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A word of caution on "for profit" business integrations

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halso

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Guys, I wanted to share some thoughts on some of the "for profit" business integrations that are increasingly being proposed to the network.

There are two schools of thought on this:

1. Expand the Eco-system as quickly as possible and fund all integrations.

Members like @David have previously raised the very valid point that we need to expand the ecosystem as rapidly as possible as we are in a race with other cryptos to establish a network effect.

However, a second school of thought has also been put forward:

2. We are big enough and have sufficient momentum that we shouldn't have to pay.

If some of these blockchain agnostic "for profit" businesses ignore DASH then the do so at the risk of losing DASH related business. Therefore, they should pay their own integration costs.

Furthermore, these businesses readily integrate other alt coins at no cost.

I would like to raise an example of when we paid for an integration in the past when we probably shouldn't have.

Living Room of Statoshi (which is a great product by the way, and im glad we are on their platform) made a big deal of removing all other altcoins and only accepting DASH and Bitcoin. (We paid 1000 DASH for the integration).

losold.png


However, within a few months they quickly re-integrated the majority of these alt coins (and others). Here is a snap-shot of their platform today.

losnew.png


As far as I know there was no contractual arrangement that other altcoins would not re-introduced despite requests from some members like @TroyDASH . So we don't have any recourse. But that’s all in the past, so it doesn't really matter anymore. But lessons should be learned going forward.

Conclusion.

There will be instances when "for profit" businesses integrations do make sense. For example, massive exchanges where a little deal sweetener may be appropriate. Or @ThirtySix who are doing something truly groundbreaking and have made a contractual commitment to only use the Dash network for a set period of time.

But there are other instances where I think we should simply say no. For example the GateHub proposal. They have failed to give any guarantees with respect further altcoin integrations. And statements like "at this time we are not planning any further integrations" just isn't good enough.

I would encourage anyone who voted for the GateHub proposal to reconsider @GrandMasterDash @Dandy @Kevin Stalker @Technologov @solarguy @radeon_jas @akhavr

To fund these below par proposals comes at a real cost to the network. I.e. other projects that could be spent furthering the DASH network. And not paying for integrations we would get for free anyway.

We are essentially providing subsidies / handouts to these private companies without any benefit to the DASH network.

Hopefully the committee system being proposed by @eduffield will help thrash out the pros and cons of these "for profit" business integrations.

At the very least, "for profit" integrations should come with some iron clad contractual commitment to the DASH network (I.e. the exclusion of other altcoin integrations for a period of X).

On a side note, if there is DASH leftover in the budget then maybe we should reconsider stockpiling DASH in a future evolution marketing fund – as per @Ryan Taylor previous suggestion.

Interested in other peoples thoughts.
 
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I would encourage anyone who voted for the GateHub proposal to reconsider @GrandMasterDash @Dandy @Kevin Stalker @Technologov @solarguy @radeon_jas @akhavr

I've tried to explain why this specific GateHub proposal for Ripple integration is important. Looks like I wasn't particularly successful.

Let me know what point in my explanation I should expand?

To fund these below par proposals comes at a real cost to the network. I.e. other projects that could be spent furthering the DASH network.

I would love to see more proposals, so the regular monthly budget would be spent.
 
I've tried to explain why this specific GateHub proposal for Ripple integration is important. Looks like I wasn't particularly successful.

Let me know what point in my explanation I should expand?



I would love to see more proposals, so the regular monthly budget would be spent.

1. Every new integration is great, and if GateHub adds DASH then that is fantastic. But, there are potentially hundreds of other "for profit" integrations to come in the crypto space. Should we pay for every one of them while other alts get added for free? What advantage do we get over other alts in this scenario? The proposal owners won't even commit to excluding other alt integrations for 12 months.

2. Re: more proposals to use the full budget. I agree. Core should step in and commence stockpiling for Marketing of Evolution.
 
1. Every new integration is great, and if GateHub adds DASH then that is fantastic. But, there are potentially hundreds of other "for profit" integrations to come in the crypto space. Should we pay for every one of them while other alts get added for free? What advantage do we get over other alts in this scenario? The proposal owners won't even commit to excluding other alt integrations for 12 months.

