cities in Latam and a lot are coming back and forth over the border irregularly. The Venezuelans in Medellín are more stable and settled.

- Sadly, the Venezuelan migrants are not always being well-received by the Colombians. There is a lot of distrust. In Cúcuta that means that associating Dash with the migrants could mean greater difficulty for merchant adoption as well as once the crisis passes, merchants may forget about Dash. In Medellín, however, where there is more societal trust right now, putting Dash into the hands of migrants could build bridges if we get the merchants to recognize the value of Dash first. IOW in Cúcuta, we're asking the merchants to accept a new digital currency from distrusted migrants whereas in Medellín we get the merchants to see the value and then the migrants bring that valuable something to the merchants. I don't know. Maybe.

- Cúcuta is in a state of chaos according to my friend at the UN and news reports. Medellín is a lot more well-organized. Stability is good because people pay more attention, people have more time for new things.

- The Venezuelans in Cúcuta sadly are in a desperate state, and I think it's going to be a great challenge for them to not cash their crypto out to Colombian Pesos right away. The Venezuelans in Medellín (I'm in touch with a bunch of them) are considerably less desperate. I think we'll have an easier job getting them to see the bigger picture, so we can build a crypto economy here. Because if beneficiaries just cash their Dash out at as soon as they get it, all we have done is implement an expensive refugee voucher program. We can and must do a lot better than that.

I agree with George and Eugenia. Medellin could be a great place for this project for all the reasons he has mentioned.

Besides integrating merchants to Dash, if this plan is going to be made in Medellin, another thing that could be very very interesting to do is promoting Dash as way of sending remittances. Right now we (Dash Help Venezuela) are working in a remittances guide called "Send Money Home" (picture below), because we know that many Venezuelans living overseas want to send money to their families in Venezuela but they dont have a easy/fast/secure/cheap way to do it. Dash is the PERFECT solution for this because, people can send Dash to their families in Venezuela and then they can spend it here or exchange it for Bolivares.

In this way we would make the Dash flows and people will use it. I know this is a different approach for the project but I think it will add value for Dash. Let me know your opinion and also I would like the feedback from the community.

Cheers!

 

[George Donnelly]

I agree with George and Eugenia. Medellin could be a great place for this project for all the reasons he has mentioned.

Besides integrating merchants to Dash, if this plan is going to be made in Medellin, another thing that could be very very interesting to do is promoting Dash as way of sending remittances. Right now we (Dash Help Venezuela) are working in a remittances guide called "Send Money Home" (picture below), because we know that many Venezuelans living overseas want to send money to their families in Venezuela but they dont have a easy/fast/secure/cheap way to do it. Dash is the PERFECT solution for this because, people they can send Dash to their families in Venezuela and then they can spend them here or exchange it for Bolivares.

In this way we would make the Dash flows and people will use it. I know this is a different approach for the project but I think it will add value for Dash. Let me know your opinion and also I would like the feedback from the community.

This is a great idea. Right now I know people who are receiving cash from abroad via Western Union, red-tapified bank transfers, that ilk. Ugh. That, and there is a huge amount of internal remittance that happens, via companies like Efecty. Wonderful idea. I hadn't considered that.

 

[pmckenna12]

Reading the ideas here, this is really exciting. It could be great for crypto while at the same time offering a real solution to many people!

But if we want to let this known to the world, maybe there's also a place for Strike Social in this? @pmckenna12

Let's promote it!

 

[George Donnelly]

Another datapoint that comes to mind is that the Cúcuta government and the people of Cúcuta are desperate to reduce the number of Venezuelans in the area. An influx of 200,000 to 300,000 for a town of 650,000 is quite a challenge, not to mention that 50,000 new people are crossing the border every day. Most of these 50K return to Venezuela at the end of the day but they still swell the city during the day and stress public infrastructure, not to mention putting downward pressure on wages.

Therefore, we may find greater cooperation from GOC if our aid encourages Venezuelans to leave Cúcuta, or least not stay longer than necessary.

That said, Cúcuta is a great place for interacting with Venezuelans still resident in Venezuela, without actually sending people into Venezuela.

Perhaps we need a project in Cúcuta and a project in Medellín or Bogota?

 

[Argon31]

@DavidHay I like the concept but I have many reservations about your style of functioning and suitability to lead this proposal.

You are pitching getting 300000 setup with a wallet in a place you have actually never been. This is a red flag
This can easily be tried out with a 2000 people first, but you are unwilling to put in the hard work without the whole amount commited

$4 might go a long way in caracas but is less than a few hours of work in colombia.
Since you are proposing to do this in colombia, practically this project makes much less sense.

Venezvuelens in colombia will pay Colombian prices.

I also see your attempts at trying to drop the names of other potential sponsors as playing one against the other.
Maybe you should try out your luck with them first instead of being too clever by half with us.

What @AlejandroE and @George Donnelly are saying makes more sense.

