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Feedbands getting 1243 / 6176 Dash this month. This needs to stop ASAP.

Should we spend 943 dash a month on feedbands

  • Yes

    Votes: 3 42.9%
  • No

    Votes: 4 57.1%

  • Total voters
    7

Argon31

Active member
upload_2018-3-30_13-26-40.png


In another of our budget excesses, we are spending 943 Dash a month on Feedbands and are scheduled to do the same next month as well (on current Dash prices, project escrowed for $300k). Small proposals are getting crushed under this additional weight and are slated to lose their 5 dash.

$300000/$323 = 943. core will have to pay the difference.

This is more than the entire core salaries put together. Does this make any sense at all?

These ads are about to shut down.
 
I see no problem with a large target marketing budget outside of core.

My opinion, the targeted marketing should shift toward helping successful projects, small and big, that are seeing momentum. I do think we have been seeing this from feedbands. So keep the funds flowing. I would like to see help with the India remittance projects that look to be springing up. I'm sure feedbands already has some ideas and if not will hopefully soon!
 
Robby brings up a great point that we did not include in our update, but should have, and that is our current roadmap and efforts supporting other treasury funded initiatives.

Right now we are laser focused with AlejandroE's team in Venezuela, finishing up the Spanish translation of the new dashinformer site, adding Venezuelan specific content including access to DashHelp Venezuela's helpdesk and new remittance info, and translating all of our new ads into Spanish and launching them with the ads targeting in Venezuela. We are doubling down all of our advertising efforts moving forward into Venezuela and supporting the teams there as much as we can. And of course, we do support all treasury funded projects however we can but Venezuela is the main focus with community integration currently. The country continues to suffer from a collapsing currency, creating a powerful vacuum for Dash to enter.

The internet giants will never be able to stop legitimate blockchain projects like Dash from advertising. We have already signed direct partnerships with Coindesk and Telegraph. We're running the Google ads at full volume until they shut off, which Google has stated will happen in June. There are lots and lots of quality third party options that we're evaluating and experimenting with.

90% the funds simply pass through us rapidly and go directly to our advertising partners. What's left is going towards design, translation, integrations, project management, etc.

We hope the Network continues to see value in our efforts, and we hope other proposal owners continue to reach out to us if our support makes sense for them strategically.
 
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Weak arguments.

You are wasting treasury funds on running these ads without any cause.
You have no concepts to put on any of these ads.

Please do not hide behind this Venezuela is collapsing logic.
If Venezuela is collapsing, doesn't mean you need to get $300000 to burn.

I have seen your ads, they are pointless. Seeing a cartoon with a dash logo does nothing much.

90% of the money given to you goes through rapidly into the drain.
Much like strike social which was defunded and this proposal should also be defunded for the time being.
 
The new ads can be found here and all other image based ads have been stopped as we shifted from a small experimental campaign to a more large scale one. These new creatives were done by our top designer and very clearly communicate Dash's core feature set, which we continue to believe many people engaged and following the cryptocurrency space are still unaware of. The goal is to bring in new partners, participants and adopters for Dash.

We are not "hiding behind" Venezuela, we are moving rapidly to roll out advertising and content there in full cooperation with the DashHelp team and the Venezuela campaign should be up and running by mid next week.
 
Hopefully the price of dash bounces back over the next few weeks before the payout and it costs closer to what we submitted. Certainly by the third month I would be very surprised if Dash had not recovered from this nightmarish market and the payout might even end up being less than what was submitted.
 
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Spending 1000 dash a month on this is too much and now nearly 15% of our budget, keeping out worthy projects.

All of them will lose 5 dash. Seems like we have lost track of whats important.

I can see the downvotes coming in and for good reason.
 
We support the Network in whatever action it chooses to take, including discontinuing our ad campaign.

The DAO is a brilliant organism that is more resilient and more intelligent than any single mind or small group of people will ever be. We are honored to have worked with Dash in any capacity.

For the sake of transparency, we did sign the deals with CoinDesk and CoinTelegraph on multiple month commitments which we will now not be able to honor, unfortunately. Not the best start with them, but again we fully respect the DAO's decision, whatever it is.
 
You are blowing treasury money on ads without any reason. Others I have spoken to also agree that this project is thin on results except worthless views and impressions and clicks data.

Seeing a logo does nothing for dash unless people actually get dash in their wallet and use it for something they need to use it for. It is as simple as that.

