Dash Core Team Q3 2017 Summary Call

Patrice Gaucher said:
How is DASH going to attract merchants to adopt the currency?
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...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...
 
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 :)
 
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.
 
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?
 
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.....
 
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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.

solarguy said:
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.....
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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?
 
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.
 
Hello,
Thank you for taking my questions.
1) Direct ramps to Dash are a pain point especially for US citizens and depending on what state you live in your options are limited. Any new direct ramps to Dash in the pipeline?
2) Any update on talks with a large US broker that was mentioned on prior call - maybe adding Dash in Q4? Is that still likely?
3) Mentioned soon adding a "Global brokerage service with Free bank transfers" at the Dash conference. Do you have any more info you can share?

Great work guys and thank you for your time!
 
Thanks for taking questions @kot

I have a question for Ryan Taylor.

Do we have any updates on the $20,000 TV grade professional commercial that was treasury funded from Dash Core's Marketing & Communication (April) proposal? Can you please tell us what the current status of commerical is and will it ever be released for public viewing? Any update would be very much appreciated.

@Ryan Taylor spoke very passionately about commerical concept in the Dash Forums back in March. I was recently reminded about this by a Dash community member. I recall the community was quite excited about this when proposal was fresh.

I quote from Ryan "Now we are at the stage where we need to take the rough animation, sound, and music and have it professionally polished. Everything is being done at cost as a favor to the project. We are getting close in quality to the $200,000-$300,000 version I referenced, and we've done it at a fraction of the cost. It could wind up being the best money we've ever spent."

Thank you for your time. Mark.
 
Because of the large number of questions and limited time for the call, I need to narrow the number of questions from each person to max 2.
@illuyankas - please select 2 questions from your long list.

I will ask the team members to answer the questions on the forum.
 
kot said:
Because of the large number of questions and limited time for the call, I need to narrow the number of questions from each person to max 2.
@illuyankas - please select 2 questions from your long list.

I will ask the team members to answer the questions on the forum.
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When will the remainder be answered? I think it should go on number of likes as this shows criticallity, not max per person...
 
These 2 please.
1) Direct ramps to Dash are a pain point especially for US citizens and depending on what state you live in your options are limited. Any new direct ramps to Dash in the pipeline?
2) Any update on talks with a large US broker that was mentioned on prior call - maybe adding Dash in Q4? Is that still likely?
 
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