I would suggest both of you work together on this to work out a solution between yourselves..

 

[Argon31]

@DavidHay Also your youtube channels have little reach amongst the starving refugees who have no food to eat, let alone a smartphone with internet to see your videos.

 

[DeepBlue]

Hello DASH community,

on thinking about this project in some depth I think it is possible that this project could actually do more harm than good. It really pains me to say that because my heart is going out to these people and I would genuinely want to help them.

These are the reasons for me having this point of view.

I see this situation a bit like the advice given on every airline flight.

"In an emergency decompression with loss of oxygen make sure to first put on your own oxygen mask before helping others put on their's"

If you don't first put on your own oxygen mask (as selfish as this may seem) you will become unconscious and you will not then be able to help other people.

I understand this may sound selfish but actually it is not. It is first making sure that Venezuela is able to look after herself and generate enough self sustaining wealth so that Venezuela can help the poorer people later on.

1. If DASH starts a large program for giving out DASH and educating people then wouldn't this simply act as an incentive to attract even more thousands of people to Cúcuta? Even if the incentive is for them not to enter Cucuta they will go to that region. The situation is already very bad in this region with too many migrants in this area. I have watched reports on youtube about the authorities saying it is very concerning to have so many migrants coming to their region and that it is causing problems for them in this region. If then there are massive incentives for people to go to that region to get free DASH isn't that going to attract even more people to Cúcuta simply because more people are attracted to go in the region. These additional people would not have gone to that region in the first place without the additional incentives of giving out DASH. This could potentially make the situation even more tense and put Cucuta under even more stress because what are they going to do with that DASH money? Where are they going to spend it? If there are masses of people in a region is it not reasonable to expect them to also visit Cucuta?

2. These people are in a very vulnerable situation. Imagine you are trying to give training to people in that state of mind of complete desperation? Is that the best type of state of mind to be in? For any learning state you need to have a calm, focused state of mind. Not an anxious desperate state of mind. That is definitely NOT the best frame of mind to be in to learn something like cryptocurrency.

3. $4/ person is not going to get these people out of this situation or provide long term solution to these people. It will offer some short term relief at best but nothing more.

4. What we need to establish is long term uptake of DASH and given a choice between spending DASH money on desperate migrants that are and not in a position to perpetuate the updake of DASH and people and merchants that ARE able to perpetuate the uptake of DASH because they are not in such a desperate position is better use of money. The reason I say it is a better use of money is because we first need to establish DASH as a working currency in areas where revenues can be re-generated from work. This way DASH becomes a working currency in the wealthier areas and this wealth generation will then spread out to the other regions of Venezuela that can benefit from it.

6. In addition all the technical issues and problems that would result from installing crypto wallets etc would have to be addressed which would then mean resources from Caracas e.g. DASH HELP VENEZUELA would be spending time travelling to a region that is not well serviced. Without tech support it has been shown on the DASH Caracas conferences there are a high number of people that need tech support questions and issues. Without local and comprehensive tech support this project will be only partially useful. I don't think that DASH HELP VENEZUELA or any other tech support should be spending time traveling and setting up in a new location until they are in a situation where they have free time for themselves in their own region first. In addition to this project is looking at 300,000 people I cannot see how it is going to be possible even for DASH HELP VENEZUELA to provide tech support to that volume of people. Currently DASH HELP VENEZUELA will be super busy just dealing with tech issues in Caracas where their assistance would lead to greater benefit to the greater uptake of DASH in Venezuela.

If there was no limit to the amount of funding that DASH has then this would be more like a humanitarian cause . However what would better use of the money in my opinion is establishing DASH in regions that can continue to generate wealth for the country first. Once the wealth is starting to be generated then humanitarian jobs can be considered.

I think this project could actually cause more harm than good with this project. I'm trully sorry to have to say this. I know the intentions behind this project are positive. It is also heart rendering for me to say this myself because I really want to help people in a situation like this. However I am using my intellect, and my experience and looking at the picture as a whole in Venezuela objectively. The quickest way to establish Venezuela with DASH is to focus all our energy, money, resources creativity and time into first establishing a solid user base of DASH in the regions that can generate sustainable wealth for the country. This is absolutely essential first.

Due to limited financial resources DASH projects needs to strategically focus on projects that have the greatest sustainable effects for establishing DASH in Venezuela and we need to focus completely everything we've got on achieving that goal first. In achieving that goal first Venezuela can then help these people later on from the country's own generated resources by having a stable currency DASH.

It is not about the number of new users we establish. It is about the number of new users we establish that can sustain DASH uptake for the long term.

DeepBlue

 

[DavidHay]

@DavidHay I like the concept but I have many reservations about your style of functioning and suitability to lead this proposal.

You are pitching getting 300000 setup with a wallet in a place you have actually never been. This is a red flag
This can easily be tried out with a 2000 people first, but you are unwilling to put in the hard work without the whole amount commited

$4 might go a long way in caracas but is less than a few hours of work in colombia.
Since you are proposing to do this in colombia, practically this project makes much less sense.