1000 dash is an insane amount to be spending on this and you are at the forefront of this waste.
 
I can understand your concern and everyone here is thinking very carefully about adoption.

Right now, adoption is difficult because there are few, if any closed transaction loops.

When I invented a digital currency in 2007 a few years before Bitcoin, we had closed loops from the moment we launched and every participant had a way to earn and a way to spend that did not involve fiat. We did hundreds of thousand transactions per day at our peak because everyone was earning, everyone was spending, and everyone could buy something that they needed.

If we get dash into lots of people's hands, what do they then do with it? How do they spend it? How do we distribute to large numbers of people in ways that don't cheapen it?

We have some excellent ideas to present based on what worked well for us in the past, and we think we've made concrete progress on what needs to happen here to improve usage and adoption.
 
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It was called "Entrecard" and it worked like this:

  • Every blogger would place a 125x125 widget on their blog. This ad space was the "product" everyone contributed to the network.
  • Members who visited and engaged with the blog would earn one credit.
  • Members could spend the credits to purchase the 125x125 ad spot on people's blogs, and being small blogs trying to gain following, this was useful and needed by everyone.
This was before the blockchain and all the beautiful revolutionary aspects of it. We were centralized, not p2p, and didn't have the blockchain. We were inflationary since credits were being created out of thin air and we had not thought to have a fixed supply. People could send their credits to each other though, and yes we ran into huge problems with double spend.


What we did have though was 40,000 bloggers earning and spending their entrecard credits like crazy because everyone could earn and everyone could spend on something they needed. From the moment we launched everyone had a way to earn that did not involve making any purchase and everyone had something useful to spend it on.

We started creating more ways to earn and more ways to spend but eventually collapsed because no fiat was entering the system and our server costs became massive and we failed to raise the investment we needed and our angel investor did a hostile takeover and then ran it into the ground. Such is life.

I've actually spent the last decade of my life contemplating how things went so wrong when we were doing so well and growing so fast. Wanting a chance to "do it all over again" if you will.

I know how to get people earning and spending digital currency because I've done it before. We were doing hundreds of thousands of transactions per day. Everyone needs an easy way to earn it and something useful / necessary to spend it on. More ways to earn. More ways to spend. The easier the better

I will have more to share soon regarding the application of these experiences to Dash but I think you get where I'm going with this. Lots of people need to be able to earn it, not buy it, and they need to be able to spend it on things they need.
 
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The new ads can be found here and all other image based ads have been stopped as we shifted from a small experimental campaign to a more large scale one. These new creatives were done by our top designer and very clearly communicate Dash's core feature set, which we continue to believe many people engaged and following the cryptocurrency space are still unaware of. The goal is to bring in new partners, participants and adopters for Dash.

We are not "hiding behind" Venezuela, we are moving rapidly to roll out advertising and content there in full cooperation with the DashHelp team and the Venezuela campaign should be up and running by mid next week.

Your "top designer" did those? They look kind of terrible and amateurish to me. Shouldn't they be in Spanish?

we did sign the deals with CoinDesk and CoinTelegraph on multiple month commitments which we will now not be able to honor.

Why did you commit to very expensive multi-month ad buys while neglecting the fact crypto prices are extremely volatile?

I hate to feed the troll OP, but he has a point about spending more on a single marketing effort than all of Dash's technological development.

And then there is the embarrassing report that Dash are not available in any of Las Vegas' 50+ Bitcoin ATMs. WTF?

I recently relocated to Vegas. According to CoinATMRadar.com, there are 54 crypto ATMs in town, which, with a metro population of around 2.1 million, is a pretty high ratio. Yet, folks in Vegas have no easy way to buy or sell DASH from a crypto ATM.

Though one machine claims to offer DASH support, I found — after visiting the machine in person and communicating with the operator — it's not a fluid process.

