Self-sustainable Decentralized Governance by Blockchain

[TanteStefana]

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Minotaur eduffield
In general I think the proposal is really good, but I am concerned about the apparent lack of checks and balances. What would happen if a proposal that is really bad for the longterm prospects of the coin but is really good for the short term profit of the MN owners is approved? Let's say a proposal to change the reward split to 85/10/5 (MN/dev funds/miners). Again, maybe I just lack faith in people, but I really worry about selfiness in this system if there are no safeguards. Obviously that example is extreme, but what is the current plan to prevent such abuses?

First of all, this whole thing will need to be hashed out, and there will have to be checks and balances.

And per above, changing the reward would not be something that can go on the table anymore. This will be hard coded into the core of the wallet eventually, and not changed anymore. Nobody would support it unless, somehow, there were a dire need, which is highly unlikely.

Again, per one of your comments, funds that are not spent should never go to the MNs Only back to the miners. We must not allow them to be able to vote themselves money. You could do this by simply making an account with the past year's surplus, pay out 1/210240 th of the account for the following year to each account that finds a block. It doesn't have to mix with the rewards, simply be payed out directly to the miners per block, distributing it fairly.

 

[thelonecrouton]

moli, with due respect, I think your view is very narrow-minded. The core developers have their hands full just fixing any loop hole, smoothing out ease of use and refining what we have created. Who is going to do all the other things we need? We have someone working on the android wallet, voluntarily (unless it costs to download?) The same goes for the ios wallet. Shouldn't they be compensated? Maybe not? It's a question that could be put before the MNs. What about other possible projects that couldn't ever get off the ground due to the main core developers not having enough hours in the day? Like a decentralized exchange? Not only that, if the Masternodes approved a decentralized exchange that would be integrated into the Masternode network, heck, they could earn extra coin providing a side service! (maybe 1% of all exchanges!) Some of those funds could be set aside like those from mining for side ventures as well! What about a tor like network that runs through masternodes, far more effective than TOR, with micro payments to use. Super cheap, but strong enough to stream unlimited information? A secondary network, which could even hook up with Ethereum for a broader market (or other projects I'm not aware of) A decentralized auction/marketplace site? Those are just the obvious projects. I can come up with more:

A secure trustless masternode sharing system
A traveling informational team that promotes and lectures on DASH.
A marketing fund.

It goes on and on, and all these value added services increase the usefulness of DASH and therefore the price, benefiting all investors and users.

So only wanting to care for a core team is extremely small thinking, in my honest opinion

A currency needing 15% of it's supply just to maintain its own development is absurd. But as Vertoe pointed out, DASH is, or can be, a competitor to Paypal, Moneygram, WU, exchanges... all of which are businesses.

Businesses necessarily need to invest in R&D, marketing etc. but before I as a current stakeholder commit and consent to a change in the existing social contract I'd like to see some concrete plans.

When Masternodes were introduced, many people called it a tax on miners. This was erroneous because Masternodes are a core currency component.

What is being proposed here is a (rather large) tax on currency infrastructure providers to provide... what exactly? Development of service platform applications? Fine, but the business aspects need to be self-funding after minimal initial development costs. Businesses are supposed to turn a profit.

I'd like more clarification on where Evan + Team are heading before I'm happy with being told how, at my expense, they intend to fund it.

Please show me the business plan, in other words, before you ask me to pay for it.

I'm very happy to help fund technical innovation. Not so much about spending fortunes on crap like marketing. Marketing types babble about the few great successes in their field (Apple for example) but are strangely reticent about the other 99.9% of expensive marketing campaigns which achieve bugger all except keeping marketing firms employed.

 

[TanteStefana]

I don't think it's so much where Evan and Team are heading, as how we all build this. I think a lot was intentionally left open for hashing out together. But i do think that you hit the nail on the head, this is more a business than just a currency. Just as banks have an infrastructure to provide services and yet, in the USA, are members of the Federal Reserve which prints the money. We would be doing something very similar. Perhaps 15% is indeed too much. Perhaps we should have an infrastructure that reduces the amount over time to 5% or something? But not all projects that will benefit the coin will be profitable (easily charged for) to pay back and start other projects. But yes, we need to hash this out

 

[alex-ru]

just for info:

 

[moli]

moli, with due respect, I think your view is very narrow-minded. The core developers have their hands full just fixing any loop hole, smoothing out ease of use and refining what we have created. Who is going to do all the other things we need? We have someone working on the android wallet, voluntarily (unless it costs to download?) The same goes for the ios wallet. Shouldn't they be compensated? Maybe not? It's a question that could be put before the MNs.