Venezvuelens in colombia will pay Colombian prices.

I also see your attempts at trying to drop the names of other potential sponsors as playing one against the other.
Maybe you should try out your luck with them first instead of being too clever by half with us.

What @AlejandroE and @George Donnelly are saying makes more sense.

I would suggest both of you work together on this to work out a solution between yourselves..

I am flying to Colombia this week. I'll provide updates to the situation on the ground including how much food $4 buys and how many people have cell phones.

We can onboard 2,000 people as a test. We will need to develop the educational tools and testing, this is a natural step. The point I was trying to make was on boarding 2,000 won't prove anything about mass adoption, a tipping point or how people use the crypto if there is no one else to trade with it.

I'm not name dropping. I'm evaluating each platform and looking at the pros and cons of each. I've created a business plan, a community that shares my vision and a marketing opportunity to show how crypto can reach a tipping point.

I like the DASH DAO and respect how it works. I'll do everything I can to work with the existing community members. I've already agreed to use an escrow service and set milestones. I don't appreciate you implying that I'm unwilling to put in the hard work. See this from my perspective. If Dash says I'll fund you to on-board 2,000 people, I develop the education tools, software, move there, do all the outreach and marketing then submit the rest of my proposal and get rejected how is that fair?

 

[DavidHay]

Hello DASH community,

on thinking about this project in some depth I think it is possible that this project could actually do more harm than good. It really pains me to say that because my heart is going out to these people and I would genuinely want to help them.

These are the reasons for me having this point of view.

I see this situation a bit like the advice given on every airline flight.

"In an emergency decompression with loss of oxygen make sure to first put on your own oxygen mask before helping others put on their's"

If you don't first put on your own oxygen mask (as selfish as this may seem) you will become unconscious and you will not then be able to help other people.

I understand this may sound selfish but actually it is not. It is first making sure that Venezuela is able to look after herself and generate enough self sustaining wealth so that Venezuela can help the poorer people later on.

1. If DASH starts a large program for giving out DASH and educating people then wouldn't this simply act as an incentive to attract even more thousands of people to Cúcuta? Even if the incentive is for them not to enter Cucuta they will go to that region. The situation is already very bad in this region with too many migrants in this area. I have watched reports on youtube about the authorities saying it is very concerning to have so many migrants coming to their region and that it is causing problems for them in this region. If then there are massive incentives for people to go to that region to get free DASH isn't that going to attract even more people to Cúcuta simply because more people are attracted to go in the region. These additional people would not have gone to that region in the first place without the additional incentives of giving out DASH. This could potentially make the situation even more tense and put Cucuta under even more stress because what are they going to do with that DASH money? Where are they going to spend it? If there are masses of people in a region is it not reasonable to expect them to also visit Cucuta?

2. These people are in a very vulnerable situation. Imagine you are trying to give training to people in that state of mind of complete desperation? Is that the best type of state of mind to be in? For any learning state you need to have a calm, focused state of mind. Not an anxious desperate state of mind. That is definitely NOT the best frame of mind to be in to learn something like cryptocurrency.

3. $4/ person is not going to get these people out of this situation or provide long term solution to these people. It will offer some short term relief at best but nothing more.

4. What we need to establish is long term uptake of DASH and given a choice between spending DASH money on desperate migrants that are and not in a position to perpetuate the updake of DASH and people and merchants that ARE able to perpetuate the uptake of DASH because they are not in such a desperate position is better use of money. The reason I say it is a better use of money is because we first need to establish DASH as a working currency in areas where revenues can be re-generated from work. This way DASH becomes a working currency in the wealthier areas and this wealth generation will then spread out to the other regions of Venezuela that can benefit from it.

6. In addition all the technical issues and problems that would result from installing crypto wallets etc would have to be addressed which would then mean resources from Caracas e.g. DASH HELP VENEZUELA would be spending time travelling to a region that is not well serviced. Without tech support it has been shown on the DASH Caracas conferences there are a high number of people that need tech support questions and issues. Without local and comprehensive tech support this project will be only partially useful. I don't think that DASH HELP VENEZUELA or any other tech support should be spending time traveling and setting up in a new location until they are in a situation where they have free time for themselves in their own region first. In addition to this project is looking at 300,000 people I cannot see how it is going to be possible even for DASH HELP VENEZUELA to provide tech support to that volume of people. Currently DASH HELP VENEZUELA will be super busy just dealing with tech issues in Caracas where their assistance would lead to greater benefit to the greater uptake of DASH in Venezuela.

If there was no limit to the amount of funding that DASH has then this would be more like a humanitarian cause . However what would better use of the money in my opinion is establishing DASH in regions that can continue to generate wealth for the country first. Once the wealth is starting to be generated then humanitarian jobs can be considered.

