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Community Q&A - October 2018

strophy

Administrator
Staff member
Dash Core Group
Dash Support Group
Each month, the ten most popular questions submitted by the Dash community at Dash Nation Discord are collected and sent to Dash Core Group for answers. The intention is to select important and well-thought out questions and filter out unpopular questions, questions that have already been answered and other noise. The submissions for October 2018 are as follows:
  1. Q: Can we get a detailed list of features which will be part of Evolution MVP 13.0?

    A (strophy):
    Since this question warrants a more in-depth answer, it will be discussed during the upcoming quarterly call.

  2. Q: Where are the What's Going On At Dash reports? It does not look professional when DGC commits to these reports and just stops producing them. Please deliver the reports according to what was agreed and, if unable to, make an announcement before or at the deadline with a justification.

    A (strophy):
    Since this question warrants a more in-depth answer, it will be discussed during the upcoming quarterly call.

  3. Q: Current versions of Dash do not permit masternodes on Tor because they must be visible to all of the rest of the network. Was this due to limitations imposed by how the list of valid masternodes was maintained in the past? Does the deterministic masternode list in 12.4 remove this limitation, making it theoretically possible to set up bridge nodes and Tor-only masternodes?

    A (codablock):
    No, DIP3 does not remove this limitation. Simply because all Masternodes are expected to be reachable from everywhere, including IPv4. This question is comparable to the questions about IPv6 support from the past and the answer is basically the same. And as with IPv6, only Masternodes are limited. All other nodes can still connect through Tor.

  4. Q: When can we expect the ability to buy Dash from within the Dash mobile wallets? There was talk of wallet integration with Uphold a while ago.

    A (Fernando):
    The integration with Uphold was launched on October 22nd for the Dash Android wallet. The iOS version will follow soon, likely December/January timeframe.

  5. Q: What are DCG's thoughts on Kuvacash?

    A (Ryan):
    While individuals working for DCG are entitled to opinions on Kuvacash, DCG has not formulated any official stance as an organization on its proposals. Kuvacash in no way interferes with DCG’s mission and goals, and under such circumstances we explicitly avoid weighing in on the DAO’s decision-making process (unless we possess knowledge of material information or of false claims not otherwise available to the masternodes). DCG supports Kuvacash’s efforts similar to many other projects within the Dash ecosystem (e.g., listen to their product requirements, provide technical support, jointly participate in PR & events). We do believe that the use case Kuvacash aims to address (e.g., lack of access to physical cash for transactions) is real, and Zimbabwe has sufficiently high rates of smartphone penetration to make it an addressable market for Dash.

  6. Q: Is there a contingency plan for another substantial drop in price? How will DCG continue to function if the price drops to $40 or lower?

    A (Glenn):
    We have a contingency plan in the event the price of Dash decreases from its current levels. However, this contingency plan does not incorporate a scenario of $40 or lower. At those levels DCG will clearly have to focus on entirely restructuring the way it is organized. This goal of the restructuring will be to continue to drive development of the technology.

  7. Q: Can core talk a bit about testing and security auditing all the changes happening in the code?

    A (Robert):
    Each development team has a QA engineer assigned and working together with devs on changes and new features. We have recently adopted Scrum methodology into our delivery process and, by definition, it expects testers to be an integrated part of development teams and work continuously with developers. Our QA engineers built and maintain testing strategies for each DCG product and also provide quality assurance services during the integration projects.

    Due to the budget constraints, we did not perform security audit recently. We were in contact with external vendors and asked for quotes, however the prices for such services are extremely high in blockchain space (and also there are no security experts with knowledge about specific Dash features). The budget for an audit and and bigger security project has been requested by Operations Team for 2019.

    To address security concerns, we have established an internal security team (Bob, Nathan, Robert) and work on internal security improvements, security policies and recommendations. DCG team consists of security experts like Nathan and all developers take the security topic seriously into consideration during the development process.

    Security issues are also being addressed by the bug bounty program led by Jim Bursch (kudos Jim).

  8. Q: How can we ensure proposal owners will deliver what's promised in their proposition? A mandatory Contract with a legal body with payment after agreed milestones are met for example?

    A (Fernando):
    There is no way to guarantee with 100% certainty that the proposal owners will deliver on their promises, but that also happens with any business relationship. Legal contracts with a new legal body would only be another tool among the ones already available (escrow, reputation, multi-month), but would never be a guarantee because contracts need enforcement upon breach and that is often costly, complicated and depends on third parties. Under many circumstances, the cost of enforcement would exceed the expected benefit, even with a contract in place.

    Failure to deliver is a normal risk to take into account and we need to accept it. Not doing so, and trying to put too many controls on proposal owners, would eventually make working in the Dash ecosystem less attractive to established partners that might otherwise consider serving the network. We believe that firms with reputations to protect, either within or outside the Dash ecosystem, combined with some legal protections can offer the best combination of protection against non-delivery, and that the MNOs should value these attributes carefully against the risk of each proposal.

    A (Robert):
    As a PM, I would expect proposal owners submitting high quality proposal consisting clearly defined, measurable deliverables, milestones and timelines. This might be difficult to define it in the system, considering the various nature of proposals, therefore MN owners should demand quality by default. Descriptions and videos increase attractiveness of proposals, however there should be a clear expectation that proposals are submitted only in high quality (from PM perspective).

    I find extremely useful and helpful the service provided by the Dash Watch team. Thanks to their work, I observe increased quality of the submitted proposals and more professional communication and updates coming from proposal owners. DW reports are also valuable source of information about the proposal owners, vendors and their history with Dash. Dash Watch is an evidence on how a well designed system can improve itself.

  9. Q: Has DCG ever discussed a fixed role position for Amanda Johnson? She is so talented and did a terrific job marketing Dash.

    A (Fernando):
    We respect and have a good relationship with Amanda B. Johnson. As with many other Dash network contractors, we have discussed with her about many ways to collaborate. We won’t comment on the details of such conversations since they were always made under the assumption that they were private.

  10. Q: Can we have simple FIDO2 authentication for the dashpay wallet to do away once and for all with the crypto specific hardware wallets?

    A (Nathan):
    There will never be a reason to “do away with” hardware wallets. Private keys never leave hardware wallets, and these will always be more secure than any software wallet which exists on any computer (or mobile device). Hardware based authentication such as FIDO2, etc. does not obviate this need.

  11. Q: In which version / when will mobile wallets support mixing/PrivateSend?

    A (Robert & Ryan):
    During the next few weeks we plan to hold discussions on product strategy (for all products). The PrivateSend topic will be discussed as a part of a broader strategy topic, so this is in the process of decision making. After these discussions, we will be much better positioned to provide an answer to this question, and will aim to provide an update during the next Q&A round.
Thanks to the community and DCG staff who took the time to both ask and answer these questions! Further discussion is welcome below, and don't forget to submit more questions for November!
 
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