Dash Core Team Q3 2017 Summary Call

[kot]

Dear Dash Community Members,

On behalf of the Dash Core Team I would like to invite you for the quarterly call to discuss project progress made during Q3 2017, summarise Core Team activities and answer your questions.

The call will take place on Thursday, 9th of November at 15:00 UTC on our WebEx channel:
https://meetings.webex.com/collabs/...9ZRU1TBH058RLDQ62UPPCK-10JSD&rnd=676677.72410

There are 100 places available in our virtual meeting room. The call will be recorded and shared on the forum.

Agenda:

1. Welcome and Introduction
2. Software Development Update
3. Business Development Update
4. Marketing and Communication Update
5. Project Organization Update
6. Project Finance Update
7. Summary
8. Q&A

Pease prepare and submit your questions here in this thread or you will have an opportunity to ask your questions during the call on the chat channel (if there will be no technical issues during the session).

US TOLL:+1-415-655-0001
Meeting Number: 196 385 031

From the other countries, you could try numbers from the list published on the Cisco website (however I cannot guarantee if they work): http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/about/conferencing-global-access-numbers.html

Thank you
Robert Wiecko

 

[alex-ru]

Hey,
Questions (doubts) from Ru-community:

1. What is going on with business development of Dash? Is Daniel Dias still active in this area and what are team's plans in this direction?
2. What is going on with Evan Daffield - Is he working on his "scalability project" and what is happening there?

Thanks!

 

[qwizzie]

I do not understand the absolute silence surrounding Daniel Dias absence, Daniel is an important member of this community and to your core-team as well. If he is indeed taking a sabbatical
then why not just say so ? I hope that gets answerred once and for all in the Q3 2017 call.

 

[Stealth923]

1) Understand we have growing pains but how can Core provide consistent and professional standard of communications and be accountable to the community, to the standard a multi billion dollar business should? A large number of long timers/MNOs are continuously frustrated at the lack of communication and wrong expectations being set. What will Core do to ensure this gap can be solved? (Comms Manager, Comms framework? etc)

2) What is the actual number of full time vs part time developers working on Dash Core vs Evolution?

3) Does core feel as though we have enough developers on Evolution as I have read multiple instances where work has halted due to them being pulled off onto other integrations etc.

4) What percentage of DIPs for Evolution have been completed thus far, is there some other metric that can be applied to provide some form of update to the community that we are making progress. We dont need any set dates, just more than "work is being done"

5) Any further updates to the vague "major" integration announcements that were mentioned at the Dash conference?

6) What is the general morale of the Core team? Is there anything the MNOs/community can do to ensure the Core members are as efficient and happy as can be?

7) Are there security policies in place to ensure no code theft of Evolution can be done by a rogue developer that got access to it as they slipped through the hiring crack?

p.s to the team members that was involved in fixing the MNO sentinel bug, my hat goes off to you, the response and resolution time was first class.

 

[DAOMN]

I do not understand the absolute silence surrounding Daniel Dias absence, Daniel is an important member of this community and to your core-team as well. If he is indeed taking a sabbatical
then why not just say so ? I hope that gets answerred once and for all in the Q3 2017 call.

From Minotaur's profile:
Minotaur was last seen: 17w 5d ago
I don't remember where I read it, but if I recall correctly, Daniel Diaz left Dash Core and something was mentioned about communication issues? Also, one of the positions open in Core, listed as urgent, is Business Development Director. I guess he may have been overly "autonomous"?

 

[DAOMN]

I do not understand the absolute silence surrounding Daniel Dias absence, Daniel is an important member of this community and to your core-team as well. If he is indeed taking a sabbatical
then why not just say so ? I hope that gets answerred once and for all in the Q3 2017 call.

Found where I read that Daniel Diaz was leaving: https://www.dash.org/forum/threads/...-for-significant-expansion.17089/#post-141054

 

[alex-ru]

Found where I read that Daniel Diaz was leaving: https://www.dash.org/forum/threads/...-for-significant-expansion.17089/#post-141054

I haven't seen any official announcements about it.
Regarding our website - he is still in the team https://www.dash.org/team/
So I direct all people who ask me about details of Dash integration (From Russia and Ukraine mainly) to his E-mail.