I already said those devs should be paid by their one-time inputs/projects.

What about other possible projects that couldn't ever get off the ground due to the main core developers not having enough hours in the day? Like a decentralized exchange? Not only that, if the Masternodes approved a decentralized exchange that would be integrated into the Masternode network, heck, they could earn extra coin providing a side service! (maybe 1% of all exchanges!) Some of those funds could be set aside like those from mining for side ventures as well! What about a tor like network that runs through masternodes, far more effective than TOR, with micro payments to use. Super cheap, but strong enough to stream unlimited information? A secondary network, which could even hook up with Ethereum for a broader market (or other projects I'm not aware of) A decentralized auction/marketplace site? Those are just the obvious projects. I can come up with more:

Sure, what about them? Like I said if anyone is willing and able to do any of these, they should be paid according to their project. I'm sure you're familiar with the traditional business model: there are regular employees on the payroll and there are part-time freelance on contracts.

A secure trustless masternode sharing system
A traveling informational team that promotes and lectures on DASH.
A marketing fund.

It goes on and on, and all these value added services increase the usefulness of DASH and therefore the price, benefiting all investors and users.

So only wanting to care for a core team is extremely small thinking, in my honest opinion

Who said i would only care for the core team???

I am grateful for the core team because tbh, even with all your dash paid to them, still not as much as they could earn on their own by working for someone else in the real world. A skilled programmer can earn much more than doing this job, and i would rather do our best to keep them now to get this project finished first than putting 20 (just a number) other programmers on the payroll and how far can we stretch? I doubt not very far!

Besides, this project has been done a lot by volunteers because they love the coins. Who can say who should be paid or not? Are we going to pay for one volunteer but not for another?? Or should all volunteers be paid? Sure I'd love to be paid too!!

The thing is i care less about being paid. I've loved helping while learning on this project. I've seen people getting in dash yet having no clue about this coins, people with many questions yet there're some of us who do nothing and (with all due respect) except talking. Call me narrow minded but i'd love to see how you're gonna get this coin to the mainstream if you're just talking..

 

[thelonecrouton]

just for info:

Exactly. All those companies need to spend so much on marketing because their products are crap.

Half of Earth's IT infrastructure runs on linux. Where's the linux marketing budget?

 

[thelonecrouton]

Sure I'd love to be paid too!!

Testers like you should absolutely get something out of this for your time and effort.

 

[moli]

Testers like you should absolutely get something out of this for your time and effort.

You too, Mr. Stuart.... :grin:

Nah.. I've got a lot of fun... one of the fun things was the fight I had with you... so silly of me but it was fun... lol :grin:

 

[TanteStefana]

I just realized that the organization of proposed projects could come about in a different or alternate way. The community could come up with the projects they would like to see built. Such as:

Core development:
1. fix loop holes and attack vectors
2. create a plugin interface to make side chains possible
3. find a way to truncate the blockchain to trim dead end, emptied accounts older than _ years. or however it might be done.
4. maintain the core wallets from highly controllable to easy to use mobile wallets. You can't keep others from making wallets, but we should have an official wallet for all needs.
5. Estimate cost of projects proposed by the community and review bids (because they are the most trusted and knowledgeable people we have)

Marketing:
1. Maintain a presence at all conventions
2. Have a traveling speaking team which makes presentations at colleges, corporate invitations, TV and magazines etc...
3. Have a budget for a new advertisement video once??? every quarter??? get to point where they can be put on TV, etc...
4. The marketing team would employ these people and organizers

Projects that would enhance the platform: These would be chosen by the community, arraigned in order of importance, then sent out to bid.
1. A trustless, decentralized exchange run on the masternode system.
2. A TOR-like network that can provide better privacy and higher traffic loads to it's customers
3. Other value added services

And then they could be set out to bid. The core team would be tasked with reviewing the bids to see if they are reasonable, and award the bids.

The above projects could take some of the income of those projects and distribute them as 1. payments to masternode servers that opt in (and have to maintain a high level server), payments to maintain the code, solve issues and 3. a portion of the income could also be set asside where it could be used to fund sub projects.

thelonecrouton, you're right, the more I look at this, the more I can see that at some point, the big projects that we need will only require a bit of maintenance and future projects should be funded off those branches. For reasons of scalability more than anything else. We simply can't expect Masternode owners to vote on an endless number of projects. The essential projects of under 20 in number could work, but after that, they have to grow out of these branches with new voting infrastructure. The project maintenance should be covered by their income, and those developers could use the funds they get from the project to start something new, without masternode permission as long as they can fund it themselves, or with other projects. ETC...