I think this project could actually cause more harm than good with this project. I'm trully sorry to have to say this. I know the intentions behind this project are positive. It is also heart rendering for me to say this myself because I really want to help people in a situation like this. However I am using my intellect, and my experience and looking at the picture as a whole in Venezuela objectively. The quickest way to establish Venezuela with DASH is to focus all our energy, money, resources creativity and time into first establishing a solid user base of DASH in the regions that can generate sustainable wealth for the country. This is absolutely essential first.

Due to limited financial resources DASH projects needs to strategically focus on projects that have the greatest sustainable effects for establishing DASH in Venezuela and we need to focus completely everything we've got on achieving that goal first. In achieving that goal first Venezuela can then help these people later on from the country's own generated resources by having a stable currency DASH.

It is not about the number of new users we establish. It is about the number of new users we establish that can sustain DASH uptake for the long term.

DeepBlue

None of these are facts but I welcome your opinions.

1) You're concerned that offering $4 of Dash will cause even more people to move to Cucuta? I'll argue that if that does happen the numbers compared to current migration will be statistically insignificant and not change the current situation.

2) I'll be in Cucuta and access the situation for myself. These people are vulnerable, that's why they need our help. They have experienced first hand hyper inflation. If someone stole from you and the next day there was a class about self defense I think you would be very likely to attend and pay attention. Once i have better understand of the situation on the ground I'll report back.

3) $4 is not going to get people out of long term poverty. It is a start, I never suggested this would bring world peace or solve world hunger. It's not just the $4, it's the access to banking, it's the ability to send it anywhere, it's learning that this isn't controlled by your government and that you can't just print a ton more of it out of thin air.

4) This is a long term solution we are creating life long users. We are focusing on one area and opening a class room. Please suggest the other solutions that involve on boarding regular non-technical people. Having a class room with videos and volunteers to help answer questions makes the on boarding process so much easier. Even if a lot of people instantly spend their Dash the likely hood of them accepting it in the future greatly increases. If some of the population is moving that will allow them to send it to family members anywhere in the world.

6) If Dash doesn't have enough money to fund this project and the existing operations in Venezuela then I don't want to move forward. The existing community is already doing a great job and I don't want to detract from their efforts.

You are talking about where the money is best used. My youtube channel has 6.5 million views, I'm speaking all over the world at events, I'm organizing the volunteers, taking responsibility for logistics and not asking for any money myself.

The crypto that funds this project will gain massive exposure and incredible PR. We will fulfill the promise of banking the un banked, we will give money to people that need it the most and we will prove that there's a tipping point where crypto can be used mainstream.

 

[DeepBlue]

Hello David,
If we are to make the correct decisions we need to have a well thought out logical and intelligent debate and not base decisions on emotions or passion. To do so can cause damage both to the people you're trying to help and other DASH proposals that need this money.

I'm going to go through your replies stage by stage because in some areas your response is either not based on logical reasoning, but more calls upon emotional triggers. If you are here to genuinely want to help people of Venezuela then you will read what I have to say and answer intelligently with reasoned arguments - not unfounded emotional responses.

None of these are facts but I welcome your opinions.

You have used the word "None" this word is equivalent to say nothing. So what you are saying by using that word in the way you have is I have not given " one single fact, or one single statement that is based on a fact or on a reasoned argument and that I have only given opinions"

I need to address your reply because it is not valid, and misleading others from benefiting from a well thought out logical set of arguments.

To give the analogy of self financially sustaining I quoted in my first post the airline flight quote:

"Make sure to put on your own oxygen mask before helping other to put on their's "

This is a factual statement. It is not my "opinion" . It is a fact. That you cannot help others until you are in a position to help them. According to your statement that "none" of what I said is based on fact is therefore not true. This statement is a true factual statement.

Next I'm backing my reply based on 25 years worth of business experience. I am at the top of those businesses and not just any businesses, all of my businesses have been highly successful. My websites have generated around 450,000,000 page views to my websites with approximately 100,000,000 unique visitors over a period of 15 years for these websites. My Education prior to starting in business I have 3 university degrees BSc Hons, MSc (Masters) and a Ph.D . My Ph.D in particular trained me on how to think impartially based upon facts and logical deductions. Not opinions based or emotion. I have also been a lead project manager for a number of successful projects and have experience in planning and executing successful marketing plans.

I have been a successful business owner and entrepreneur for 21 of those 25 years. I therefore have extensive experience in knowing what makes a venture work. I am calling upon that experience to post my feedback on your proposal. These are not just "opinions" as you state. They are statements made on calling upon my business and professional experience and using my impartial logical deductive thinking which I have been trained to do.

That is why I stated that is was very difficult for me to write what I wrote because I had to put my emotions aside in order to make a logically reasoned statements

Therefore when you say you welcome my "opinions" it is actually more accurate to state you welcome me "sharing my business experience and logical deductive thinking" .