 

[savbux]

DASH should be able to provide its community and interested parties with a monthly report summarizing progress in at least one area to which it is allocating money, brainpower and/or partnering efforts. "Mums the word" seems to be the general procedural practice in the cryptocurrency world between developers and hoi polloi. Money expenditure may be an issue for most, but DASH seems better able to pay for such market "pandering" than most.

 

[kot]

Guys, kindly please avoid speculations here - there is no reason to create sensation. Just ask the questions and they will be answered during the call.

 

[qwizzie]

Has Dash been delisted from BTC38 ?

Link : http://www.btc38.com/news/2017/10/15741.html

If yes, has there been communication with BTC38 to see if it can be rectified ?

Edit : i just received a reply by tungfa : https://www.dash.org/forum/threads/btc38-dash-delisted.17632/#post-144344

supposedly all exchanges will be out of China by the end of this month. they are delisting trade pairs step by step

This could be wearth sharing on the Q3 2017 call, its a bit of valuable information and i'm curious how this effects our strategy plan in China (if we have any strategy plan there).

 

[demo]

Guys, kindly please avoid speculations here - there is no reason to create sensation. Just ask the questions and they will be answered during the call.

You know what?
There is not only the scheme Question-Answer-End.
There is also the dialogue!
The truth comes from the dialogue, and not from the Question-Answer-End scheme.

 

[illuyankas]

Hi Robert,

Five (5) questions to Ryan on Legal structure / Competition / Crypto-Integrations / Investments;

Legal Structure

1- When is the Dash legal structure in switzerland expected to be established? - time frame / roadmap?

2- I understand the legal structure in the company will be "owned" by MNO, has the mechanics been formalized? Which Law firm is Dash working with on this front?

Competition

3- Other projects in the space today are springing up - labeling themselves as competition to Paypal. Such example is UTrust. How does Dash view the projects coming up in this space and is their any plans of cross integration collaboration with projects?

Integrations

4- Another example is BlockV, stating they will integrate blockchains such as Bitcoin, Eth, EOS etc - with their team most optimistic about integrating with EOS because the cost of transactions is almost free on EOS; they might have not heard of Dash yet - How does dash view the virtual goods market, VR/AR, and any plans to integrate into these markets or platforms as a payment layer?

Investments

Ryan mentioned Y-combinator in the london Conference in comparison to Dash;

5- Does Dash have plans to use the switzerland entity to invest in projects in the crypto-space as well? - the size of Dash organization can allow it to engage in private sales, both extracting value for MNOs from the ICO space on an organization level and both benefiting from competitors success. This of course doesn't have to be ICOs but that's where most projects are springing as today, at least at the "fund raising" stage.

Thanks.

Pease prepare and submit your questions here in this thread or you will have an opportunity to ask your questions during the call on the chat channel (if there will be no technical issues during the session).

Robert Wiecko

 

[Iñaki]

Is there an adoption strategy and if, what is it, for the Asian market?

 

[solarguy]

1. We need better communications in both directions. Faster responses, more frequent, more dependable, and more systematic with a specific person in charge. This will prevent the need for the community to pester everybody on core that they can think of when we have some urgent question. If this is not immediately possible, can we set a date by which we will have a designated person on core to facilitate better communication in both directions? I can assure you if we do this, we cut the unnecessary drama by >75%.

I would note that Core has made some improvements in this area, but have not really solved the problem.

2. If we complete, and begin to use the the legal entity for Dash and/or the Masternodes in Switzerland, will that change our status with regard to the Howey Test? I'm sure you have considered this, I just want a little hand-holding and assurance that we do not need, and will not get the SEC crawling into bed with us.

3. Do we have "Key Man" insurance? This has two versions. The literal version is that a business or group can purchase life/disability insurance on specific team members, such that if this key member were to die or become disabled, the group gets a substantial amount of money to hire a very high caliber replacement on an emergency basis. I'm not suggesting we need to take a life insurance policy out on Even and/or Ryan and/or our top 10 essential team members. (although that is a real and legitimate insurance product).