View attachment 6810

I sought to change that. Or at least, to be another data point for crypto ATM operators to know of demand for DASH. So here’s what I did:
  • I harvested information from CoinATMRadar.com of all Vegas-based crypto ATMs onto a LibreOffice spreadsheet, including the location of each crypto ATM, the coins supported, the operator and their contact information, the buy/sell fees, the type of machine, etc.
  • I found that five crypto ATM manufacturers were represented in Vegas
  • I reached out to each of those five crypto ATM manufacturers to inquire about their current compatibility with DASH. I was told:
    • BitAccess — “As of the moment we only support BTC.”
    • Coinsource — “We're definitely looking into potentially supporting other alt-coins in the future, however we currently only support legacy Bitcoin (BTC) at the moment."
    • General Bytes — “DASH compatibility is complete. Bidirectional ATM support and POS support. Standard since version 2018/02/01. Most existing ATMs were upgraded that week so all 1400+ ATMs and POS sold since 2013 are now compatible. Adoption of DASH ATMs has been above average over the past two months and still growing (up +17.3% over the past two months, this is higher than average for Bitcoin ATMs +11.1% over the same period). Only thing not yet working is Instantsend (more sep. Instantreceive) due to limited support in the dashj library."
    • Genesis Coin — “At this time Only BTC, BCH, LTC, ETH are supported.”
    • Lamassu — “Our latest version fully supports Dash out of the box but they're still shipping with the old software (that will change very soon) so they still need to be upgraded (https://support.lamassu.is/hc/en-us/sections/115000334152-Upgrading-Installation). It's free, but it's new software so operators might not have gotten around to it yet.”
  • I then contacted all the operators of General Bytes or Lamassu machines in Vegas (five operators representing 12 machines) with this message:
Hello, friend.

My name is Pete. I'm emailing to inquire whether you and your team at [INSERT OPERATOR NAME] will offer Dash on your [INSERT ONE- OR TWO-WAY] [INSERT CRYPTO ATM BRAND] machine at [INSERT LOCATION].

[SECOND PARAGRAPH FOR GENERAL BYTES MACHINES]
I just reached out to the General Bytes folks and was told that during the week of February 1st all 1400+ of their machines were upgraded to incorporate DASH. Thus, it should not take much additional work on y'alls end to add DASH, alongside [INSERT COIN(S) CURRENTLY INTEGRATED].

[SECOND PARAGRAPH FOR LAMASSU MACHINES]
I just reached out to the Lamassu folks and was told that DASH integration can easily be done via a free upgrade (https://support.lamassu.is/hc/en-us/sections/115000334152-Upgrading-Installation). Thus, it should not take much additional work on y'alls end to add DASH, alongside [INSERT COIN(S) CURRENTLY INTEGRATED].

I'm new to Vegas but have been interested and involved with the crypto scene for a bit. And based on my research DASH seems to be the most polished crypto, in terms of real-world use cases, and with the upcoming release of Evolution, is poised to be the first crypto to gain widespread adoption.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Take care, and thanks for your time.

Pete

I received the following responses:
  • AllCoin Kiosk — “We do have DASH support, just have to let us a little bit in advance when you plan on going. Thanks for your interest!” After a couple more emails I informed them that I hoped to not just buy/sell myself but to learn if DASH was offered through their machine, just like any other supported coin.
  • Bitcoin Direct — emailed March 27th, never received a response
  • Bitcoin Raiders — exchanged texts with their contact/support/IT person who noted that the addition of DASH may be considered but they personally could not make the decision. I then asked, “Could you pass along my inquiry to your colleague who would make the decision on whether to add DASH to your machine? Thanks." and was told "Sure thing."
  • CoinCloud — emailed March 27th, never received a response
  • CoinFlip Bitcoin ATMs — I was initially told via email “At this time we do not support DASH, but I'd be happy to discuss with you." After a phone conversation the operator said he'd look more into DASH himself and perhaps do a survey of users to see if demand existed to add DASH.
To conclude, none of the crypto ATMs in Vegas currently are integrated with DASH. Yet one operator (AllCoin Kiosk) seems willing to do buy/sell after being contacted directly. It's likely that should demand for DASH increase, especially as Evolution is unveiled, that operators of General Bytes and Lamassu machines would opt to integrate DASH. Also, other crypto ATM manufacturers (specifically, Coinsource) would be more likely to offer DASH support for machines.

Let's see what 2018 brings!

How much has Dash spent on ATMs, with nothing to show for it but a vacuum in the middle of the world's gambling capital. Aren't Tao and the Core team close to Vegas?

What good are massive, unaffordable advertising campaigns (which can no longer be done on Facebook, Twitter, or Google) when people can't buy Dash despite 50 crypto ATMs in their city?
 
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These are the english language ads, we are preparing everything in Spanish for Venezuela this week. The multiple month commitment was done to negotiate better CPM rates, and it was only for two months and honestly we felt as long as we did our job and did it well, the funding would be there.