First of all my main argument that I'm trying to make is that it is better to invest money in ventures that are financially sustainable than ones that are not. That means they can support themselves financially indefinitely once the project gets going.

An example of a sustainable DASH funded project is the DASH HELP VENEZUELA project This project will be financially sustainable because it has a business model already planned and worked out by the team that it will hire out their support to other DASH projects e.g. Colibit exchange and other DASH projects that need tech support. They will receive revenue for providing the support services. Therefore DASH HELP VENEZUELA has thought about and implemented a self sustaining financial plan in advance of submitting their project so that the DASH community can feel confident that they are going to be able to financially sustain themselves once the project gets off the ground with the seed funding. They may go back for funding in the future but that will be to expand the office with capital costs or to fund different projects. They may also need a little more funding to get their idea of the ground however the fundamentals of self sustaining revenue for their business has been well thought out.

Could you present your self sustaining financial plan for your project?

It is not enough to say people will know how to use DASH. That is not a financially self sustaining plan to generate more revenue from the revenue that has been distributed. That is only the very first stage which is to raise awareness of DASH and educated people on using DASH. These people have next to nothing. No businesses, no resources, no money, some don't even have a home. They have very limited resources with which to make their $4 donation financially sustainable. So once they have spent their $4 what is your plan to show that $2,000,000 of DASH money is going to lead to financial sustainability? I cannot see your plan anywhere stated so far? If I'm missing something could you point me to your plan.

1) You're concerned that offering $4 of Dash will cause even more people to move to Cucuta? I'll argue that if that does happen the numbers compared to current migration will be statistically insignificant and not change the current situation.

You state you "argue" that it will be statistically insignificant. What specifically are you basing that argument on? What facts or reasoning? If you believe it to be statistically insignificant how much do you think it will be and why is it going to be statistically insignificant?

Here is my reasoning for stating this program is likely to increase the number of migrants to Cucuta.

If DASH funds a $2,000,000 project to give out free DASH to migrants in Cucare. Based on the fact that a well paid Venezuelan is now only making $2 USD / Day $2,000,000 is perceived in Venezuela as a huge amount of money. You are proposing a DASH project which is effectively giving out very large volumes of free digital money to refugees that have next to nothing financially.

It is therefore only logical to come to the conclusion that this is going to be a rather compelling incentive for people to visit Cucuta to get some of that free money because these people need money. This can only make the situation worse in Cucuta which is already bursting at the seems with excessive numbers of Venezuelan refugees.

What is your plan for dealing with an increase in migrants to the area during the promotional plan?

3) $4 is not going to get people out of long term poverty. It is a start, I never suggested this would bring world peace or solve world hunger. It's not just the $4, it's the access to banking, it's the ability to send it anywhere, it's learning that this isn't controlled by your government and that you can't just print a ton more of it out of thin air..

What exactly is going to be achieved by your project? You are going to educate people that are basically refugees. They have nearly nothing. They have no infrastructure on which to make our investment financially sustainable.

6) If Dash doesn't have enough money to fund this project and the existing operations in Venezuela then I don't want to move forward. The existing community is already doing a great job and I don't want to detract from their efforts.

You said that none of my replies were based on facts. Here is an undesputable fact. On the last round of DASH funding many small projects were not funded by DASH treasury. These projects had got enough votes but did not go through. Why did they not go through? Answer: There wasn't enough money in the budget.

One example of a valuable project that did not go through is the DASH Academy project that was going to produce interactive training courses on DASH and this project received enough votes on the last round of funding to go through. But it did not go through because the funds were swallowed up by large DASH funded projects by the Core team. This is rather like your project would do. If your project goes through you would exclude many other valuable projects from going through. Projects which may well be financially self sustaining. The DASH Academy project will bring sustained ROI to the DASH community because the project lead is providing the source files to all DASH projects. This means that all DASH projects now and in the future would benefit from high quality DASH training that they can use in their projects. This is one example of a project that would give sustained ROI.

They key thing for sustained ROI on projects is they need to have their own in-house resources to make them sustainable or have a plan to use seed capital to ensure to create a business that will create sustained financial return. These are the projects with long term sustainability.

Your project is proposing using large amounts of funding to give to people that can't do much with it because of their circumstances to make those funds work sustainably. That is not a good use of money. Wouldn't it make more sense to give that money to businesses that could become financially sustainable or projects that have a continual return on investment with many other projects over a long time period?

If your $2,000,000 project goes through make no doubts about it other projects will not go through. The DASH treasury fund has a limited fund. It is not a limitless fund.

We need to carefully choose and assess each project and ensure that projects that offer the most long term financially sustainable impact go through. We also need projects that are going to be up and running as soon as possible. That means they need some of their own resources to do this. Refugees don't have much in the way of resources to back their project. At best we are just giving them handouts and giving them some basic information on DASH.