The second version (which I am suggesting) is to have a plan in place to compensate for the sudden/unplanned loss of a critical team member for any reason. Do we have such a plan? How many people on Core are critical for timely progress, and would be difficult to replace, which could set the whole project back significantly?

4. Are we developing a specific strategy to get into the remittance business in a big way, hardware, software, marketing, etc?

Edit: 5. Are all devs getting honest to God market rates? Does everybody on the team that is full time (>30 hours per week) have real benefits including health insurance? What is the protocol for giving raises? And just to be clear, if market rate for a 40 hour per week dev is $65,000 a year, I want our people to get $75,000.

 

[illuyankas]

What's the status on the BlockCypher Dash Grant program?

1- How many projects are currently in that program?

2- Does Dash or Blockcypher take equity stake in these projects? And if not are there plans for the Dash Switzerland entity to take equity stake in funded projects whether in this program or other future programs?

3- What's the size of the fund / grant? And how long is it for? Is it a revolving fund?

4- Is this fund being actively marketed? Any plans to increase the marketing for this grant? We don't see much news on outcomes of this fund since last announcement in August 24th 2017 nor much marketing around it or news about projects it has funded!

5- Is Blockcypher investing any of its funds into this grant or is it purely Dash funding? if so, what's the split?

6- Are there any other similar funds or initiatives at an instructional level for the development of software solutions around the Dash blockchain in the works?

 

[Patrice Gaucher]

We have heard of the Evolutuon development roadmap, but very little about the merchant adoption roadmap.

A few questions.

- How is DASH going to attract merchants to adopt the currency?

- What would be the advantages of these merchants to work with Dash as opposed to a ‘universal’ payment converter such as UTRUST which would allow clients to pay in whatever currency they want, and merchants to receive fiat.

Cheers
Patrice

 

[illuyankas]

1- When will the community have access to the read-only repository that was promised last Q2 call?

2- Can "shareholders" MNOs have access to the private repository of Evolution? - maybe not all MNOs , but shareholders that meet certain general criteria in time and investment.

3- Alternatively, given the size of the Dash Core organization, has the organization considered officially hiring an internal auditor reporting to the shareholders MNOs? - similar to DFN but in an official capacity within the Dash Core? If not, then why not?

4- Can Dash core hold an AMA weekly session? - We've seen other projects doing this and it's been received positively by those communities.

5- What's the status on the contract with Ogilvy & Mather, particularly step-1 of the contract "Brand Positioning"?

6- The project progress reports posted by Robert seem to show a trend being established. Namely, lack of resources and key people stretched over multiple projects; How does Dash plan to address this in the immediate term (1-3 months) and on the long term? as well as what mechanisms are being implemented to address this ahead of time in the future?

7- Is there any plans to foster an atmosphere inside Dash core similar to the 20% rule implemented by Google, where developers can or should have 20% of their time in a week officially taken to develop other side-projects that can help the ecosystem? - Of course the stipulant here is Dash switzerland (MNOs) can always invest in promising projects as early investors. This also means more developers are needed.

 

[mastermined]

Can Dash core hold an AMA weekly session? - We've seen other projects doing this and it's been received positively by those communities.

Weekly is way too much IMO, I want our core people working on Dash not babysitting us. I'm actually pretty happy with joel's monthly reporting on the community's questions but a Monthly AMA with follow up questions would be a plus.

 

[solarguy]

once a month would be fine. Unrelated to the monthly AMA, or Joel report, we need a contact person for timely answers to urgent questions.

 

[camosoul]

to the team members that was involved in fixing the MNO sentinel bug, my hat goes off to you, the response and resolution time was first class.

It was a really easy fix to a problem that was really easy to spot... So easy, one wonders how it was ever there.

Such facepalm. That was superderp.

But, it's fixed now, so whatevs. Lets not dwell...

Hows that 12.2 coming?

 

[camosoul]

How is DASH going to attract merchants to adopt the currency?

...by shutting off the killer feature (IX) that would attract merchants in order to stifle yet another retail service project brought by someone not core...

After all the sabotage they've committed against other parties (one was even MNO approved and funded), I hope they finally pull through with the one they've been working on themselves...