Those projects that are essential but can't be expected to earn funds would have their maintenance covered by the network.

Would that work?

We may want to fund this with 15% to get things started, but then slowly reduce the "tax" or whatever you want to call it, to the point where we are maintaining the core of the infrastructure and everything else is not our responsibility.

 

[thelonecrouton]

I just realized that the organization of proposed projects could come about in a different or alternate way. The community could come up with the projects they would like to see built. Such as:

Core development:
1. fix loop holes and attack vectors
2. create a plugin interface to make side chains possible
3. find a way to truncate the blockchain to trim dead end, emptied accounts older than _ years. or however it might be done.
4. maintain the core wallets from highly controllable to easy to use mobile wallets. You can't keep others from making wallets, but we should have an official wallet for all needs.
5. Estimate cost of projects proposed by the community and review bids (because they are the most trusted and knowledgeable people we have)

Marketing:
1. Maintain a presence at all conventions
2. Have a traveling speaking team which makes presentations at colleges, corporate invitations, TV and magazines etc...
3. Have a budget for a new advertisement video once??? every quarter??? get to point where they can be put on TV, etc...
4. The marketing team would employ these people and organizers

Projects that would enhance the platform: These would be chosen by the community, arraigned in order of importance, then sent out to bid.
1. A trustless, decentralized exchange run on the masternode system.
2. A TOR-like network that can provide better privacy and higher traffic loads to it's customers
3. Other value added services

And then they could be set out to bid. The core team would be tasked with reviewing the bids to see if they are reasonable, and award the bids.

The above projects could take some of the income of those projects and distribute them as 1. payments to masternode servers that opt in (and have to maintain a high level server), payments to maintain the code, solve issues and 3. a portion of the income could also be set asside where it could be used to fund sub projects.

thelonecrouton, you're right, the more I look at this, the more I can see that at some point, the big projects that we need will only require a bit of maintenance and future projects should be funded off those branches. For reasons of scalability more than anything else. We simply can't expect Masternode owners to vote on an endless number of projects. The essential projects of under 20 in number could work, but after that, they have to grow out of these branches with new voting infrastructure. The project maintenance should be covered by their income, and those developers could use the funds they get from the project to start something new, without masternode permission as long as they can fund it themselves, or with other projects. ETC...

Those projects that are essential but can't be expected to earn funds would have their maintenance covered by the network.

Would that work?

We may want to fund this with 15% to get things started, but then slowly reduce the "tax" or whatever you want to call it, to the point where we are maintaining the core of the infrastructure and everything else is not our responsibility.

Yes, a lot more needs to be fleshed out and agreed upon IMO before any money starts to get taken.

One important point you touched upon: this is going to be a drain on MN ops time, so a well thought out and easy to use in-wallet system would be a great start. I don't want to be messing about with website logins and having to hit up the CLI for every vote, I'd like an in-wallet summary and a Yes and No button to click. :grin:

Hopefully there will be an initial vote not just on whether to implement this scheme, but if so what % / model etc. is employed.

 

[tungfa]

great discussion
i am happy we are having it and that was exactly the point of posting it to the community.

I am not saying i agree with all the posts, but keep it coming as the community opinions and suggestions are what it is all about in the moment.

 

[TanteStefana]

I get the feeling that that's what we're expected to do here, LOL

 

[Solarminer]

....you're right, the more I look at this, the more I can see that at some point, the big projects that we need will only require a bit of maintenance and future projects should be funded off those branches. For reasons of scalability more than anything else. We simply can't expect Masternode owners to vote on an endless number of projects. The essential projects of under 20 in number could work, but after that, they have to grow out of these branches with new voting infrastructure. The project maintenance should be covered by their income, and those developers could use the funds they get from the project to start something new, without masternode permission as long as they can fund it themselves, or with other projects. ETC...

I like your line of thinking here. Fund projects that have ongoing income to fund more projects.

Also I see that a lot of projects in this space(Mobile wallets, merchant services, hardware wallets) will be crowd-funded or use some sort of outside capital. Look at all the funding going into Bitcoin. The queston is, how to get that funding? And how does DASH position itself to be in the right place at the right time?

 

[tungfa]

I like your line of thinking here. Fund projects that have ongoing income to fund more projects.