You are talking about where the money is best used. My youtube channel has 6.5 million views, I'm speaking all over the world at events, I'm organizing the volunteers, taking responsibility for logistics and not asking for any money myself.

When you say your Channel has 6.5 million views. Are you saying that all the videos that you have ever produced in total have a total of 6.5 million views? If that is correct are all your videos about Cacuta and Venezuela situation? If they are not then the actual number of views for just this project is going to be considerably less than 6.5 million views. I have just logged onto your youtube channel now. Your videos typically get anything between 14k to 150k views each.

Individual videos receive considerably fewer views than the 6.5 million views you stated above for your entire channel. How many videos in total are you going to produce on the Cacuta project?

The other factor consider is that even if you have got reasonable traffic to your youtube channel. The publicity is only helpful if the project actually is successful. If it is not successful or there are issues that arise out of the project not functioning well then it could cause negative publicity for DASH.

Before I start any business I do extensive market research. This can take anything from a few months to a year before I have enough information to make a decision. Many times after investing in months of market research I find out that the project would not work. For me this is a valuable learning. It is better not to start a project that will not work or will cause damage. The investment was worth the time and money in the market research and saved me a lot of heartache and problems later down the line.

I therefore commend you on going out to Cacuta first to assess the situation first.
If you could also do a trial with a small number of people it would also give you some more valuable feedback.

I can see you are passionate about helping the people of Venezuela and that is commendable. It is also clear you have good intentions and your heart is in the right place.

It has been difficult for me to give this feedback. Personally my heart goes out to these people in Cacuta. If this project worked i.e. was certain to get these people out of the situation they are in permanently then I would be the first person to support it. However with the information I have at the moment I cannot see this project being successful and I think it will cause more damage and harm not only to Cacuta but also to other DASH projects that need the funds to work.

I hope that what you learn on that visit you will share with the DASH community in an impartial way.

DeepBlue

 

[demo]

4.) End user support will be critical. Getting merchants to adopt early will be almost impossible because there are a very few incentives and no one in the community is using it. Once crypto reaches a tipping point and it is commonplace there will be a rush of new merchants ready to sign up. (I have a link but I'm not allowed to share it here because I'm a new user)

You missed important parts of the basic income puzzle.

1. You should incentivize the merchants to offer discounts to whoever buys commodities using dash and this discount should be paid by the dash budget system (and not by the merchants). Which means that you should ask funds for these discounts too.
   
2. You should also incentivize the suppliers of the merchants to use dash, and to offer to the merchants supplies with discount (paid by the dash budget system too). Users -> Merchants -> Suppliers -> Users. The money circle should close.
   
3. You should implement a proof of individuality for both merchants, suppliers and ordinary dash holders. Because the dash community wants to inspect and analyze potential fraud.
   
4. Finally all these problems are technical and numerical problems. These numbers should not be constants, but they should change in order to adapt to various circumstances , which means that some people should be allowed to vote these numbers accordingly.

 

[DavidHay]

Hello David,
If we are to make the correct decisions we need to have a well thought out logical and intelligent debate and not base decisions on emotions or passion. To do so can cause damage both to the people you're trying to help and other DASH proposals that need this money.

I'm going to go through your replies stage by stage because in some areas your response is either not based on logical reasoning, but more calls upon emotional triggers. If you are here to genuinely want to help people of Venezuela then you will read what I have to say and answer intelligently with reasoned arguments - not unfounded emotional responses.



You have used the word "None" this word is equivalent to say nothing. So what you are saying by using that word in the way you have is I have not given " one single fact, or one single statement that is based on a fact or on a reasoned argument and that I have only given opinions"

I need to address your reply because it is not valid, and misleading others from benefiting from a well thought out logical set of arguments.

To give the analogy of self financially sustaining I quoted in my first post the airline flight quote:

"Make sure to put on your own oxygen mask before helping other to put on their's "

This is a factual statement. It is not my "opinion" . It is a fact. That you cannot help others until you are in a position to help them. According to your statement that "none" of what I said is based on fact is therefore not true. This statement is a true factual statement.

Next I'm backing my reply based on 25 years worth of business experience. I am at the top of those businesses and not just any businesses, all of my businesses have been highly successful. My websites have generated around 450,000,000 page views to my websites with approximately 100,000,000 unique visitors over a period of 15 years for these websites. My Education prior to starting in business I have 3 university degrees BSc Hons, MSc (Masters) and a Ph.D . My Ph.D in particular trained me on how to think impartially based upon facts and logical deductions. Not opinions based or emotion. I have also been a lead project manager for a number of successful projects and have experience in planning and executing successful marketing plans.

I have been a successful business owner and entrepreneur for 21 of those 25 years. I therefore have extensive experience in knowing what makes a venture work. I am calling upon that experience to post my feedback on your proposal. These are not just "opinions" as you state. They are statements made on calling upon my business and professional experience and using my impartial logical deductive thinking which I have been trained to do.