 

[TanteStefana]

Those are really great questions above. I have a couple:
1. When will Dash begin the marketing plan and what will it look like?
2. Would it not be important to begin press releases and some sort of marketing by now? I worry we will have no impact when we finally release a working version of "Evolution" since "cheaper" versions are already being released and frankly, I don't see the general public understanding or even caring about "decentralization" "trustlessness" etc... At a minimum, I think we should start running a campaign talking about WHY we've gone through all this pain and development to make Dash secure (sure) trustless (what's that?) decentralized (why?) and private (why?). We are completely different from "similar" projects but only under the hood. To get the public to understand...........heck, to get "industry" or "current crypto enthusiasts" to understand these things, we need to start educating them. How? I propose that is what are marketing strategy should be, now. Through an education campaign.

I honestly feel that if we wait until our product is ready, we will have lost a huge opportunity to become well known and valued. Educational promotion of Dash, not "buy buy buy" but Educational, would keep Dash at the forefront of the crypto space. I know you'll say we already are, but not to the public, not even to the "crypto public" They don't have a clue as to why Dash is up at number 6 consistently. It's there because only a few, small percentage understand and believe.

Another thing we might gain is volume, without which we are not usable as a currency. Volume and market cap are essential to be usable. Having that explode all of a sudden when Evolution is released would be the best outcome of the current policy, but that is likely to come at a cost. It likely will create bubble fears and bad volatility. It may not happen at all because more sparkly shiny projects may come along by then, nothing substantial, but since when do people care about substance? Even now Bitcoin is bracing for a catastrophe and everyone and his brother is jumping in on the wagon with no clue of what is to come.

I submit here that we should begin building our marketing on education now, not wait, and do it responsibly with information and not hype. By doing so, we will build up our volume and market cap and prepare it for usability when Evolution is released.

What do you think of this? Can we start something?

Thanks for reading

 

[illuyankas]

This a question for DASH Core HR / Senior Management

There is a shortage of Blockchain developers today and it's only going to get worse with all these projects coming online.

How is Dash prepping the next generation of developers to come and join Dash?

1- Scholarships? Is there any plan by Dash Core to provide scholarships for the brightest Computer Science and Software Engineer at Uni today? of course provided they come work for dash afterwards.

2- Dash Blockchain Learning Centers? Is there a way where Dash carries out a program where current Blockchain Developers teach Developers about the blockchain; of course this may be sponsored provided those joining developers commit to developing for Dash for an X no. of years?

With the new ICO and expansion of space, compounded with rich developers, every project will face this issue sooner or later. The popularity of a project over another might be a a saviour of sorts but can't swim against the trend for long before even the most popular of projects run into problems.

IMHO, offering someone a scholarship to carry out his or her education in the space might be the most rewarding marketing and brand building in the long run. We can target Masters and PHD students in the fields of CS and Software Eng.

 

[illuyankas]

HASH RATE / MINERS / BLOCK REWARD STRUCTURE

I'm sure that Core has noticed the increase in AntPool hash rate and overall hash rate.

1- Can we verify the percentage of hash rate that belongs to BitMain directly on AntPool? As in is there a way to verify how much BitMain is mining for themselves.

2- What is the risk of BitMain or any miner with this kind of Hash rate accumulating enough MNs to affect governance?

3- Has a study been conducted to evaluate the optimal collateral required for an MN in light of governance decentralization? Whilst the threshold of 1000 Dash for an MN is fine from the point of view that we don't need many MNO to carry out the functions required by the network, it might be beneficial to decrease the requirement at these prices of Dash to ensure decentralization of governance in light of the possibility of some miners controlling a lot of hash power - assuming BitMain or others are using their equipment before selling it to accumulate Dash.

4- Any update on Dash Labs' efforts to open-soruce the ASIC business?

5- What stops or contingencies does Core have or working on to mitigate the above risks? - any 3rd party studies?

6- In addition to collateralized mining, in the interim, what about the collateral for MNs being a function of Hash rate? or alternatively the rewards? As mining hash rate increases the rewards shift to MNs? or better a combination of the two (collateral and rewards asf function of Hash Rate)?

7- In the Dash open house in March, Ryan mentioned that studies will be conducted to see the best combinations for reward structure. Has this commenced?