Sorry that the ads don't appeal to you, no matter what design anyone comes with, some people will love it and some will hate it. At the end of the day the clickthrough rates tell the real story of whether or not it's working, whether we're getting more people for lower cost.

Across the board, the new ads designed by Maude are performing phenomenally better than the previous ads and insanely better than the account average. In fact, her ad with the Cheetah with the instant send messaging is our best performing ad yet, with an astounding clickthrough rate of over 3% compared to the average across the account of just .6%

Note that the snapshot of the account below is ranking the ads by clickthrough rate, and rank all the display creatives across the entire account since we've been running the campaign. There are 127 creatives on the list and already the new ads have shot right to the top in terms of clickthrough rate.

ZcPMDLO.png
 
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phenomenally better and insanely better

Cool story, but what good are phenomenally better and insanely better ads when

1. Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc. have put the banhammer on crypto ads, and

2. people can't buy Dash even in a city with 50+ crypto ATMs?

All you did was put the Dash logo on a stock photo of a cheetah. @NiburuHybrid can do that phenomenally faster and insanely cheaper.

Why should Dash keep giving you Mad Men promotional gurus 15% of our budget when Evolution needs to be sped up and our infrastructure has yet to successfully produce a viable Dash ATM?

Before you start selling something, shouldn't that thing actually exist (Evolution is coming in Q4) and actually be available for purchase (Dash ATMs TBA)?
 
We see your point and feel it is perfectly valid. Yes, people need ways to get and spend dash more than anything else right now. We hear that loud and clear.

Google is still delivering at a massive volume. Many people in the crypto space are completely unaware of Dash and what Dash does. We do feel it is advantageous to utilize the last two months we have to broadcast our messaging and our feature set while we can, before the Google platform is no longer available. Even though Dash is still very hard to get and not very easy to spend, there are many benefits to advertising that go beyond that, including partnerships, integrations early adopters and community participants. All of this is very likely bolstered by effective targeted advertising.

We have never worked on any ATM proposals directly, but we did reach out to Bitcoin Depot and successfully arranged a meeting between them and Core on March 3rd. I don't know how that meeting went but Bitcoin Depot has about 100 bitcoin ATMS.
 
Cool story, but what good are phenomenally better and insanely better ads when

1. Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc. have put the banhammer on crypto ads, and

2. people can't buy Dash even in a city with 50+ crypto ATMs?

All you did was put the Dash logo on a stock photo of a cheetah. @NiburuHybrid can do that phenomenally faster and insanely cheaper.

Why should Dash keep giving you Mad Men promotional gurus 15% of our budget when Evolution needs to be sped up and our infrastructure has yet to successfully produce a viable Dash ATM?

Before you start selling something, shouldn't that thing actually exist (Evolution is coming in Q4) and actually be available for purchase (Dash ATMs TBA)?
Are you the mod for the dashpay subreddit or are you trying to use someone else's name? Can you provide proof.

You should know that google ad ban does not go into effect till June so that reasoning isn't totally valid.

You can't just speed up evolution product development with more money. Technical debt and other issues around adding new people always slows people down so it is about finding balance.

Ad's hopefully create demand which will make more ATM's want to support dash. These are all chicken before the egg situations where solutions are never so simple. Ad's accumulate in peoples minds so eventually they are subconsciously more likely to consider dash after many impressions etc.
 
Oh, look, @Argon31 on another baseless, whiny crusade full of inflated rhetoric! Seriously, what do you hope to gain posting thread after thread bickering when the majority of the rest of the community clearly disagrees with you? Again, I ask you, what have you done for Dash? What are you doing for Dash? Do you even have a stake in Dash or are you just hear to troll?

Feedbands has done and continues to do so much for the DAO. Their ads are not just a shot in the dark but targeted to support our other live proposals. We need to maintain a constant, uninterrupted presence in the appropriate adspaces if we want to keep our heads under water while the dev team continues to work on Evolution, and the windows in which we have the opportunity and time to do that are continuing to close. We need to make use of these opportunities while we still can.

Yes, it's unfortunate that these opportunities require such a huge percentage of the budget, but as we've belabored numerous times and of which you are continually oblivious, this is moreso a function of the market price of Dash than the ostensibly unreasonable asking price of the proposals. This is what it takes to advertise. That's how it is. Get over it. Get over yourself. You're not helping.
 
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