Also I see that a lot of projects in this space(Mobile wallets, merchant services, hardware wallets) will be crowd-funded or use some sort of outside capital. Look at all the funding going into Bitcoin. The queston is, how to get that funding? And how does DASH position itself to be in the right place at the right time?

outside funding will only bring you regulations, look at BTC , Ripple and whoever

with the idea posted we are talking about staying independent and none regulated (governments , banks, ... whatever) and that is what it is all about .
fundraising in our own community is done in my opinion, i did enough fundraisers here (for K Atlas, Video,...) and they worked, but we are past that by now.
we need a steady flow of funding , we are past crowdfunding for single projects, this is about the big picture

 

[TanteStefana]

Well, Bitcoin has more of an outside community willing to help, we're considered a nasty alt-coin to many still. That's why we need this. And I'd prefer that the DASH would have official wallets for every OS so, though anyone could make a "better" version, anyone who feels safer using the official wallet can.


I have an idea:

Those of us who feel we could come up with a solution, and have an angle to hash out, should start a thread. Call it "My Plan" or whatever name you want to give it and we can all visit the threads and see what we come up with. Taking the structures presented to the best conclusion we can. They should each be fundamentally different, though they may share aspects of the same thing, and when finished (maybe the first post consolidates the workable ideas and creates a proposal) Then we can see which one works best for us?

We could put them under
Development Tech Discussion

I'm going to start with what I wrote above. I'll call it the Core, Marketing and Contract out proposal or CMCO setup, LOL. I'll post it and probably disappear because I have a busy day tomorrow that I should get to bed for ;P

 

[TanteStefana]

Ok, I started my thread here: https://dashtalk.org/threads/self-s...lockchain-structure-proposal-cmco-model.4716/ I have not yet put my list of what I perceive as faults with this proposal.

We could use a proposal that sticks closer to what Evan proposes, IE, 15% across the board, what do you do with those funds over time?

Is it a possibility to fund on an as-need basis?

Please, if you like this idea, step up to the plate and come up with an alternative funding setup. Try to think like a programmer, as this is the foundational rules for the autonomous entity to abide.

Hope you like the idea

 

[JesseLivermore]

What a brilliant idea Evan and team have stumbled upon.
-A major online computer hardware seller like Newegg could create a proposal whereby they'll accept Dash as payment and offer 2% discount if paid in Dash in return for a big fat upfront 50k Dash deposit from this system.... I'd vote for that.
-An investment ETF-sponsoring firm creates a proposal to start the process for bringing DASH to Wall Street in ETF form in return for a 75k Dash deposit from the system... I'd vote for that.
-A proposal to create a Dash-mining warehouse full of x11 ASIC miners for 100k Dash with a goal of mining as much Dash as possible to an unspendable account and hoarding it... It's kind of nefarious but I might vote for that.
-A proposal to buy just a 10-second Dash Superbowl ad for 100k Dash....kind of Doge'ish but I might vote for that.
-A proposal to create a DAC based in Africa or Mexico which will solely exist to spread knowledge of Dash and put Western Union out of biz? I'd totally vote for that.
Possibilities are endless.
JL

 

[TanteStefana]

OK Jesse, what's the real problem with the proposal. Are you saying you don't trust the Masternode Network to vote in the best interest of the coin? They could be restricted to voting only on proposals approved by the community. Would that help?

 

[JesseLivermore]

OK Jesse, what's the real problem with the proposal. Are you saying you don't trust the Masternode Network to vote in the best interest of the coin? They could be restricted to voting only on proposals approved by the community. Would that help?

I'm saying this is a brilliant idea but I'm not even going to pretend like I know the best use of these funds because like I said the possibilities are endless.


Edit: just thought up another one, a proposal for $1 million worth of Dash to buy up the majority voting shares of a penny stock, then replace management with Dash leadership and create proposal to continuously fund that public corporation with 100k Dash every year... Voila Dash is publicly traded through a company whose sole assets are Dash. This opens the door to coveted investment funds going into crypto. Before you know it hedge funds and private equity firms will be running their own cryptocurrencies to emulate Dash.
JL

 

[moli]

I'm saying this is a brilliant idea but I'm not even going to pretend like I know the best use of these funds because like I said the possibilities are endless.


Edit: just thought up another one, a proposal for $1 million worth of Dash to buy up the majority voting shares of a penny stock, then replace management with Dash leadership and create proposal to continuously fund that public corporation with 100k Dash every year... Voila Dash is publicly traded through a company whose sole assets are Dash. This opens the door to coveted investment funds going into crypto. Before you know it hedge funds and private equity firms will be running their own cryptocurrencies to emulate Dash.
JL

LOL.....