 

[solarguy]

Illuyankas, with respect to your post about future blockchain developers, I like it. You're playing the long game. That's so much more productive than worrying about what the price will be next week. Not that price is unimportant, but worrying does nothing to change it.
This could be tied to the idea in a previous post about retaining the best talent. Let's call it profit sharing, whatever that form may take. If devs stick around for 1 year, they get x bonus. 2yrs, 2x bonus....5 years, a masternode. That's in addition to getting paid 1.25x market rate and good benefits.

If the profit sharing package is good, we wouldn't need a huge scholarship program with a requirement that they work for Dash for x years. That also more directly aligns incentives with success in the Dash ecosystem. It shouldn't take too long to gain a reputation that working for Dash is even better than working for Google, or even Gabe Newell/Valve.

Edit: I'm also thinking about if it is even possible to encourage/allow the Core Team to produce/have/encourage the kind of work environment that people thrive in, such that they never want to leave. This encompasses pay rates, and bonus procedures, but also work environments. I'm flailing a little bit here to describe the desired outcome...to have Dash Core be an awesome environment to work in. And maybe we have that already, I am pretty ignorant about what that's like at the moment.....

 

[illuyankas]

Solarguy, I agree pay compensation and bonuses are of utmost importance. However, I think having multi faucets is an insurance policy to having the talent pipeline always full. Furthermore, IMHO cultivating young developers keeps the project dynamic and young, and overall costs down. It further creates Brand loyalty akin to an alumni of a university.

For clarity, I'm not saying we don't need experienced highly paid developers on handsome retainer packages, but rather we need a mix.

Illuyankas, with respect to your post about future blockchain developers, I like it. You're playing the long game. That's so much more productive than worrying about what the price will be next week. Not that price is unimportant, but worrying does nothing to change it.
This could be tied to the idea in a previous post about retaining the best talent. Let's call it profit sharing, whatever that form may take. If devs stick around for 1 year, they get x bonus. 2yrs, 2x bonus....5 years, a masternode. That's in addition to getting paid 1.25x market rate and good benefits.

If the profit sharing package is good, we wouldn't need a huge scholarship program with a requirement that they work for Dash for x years. That also more directly aligns incentives with success in the Dash ecosystem. It shouldn't take too long to gain a reputation that working for Dash is even better than working for Google, or even Gabe Newell/Valve.

Edit: I'm also thinking about if it is even possible to encourage/allow the Core Team to produce/have/encourage the kind of work environment that people thrive in, such that they never want to leave. This encompasses pay rates, and bonus procedures, but also work environments. I'm flailing a little bit here to describe the desired outcome...to have Dash Core be an awesome environment to work in. And maybe we have that already, I am pretty ignorant about what that's like at the moment.....

 

[illuyankas]

Questions on Dash Website and Social Media Engagement

1- What is the QoQ growth in no. of unique visitors to Dash.org?

2- What is being done to bring down the bounce rate? - currently the bounce rate is more than 50% per Alexa. Or alternatively, increase interaction with the website?

3- Is there any plans to implement notification subscription on the website for popular web browsers?

4- 40% of the traffic comes from search engines, is this main source of traffic? if so, what are the plans to improve it?

5- Any plans to increase the number of pages linking to Dash.org? Advertisement on international websites? - currently about 20% of the upstream traffic is coming from Google.com (11%) and CoinMarketCap.com (7%).

6- What's the plan to increase traffic on social platforms such as Twitter and Facebook? - any plans for paid advertisement campaigns?

7- Can social and website stats along with financial metrics such as volume increase, Market cap, be quantified and published on the website? - I know Ryan tweets from time to time on the financial metrics.

8- Other ideas?

 

[solarguy]

I'm not suggesting that we don't need active recruitment program (via scholarships) of the best talent in the pipeline. Not at all.

But I am suggesting that if we push harder at one end, and pull harder at the other end, the whole thing goes faster. Do both. We're all on the same page.

 

[Sergei]

Hello, and who can take part in this call?

 

[solarguy]

Hello, and who can take part in this call?

I think it's first come, first served. And they record it and publish it. And you can suggest pertinent questions in this thread.