Pre-Proposal Discussion: Dash to Fiat Payment Processor

[DartPayments]

Intro

To drive adoption of Dash one of the important pieces of infrastructure required is a high quality Dash exclusive payment gateway with instant fiat conversion. Bitpay and Coinbase have been instrumental in encouraging merchants to add Bitcoin as a payment option on their sites.

Introducing Dart Payments. Dart aims to provide high quality payment processing and conversion for merchants wanting to accept Dash. A short overview presentation is available here.

Who are we?

We’re two brothers with a passion for driving adoption of anonymous and instant cryptocurrency. We each bring different skills to the table with backgrounds in business/finance and computer programming. We split out time between New Zealand and Australia.

Amount requested vs. costs

We propose to request 400 DASH from the each of the next 3 budgets. This will provide us with capital to develop a beta version of our software for select merchants to test out. Costs are very much an open ended question, we'll build as much as we can with the funds received. We expect to contribute additional funds from our own pockets on top of the DASH we hope to receive from the budget.

Note: Amount was chosen when there was still 455 Dash available in the next budget (currently 400 left).

Equity to Dash Foundation

As this is a for profit business we accept that we should give something back to the Dash community (in addition to building important infrastructure for mainstream Dash adoption). For every month of funding we receive we’ll be offing 5% of the business to the Dash foundation.

Demo

We’ve built a demo site to so you can try out some early code. Visit dashstickers.xyz to give it a try. For US $2 of Dash you’ll get two vinyl stickers posted anywhere in the world. At best we’ll probably break even on the sticker part, so even if you’re not going to vote yes on the proposal it would be great to if you’d buy some stickers (we may keep the sticker site going if there’s demand).

This is very early software so if you encounter any issues please send us a message at [email protected]

Proposal submission

We have not yet submitted the proposal to the network and are open to modifying aspects of the proposal to give it the highest chance of succeeding. We welcome all comments and suggestions.

Want to join us?

We are open to having other individuals join us to help build Dart Payments. If you have programming skills or capital that you can offer, send us a PM with some info.

 

[alex-ru]

I want to support your idea, but with no reputation and no experience - there is no sense to require money in advance - looks like a scam (even if it's not a scam).

 

[DartPayments]

I want to support your idea, but with no reputation and no experience - there is no sense to require money in advance - looks like a scam (even if it's not a scam).

We have other accounts on DashTalk, BitcoinTalk, and Reddit, but value our privacy. If somebody trusted in the community wants me to PM them from those accounts to prove we've been around here for a while (since February 2014) I'd be happy to do so.

We're committed to being as transparent as possible. Our initial proposal is also for a relatively small amount over 3 months.

 

[tungfa]

https://sway.com/KKY2NqflcH6GHqr7

 

[DartPayments]

Just something quick and easy to read/share we threw together.

Feel free to ask any questions. It's getting quite late (early ) around this side of the world, so you might have to wait a bit for a reply.

 

[InTheWoods]

The foundation budget is something ill defined. Not sure what happens currently to the foundation money. The budget system kinda` rendered useless the need for a foundation budget.

Why not create a mechanism to send these payments to Masternode owners or perhaps return the profits back to the budget funding pool?

 

[DartPayments]

The foundation budget is something ill defined. Not sure what happens currently to the foundation money. The budget system kinda` rendered useless the need for a foundation budget.

Why not create a mechanism to send these payments to Masternode owners or perhaps return the profits back to the budget funding pool?

Certainly something we're open to, not sure how it would work on a technical (and legal) level.

Perhaps as an interim measure the equity could go to the Dash Foundation with a pledge [from the Foundation] to essentially gift that equity to the network when the technology allows.

 

[InTheWoods]

About the 5% stake; just a stake is more or less useless if you won't paid dividends. It will just be something on paper that won't add up to much. You'll have to start paying some of your profits back into the pot. A 5% equity stake in itself doesn't guarantee anything.

Also, why just 5%? Seems too low for providing the seed funding for such a project.

 

[DartPayments]

About the 5% stake; just a stake is more or less useless if you won't paid dividends. It will just be something on paper that won't add up to much. You'll have to start paying some of your profits back into the pot. A 5% equity stake in itself doesn't guarantee anything.