I guess we should not, but I'm not qualified to answer the general case. Yet, I'm completely sure that GateHub integration plus an ability to fire up an open source gateway by anyone, given the rise of transaction activity in Ripple, would bring great value to the Dash ecosystem.

Say, pay from a credit card in Ukraine to a company in Argentina with no party knowing that they're going through Dash and Ripple? Easy, just get a gateway in Ukraine and a gateway in Argentina :)

2. Re: more proposals to use the full budget. I agree. Core should step in and commence stockpiling for Marketing of Evolution.

I don't think stockpiling is a good idea without a plan to use funds.
 
I guess we should not, but I'm not qualified to answer the general case. Yet, I'm completely sure that GateHub integration plus an ability to fire up an open source gateway by anyone, given the rise of transaction activity in Ripple, would bring great value to the Dash ecosystem.

Say, pay from a credit card in Ukraine to a company in Argentina with no party knowing that they're going through Dash and Ripple? Easy, just get a gateway in Ukraine and a gateway in Argentina :)



I don't think stockpiling is a good idea without a plan to use funds.
Agree point 2 should come with a plan.
 
I think we should start stock piling already and also put pressure on for a plan. If 'they' come up with a plan at the last moment and there's no funds for it - It's too late!
I'm really concerned that repeated calls for a plan seems to be ignored.
There are only a couple of reasons for this lack of response that I can think of:
1) There is no plan and no plan to do one and no-one wants to admit to this
2) No-one wants to take the responsibility of doing the planning
3) Insiders know that Evo has been delayed and there's no need to start planning as yet
4) Revealing a plan might give hints re Evo release date and result in price manipulation
5) Some other valid reason for keeping the plan hidden?

I find this lack of communication in this regard unacceptable.
As an investor I would like to hear something like: " We are working on a plan. We have been working on it since XXX. YYY is in charge."

You don't need a release date to start planning!
I also think the community should be involved in the planning. There are highly skilled people in the community that can give very valuable ideas and as far as I know there are no experts in core when it comes to a highly expensive and very complicated exercise like this.
Open it up.
Please.
 
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Guys, I wanted to share some thoughts on some of the "for profit" business integrations that are increasingly being proposed to the network.

There are two schools of thought on this:

1. Expand the Eco-system as quickly as possible and fund all integrations.

Members like @David have previously raised the very valid point that we need to expand the ecosystem as rapidly as possible as we are in a race with other cryptos to establish a network effect.

However, a second school of thought has also been put forward:

2. We are big enough and have sufficient momentum that we shouldn't have to pay.

If some of these blockchain agnostic "for profit" businesses ignore DASH then the do so at the risk of losing DASH related business. Therefore, they should pay their own integration costs.

Furthermore, these businesses readily integrate other alt coins at no cost.

I would like to raise an example of when we paid for an integration in the past when we probably shouldn't have.

Living Room of Statoshi (which is a great product by the way, and im glad we are on their platform) made a big deal of removing all other altcoins and only accepting DASH and Bitcoin. (We paid 1000 DASH for the integration).

View attachment 4143

However, within a few months they quickly re-integrated the majority of these alt coins (and others). Here is a snap-shot of their platform today.

View attachment 4141

As far as I know there was no contractual arrangement that other altcoins would not re-introduced despite requests from some members like @TroyDASH . So we don't have any recourse. But that’s all in the past, so it doesn't really matter anymore. But lessons should be learned going forward.

Conclusion.

There will be instances when "for profit" businesses integrations do make sense. For example, massive exchanges where a little deal sweetener may be appropriate. Or @ThirtySix who are doing something truly groundbreaking and have made a contractual commitment to only use the Dash network for a set period of time.

But there are other instances where I think we should simply so no. For example the GateHub proposal. They have failed to give any guarantees with respect further altcoin integrations. And statements like "at this time we are not planning any further integrations" just isn't good enough.