That is why I stated that is was very difficult for me to write what I wrote because I had to put my emotions aside in order to make a logically reasoned statements

Therefore when you say you welcome my "opinions" it is actually more accurate to state you welcome me "sharing my business experience and logical deductive thinking" .

First of all my main argument that I'm trying to make is that it is better to invest money in ventures that are financially sustainable than ones that are not. That means they can support themselves financially indefinitely once the project gets going.

An example of a sustainable DASH funded project is the DASH HELP VENEZUELA project This project will be financially sustainable because it has a business model already planned and worked out by the team that it will hire out their support to other DASH projects e.g. Colibit exchange and other DASH projects that need tech support. They will receive revenue for providing the support services. Therefore DASH HELP VENEZUELA has thought about and implemented a self sustaining financial plan in advance of submitting their project so that the DASH community can feel confident that they are going to be able to financially sustain themselves once the project gets off the ground with the seed funding. They may go back for funding in the future but that will be to expand the office with capital costs or to fund different projects. They may also need a little more funding to get their idea of the ground however the fundamentals of self sustaining revenue for their business has been well thought out.

Could you present your self sustaining financial plan for your project?

It is not enough to say people will know how to use DASH. That is not a financially self sustaining plan to generate more revenue from the revenue that has been distributed. That is only the very first stage which is to raise awareness of DASH and educated people on using DASH. These people have next to nothing. No businesses, no resources, no money, some don't even have a home. They have very limited resources with which to make their $4 donation financially sustainable. So once they have spent their $4 what is your plan to show that $2,000,000 of DASH money is going to lead to financial sustainability? I cannot see your plan anywhere stated so far? If I'm missing something could you point me to your plan.



You state you "argue" that it will be statistically insignificant. What specifically are you basing that argument on? What facts or reasoning? If you believe it to be statistically insignificant how much do you think it will be and why is it going to be statistically insignificant?

Here is my reasoning for stating this program is likely to increase the number of migrants to Cucuta.

If DASH funds a $2,000,000 project to give out free DASH to migrants in Cucare. Based on the fact that a well paid Venezuelan is now only making $2 USD / Day $2,000,000 is perceived in Venezuela as a huge amount of money. You are proposing a DASH project which is effectively giving out very large volumes of free digital money to refugees that have next to nothing financially.

It is therefore only logical to come to the conclusion that this is going to be a rather compelling incentive for people to visit Cucuta to get some of that free money because these people need money. This can only make the situation worse in Cucuta which is already bursting at the seems with excessive numbers of Venezuelan refugees.

What is your plan for dealing with an increase in migrants to the area during the promotional plan?



What exactly is going to be achieved by your project? You are going to educate people that are basically refugees. They have nearly nothing. They have no infrastructure on which to make our investment financially sustainable.



You said that none of my replies were based on facts. Here is an undesputable fact. On the last round of DASH funding many small projects were not funded by DASH treasury. These projects had got enough votes but did not go through. Why did they not go through? Answer: There wasn't enough money in the budget.

One example of a valuable project that did not go through is the DASH Academy project that was going to produce interactive training courses on DASH and this project received enough votes on the last round of funding to go through. But it did not go through because the funds were swallowed up by large DASH funded projects by the Core team. This is rather like your project would do. If your project goes through you would exclude many other valuable projects from going through. Projects which may well be financially self sustaining. The DASH Academy project will bring sustained ROI to the DASH community because the project lead is providing the source files to all DASH projects. This means that all DASH projects now and in the future would benefit from high quality DASH training that they can use in their projects. This is one example of a project that would give sustained ROI.

They key thing for sustained ROI on projects is they need to have their own in-house resources to make them sustainable or have a plan to use seed capital to ensure to create a business that will create sustained financial return. These are the projects with long term sustainability.

Your project is proposing using large amounts of funding to give to people that can't do much with it because of their circumstances to make those funds work sustainably. That is not a good use of money. Wouldn't it make more sense to give that money to businesses that could become financially sustainable or projects that have a continual return on investment with many other projects over a long time period?

If your $2,000,000 project goes through make no doubts about it other projects will not go through. The DASH treasury fund has a limited fund. It is not a limitless fund.

We need to carefully choose and assess each project and ensure that projects that offer the most long term financially sustainable impact go through. We also need projects that are going to be up and running as soon as possible. That means they need some of their own resources to do this. Refugees don't have much in the way of resources to back their project. At best we are just giving them handouts and giving them some basic information on DASH.



When you say your Channel has 6.5 million views. Are you saying that all the videos that you have ever produced in total have a total of 6.5 million views? If that is correct are all your videos about Cacuta and Venezuela situation? If they are not then the actual number of views for just this project is going to be considerably less than 6.5 million views. I have just logged onto your youtube channel now. Your videos typically get anything between 14k to 150k views each.

Individual videos receive considerably fewer views than the 6.5 million views you stated above for your entire channel. How many videos in total are you going to produce on the Cacuta project?