We will pay dividends once profitable (hopefully sooner rather than later), and it's 5% per month funded for a total of 15% over the 3 months. We're open to tweaking these parameters.

Also, why just 5%? Seems too low for providing the seed funding for such a project.

On the part of the network 400 DASH isn't really that much, and the way the system is set up these funds will be burnt if no other proposals show up.

We will be contributing some additional funds on top of those provided in the budget. Additionally we'll be spending significant time and effort on the project.

Once again, we're open to adjusting this aspect.

 

[InTheWoods]

We will pay dividends once profitable (hopefully sooner rather than later), and it's 5% per month funded for a total of 15% over the 3 months. We're open to tweaking these parameters.



On the part of the network 400 DASH isn't really that much, and the way the system is set up these funds will be burnt if no other proposals show up.

We will be contributing some additional funds on top of those provided in the budget. Additionally we'll be spending significant time and effort on the project.

Once again, we're open to adjusting this aspect.

Not really sure you will convince people by saying "we are your best bet because there's nothing else on the table" or by saying you shouldn't ask for higher % because 3X 400DASH isn't much. You are basically asking for someone to fund your business in a field that happens to be DASH related and you want to give 5% back.

The DASH that gets burned is not wasted. That DASH is not sold on the open market lowering the price.

 

[alex-ru]

On the part of the network 400 DASH isn't really that much, and the way the system is set up these funds will be burnt if no other proposals show up.

It is not a good statement that will help you to gain the trust.

The good is, IMO:

Business development efforts will seek to identify potential partnerships that will deliver value to the Dash ecosystem as measured by
1) potential impact,
2) cost and effort required to support,
3) timing of potential benefit,
4) fit with strategic objectives, and
5) likelihood of success

https://www.dash.org/dash-strategy/

 

[TheDashGuy]

If you guys end up needing a nice looking dash branded website let me know! Been doing quite a bit of Dash related web & graphics work lately and I would be open to lending a hand if you guys get funded or not.

And as far as wanting to pay the Foundation 5%, please don't either keep it for yourself or donate it to a charity or like InTheWoods said, send it to masternode owners. Were supposed to be decentralizing EVERYTHING, not just the easy and quick stuff ;]

We wouldn't want the Dash foundation ending up like the Bitcoin foundation now would we? That'd be a shame. Money always ruins our toys so lets keep the foundation greed free as much as we can, especially since it will have to keep growing at some point to make up for how big Dash becomes.

 

[TaoOfSatoshi]

DartPayments

I'm so stoked to see these independent businesses arise out of the Dash ecosystem. It makes me feel that we are on the right track, growing one block at a time. Good luck to you with your startup! Followed you, and gave you some exposure here:

https://twitter.com/taoofsatoshi/status/700014050705567745

 

[qwizzie]

Interesting pre-proposal and pre-proposal discussion, i will follow this closely

 

[InTheWoods]

I suggest you read this article https://www.quora.com/When-a-VC-invests-seed-in-a-company-how-much-equity-does-he-receive You need to give back a much higher %. Somewhere around 20%, otherwise you'd play us for suckers. No offense. I'm sure you have the best intentions.

Why not start by presenting a business plan? The Bitcoin scene has been full of scams, vaporware projects and unfulfilled promises.

A payment processor is a big project. What makes you think you can do better than https://www.coinpayments.net/supported-coins that already supports DASH?

What merchant would want to use a Dash only payment processor with the current trading volume? I know Dash has potential but still.... A merchant would be more inclined to use a payment processor offering bunch of coins, except of course if you're talking Bitcoin which is a 6 billion USD market, not great by the way. 6 billion is small but still, tempting enough for some even if for marketing purposes alone, to draw in new customers.

You want to create a dedicated payment processor for a <30 million market that has a trading volume below 300k USD/day.

I applaud the effort but unless you have a convincing business plan to show us...

 

[DartPayments]

Not really sure you will convince people by saying "we are your best bet because there's nothing else on the table" or by saying you shouldn't ask for higher % because 3X 400DASH isn't much. You are basically asking for someone to fund your business in a field that happens to be DASH related and you want to give 5% back.

Looking at it mathematically, 5% for 400 DASH would value the business (I use 'business' in a loose sense at this stage) at 8,000 DASH or just under US$30,000 at current market prices. The 85% retained by us would be worth US$25,500.