I would encourage anyone who voted for the GateHub proposal to reconsider @GrandMasterDash @Dandy @Kevin Stalker @Technologov @solarguy @radeon_jas @akhavr

To fund these below par proposals comes at a real cost to the network. I.e. other projects that could be spent furthering the DASH network. And not paying for integrations we would get for free anyway.

We are essentially providing subsidies / handouts to these private companies without any benefit to the DASH network.

Hopefully the committee system being proposed by @eduffield will help thrash out the pros and cons of these "for profit" business integrations.

At the very least, "for profit" integrations should come with some iron clad contractual commitment to the DASH network (I.e. the exclusion of other altcoin integrations for a period of X).

On a side note, if there is DASH leftover in the budget then maybe we should reconsider stockpiling DASH in a future evolution marketing fund – as per @Ryan Taylor previous suggestion.

Interested in other peoples thoughts.

I'm not particularly concerned about "fair" but rather focus on "effective." I'd rather pay some people who don't deserve it and get to $XXX marketcap two years earlier than wait patiently to be integrated. I have quite the opposite opinion of you, in fact, when it comes to Dash "being big enough" for people to want/need to integrate it on their own. Right now we are #6 (almost #7) in market cap, and the market keeps doing insane things. Coins like XRP and XEM are getting all the attention right now, along with the perennial ETH. Nobody--nobody--seems to care about DASH at the moment. I certainly believe that will change in time, but part of that change is going to be driven by new integrations.

Remember, this is not (presently) a zero-sum game. Money for integrations is not coming at the expense of any other proposals (the budget has had significant amounts of unused funding left in the last few months). When budget DASH isn't created, we gain essentially nothing (about 1.2 cents in value for every 1000 DASH that's not created). A couple of months ago, we had over $100,000 in unused budget funds that simply vanished into the ether (pardon my pun). Imagine the good that could have been done with those funds? Given the choice, would you pay a potential business partner* $100,000 to integrate (making us more useful and more valuable), or simply stand on principle and gain nothing?

*Somebody useful/important. I'm not suggesting throwing money around just for the sake of spending it.

P.S. In the future, we should craft more agreements like the one we recently made: there should be penalties for lack of exclusivity (if exclusivity is promised, as it was for Living Room of Satoshi).
 
As an investor I would like to hear something like: " We are working on a plan. We have been working on it since XXX. YYY is in charge."

I have a different attitude (perhaps 20+ years in open source matters :) )

There are no "they". If you have an idea for a feature - pull request is welcome. If you feel a need for the plan - you're welcome to start a pre-proposal and then request funding via proposal.

I have a part of my vision in my electrum roadmap, and before starting marketing, the tech has to be there. People, coming from sales and marketing may have different perspective.
 
Hi Akhavr
Troydash just said the following on Slack regarding yesterday's Core Team Summary Call: ". And the glut of additional reserves will allow expanded marketing efforts even before evolution, now that we have the opportunity and the marketing budget is flexible" So before I respond, I'll wait for the video - sounds like some of my concerns have been answered already :)
What the hell: " 20+ years in open source matters" Yep - I had 10+ years in coding ages ago in corporate 'closed' coding - back in the mainframe days, but even then the coders and marketers were at odds.
"idea for a feature - pull request is welcome." No I never said or even implied that. Although, who knows..? Might need something down the line once I see what Evo can do.

"If you feel a need for the plan - you're welcome to start a pre-proposal and then request funding via proposal." Definitely feel a need - Yes! But first want to see the video. Might be in the works - I hope.
In any case, I won't be the right guy for this - should be a very high level/corporate marketing type with experience planning and managing multi million campaigns.
But if core is not going to do anything, we should be told, so the community can get onto it asap. Will take many months, just for a basic plan.
 
Very good points.

As far as I'm concerned, I will worry about that whenever the budget is entirely used up every month.

That's why I've always been up for a reduction in the proposal fees or stocking up a pile of dash for marketing (the latest option is my prefered one).

I agree that some sort of contract should be made so company who have promised exclusivity for dash would keep their word.

We don't have yet the official structure to enforce it but we could still have their CEO having a document signed that could easily be shared publicly in case they don't respect what they say (the detterent would then be the reputation of their firm that would be at stake).
 
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