The other factor consider is that even if you have got reasonable traffic to your youtube channel. The publicity is only helpful if the project actually is successful. If it is not successful or there are issues that arise out of the project not functioning well then it could cause negative publicity for DASH.

Before I start any business I do extensive market research. This can take anything from a few months to a year before I have enough information to make a decision. Many times after investing in months of market research I find out that the project would not work. For me this is a valuable learning. It is better not to start a project that will not work or will cause damage. The investment was worth the time and money in the market research and saved me a lot of heartache and problems later down the line.

I therefore commend you on going out to Cacuta first to assess the situation first.
If you could also do a trial with a small number of people it would also give you some more valuable feedback.

I can see you are passionate about helping the people of Venezuela and that is commendable. It is also clear you have good intentions and your heart is in the right place.

It has been difficult for me to give this feedback. Personally my heart goes out to these people in Cacuta. If this project worked i.e. was certain to get these people out of the situation they are in permanently then I would be the first person to support it. However with the information I have at the moment I cannot see this project being successful and I think it will cause more damage and harm not only to Cacuta but also to other DASH projects that need the funds to work.

I hope that what you learn on that visit you will share with the DASH community in an impartial way.

DeepBlue

To summarize DeepBlue and myself both agree it's possible to setup a class room in Cucuta, educate 300,000 and give them $4 each.

He states this is not financially sustainable and a poor use of funds. What part of crypto right now is financially sustainable? Just like Tesla and tech companies Dash's 4 billion dollar valuation is based on it's future potential. Is the future is banking the unbanked, showing the network can handle volume and figuring out how to on-board non technical users?

The marketing value of this project alone will exceed $2,000,000. Nothing like this has ever been done before and it's a valuable use case for crypto. Like I said previously my youtube channel has 6.5 million views (In the last twelve months), the three videos I published about this topic already have 50,000 views. People expect the situation to get worse in Venezuela and the media coverage has been increasing. As this humanitarian crisis unfolds the crypto community has a chance to be on the front lines providing help directly to the people that need it most.

I've lived in Costa Rica and spent a lot of time in Colombia. Their economies are much more decentralized than the US with small markets, independent businesses and street vendors everywhere.

It's wrong to say the money will immediately flow out of the economy. The goal of every business it to make a profit. A street vendor sells corn. Half of that money is profit the other half goes back to the supplier to buy more corn. The street vendor needs his haircut (local barber) He needs firewood for his stove. If things go well he might need to hire someone. As the free economy develops some money will leave it some money will stay. At the moment these people are excluded from the global economy. Crytpo changes that.

Pros
-We help 300,000 people
-We gain huge attention from the media and show a very legitimate use case that crypto
-Cucuta becomes the first major city in the world with crypto mass adoption.
-We create a classroom, education tools and incentive system and show the world how to on-board non-technical users to crypto
-When an entire community understands and knows how to use crypto we can learn how the free market adopts

Cons
-It cost $2,000,000
-It will take money away from other dash proposals
-It's possible 300,000 people immediately sell their crypto for fiat and never use it again
-It could cause mass migration to the city of Cucuta.

Deepblue also said this was unsustainable which I was going to list as a con. Is the project a failure if we help 300,000 people, gain a huge amount of media attention and find out that most people immediately traded their crypto for food?

In the future Dash will face stronger competition from platforms that have no transaction fees. User adoption in emerging markets will be used as a key indicator of success. Proving it can be used by an entire community as digital cash would give Dash a huge boost.

 

[demo]

There is also this one:
https://forum.pivx.org/t/sos-veneze...gh-an-economic-intervention-in-cucuta-co/3756

 

[demo]

Deepblue also said this was unsustainable which I was going to list as a con. Is the project a failure if we help 300,000 people, gain a huge amount of media attention and find out that most people immediately traded their crypto for food?

Of course it is not. It will be a huge success.

But why dont you also find merchants there, who will offer that food?
Why dont you sign contracts with these merchants saying that they will not spend all the dash they will receive, but some portion of it they will use it to become masternode owners or masternode shareholders?
That way the merchants will not exchange all their dash to FIAT....

 

[DavidHay]

Of course it is not. It will be a huge success.

But why dont you also find merchants there, who will offer the food?
Why dont you sign a contract with these merchants saying that they will not spend all their dash but they will become masternodes or masternode shareholders?

That way the merchants will not sell all their dash....

The merchants don't have enough for a Dash masternode.

 

[demo]

The merchants don't have enough for a Dash masternode.

But they could become masternode shareholders.

Why dont you sign contracts with these merchants saying that they will not spend all the dash they will receive, but some portion of it they will use it to become masternode shareholders?
(Ask @splawik21 or @moocowmoo for shares...)
That way the merchants will not exchange all their dash to FIAT....

You may ask me..What portion? Well.... this is where vote the numbers applies....