Now since our main contribution is time and ideas (we will contribute some additional funds), how much is that worth? Where we live US$25,500 would be considered a fairly low annual salary for someone starting out in their first full-time job. We can't work full-time on this project, but there will be two of us working part-time, and it will likely be more than 1 year before we get to a level of revenue where we could start being paid.

Feel free to suggest alternative percentages/amounts We're here to generate discussion, and modify our proposal accordingly.

 

[Solarminer]

This is a great proposal. I would like to make a few suggestions.

I would rather see this as a loan option. So your proposal would look like this:

• Asking for 1200 Dash in 3 budget cycles.
• Will payback 1200 Dash starting 6 months out and ending in 12 months. The benefit to Dash is an dash/fiat exchange - there isn't a reason to pay back more than the 1200 Dash. How this is paid back is another discussion.
• Add some detail on timing/revenue. How long will this take to setup, how you expect to gain customers, your expected profits/mo, your expected exchange fee, etc. Show us that this is a thought out plan and it is likely to be successful.

This allows you to keep all profits moving forward and keeps that discussion out of the proposal. The voters would then judge this proposal based on your skill set, reputation, business plan, and risk of paying back the funds.

 

[InTheWoods]

DartPayments

I did suggest % as well as presenting a business plan. Check my previous post.

 

[InTheWoods]

Solarminer

Not a bad idea. Have something like a convertible bond that will be converted back to Dash and sent back to the budget pool after a given number of months. In other words a loan for a set predetermined period.

 

[DartPayments]

If you guys end up needing a nice looking dash branded website let me know! Been doing quite a bit of Dash related web & graphics work lately and I would be open to lending a hand if you guys get funded or not.

Thanks for the offer

And as far as wanting to pay the Foundation 5%, please don't either keep it for yourself or donate it to a charity or like InTheWoods said, send it to masternode owners. Were supposed to be decentralizing EVERYTHING, not just the easy and quick stuff ;]

We're very open to the idea. If someone can suggest a legal and technical framework for doing so we're all ears.

 

[TheDashGuy]

Thanks for the offer



We're very open to the idea. If someone can suggest a legal and technical framework for doing so we're all ears.

eduffield should just implement "3rd party masternode payments" of some sort so people can always pay back the masternodes with equity, instead of the foundation...

I can hope... can't I? lol

 

[DartPayments]

DartPayments

I'm so stoked to see these independent businesses arise out of the Dash ecosystem. It makes me feel that we are on the right track, growing one block at a time. Good luck to you with your startup! Followed you, and gave you some exposure here:

Thanks for the encouraging words!

 

[DartPayments]

DartPayments

I'm so stoked to see these independent businesses arise out of the Dash ecosystem. It makes me feel that we are on the right track, growing one block at a time. Good luck to you with your startup! Followed you, and gave you some exposure here:

Thanks for the encouraging words!

 

[DartPayments]

I suggest you read this article Quora You need to give back a much higher %. Somewhere around 20%, otherwise you'd play us for suckers. No offense. I'm sure you have the best intentions.

The article linked actually suggests a 15/85 split in the seed round if you look at the table. Certainly open to 20%, but would like to hear from some more of the community on the issue.

A payment processor is a big project. What makes you think you can do better than CoinPayments that already supports DASH?

What merchant would want to use a Dash only payment processor with the current trading volume? I know Dash has potential but still.... A merchant would be more inclined to use a payment processor offering bunch of coins, except of course if you're talking Bitcoin which is a 6 billion USD market, not great by the way. 6 billion is small but still, tempting enough for some even if for marketing purposes alone, to draw in new customers.

It's a bit of a chicken and egg scenario. We're willing to take some risk here to provide first class infrastructure for Dash.

 

[Dunedoo]

If the vote for your 1200 Dash doesn't come to fruition, why not put out a call for investors from the Dash community.
100 shares/12 Dash or 50 shares/24 Dash. You just need to make it worth the investors spend.
Either part ownership in your business or a monthly % return on investment or treat as a loan you payback with interest.
Good to see a couple of Southern Hemisphere guys giving it a go.
Good luck!

 

[DartPayments]

This is a great proposal. I would like to make a few suggestions.

I would rather see this as a loan option. So your proposal would look like this:

• Asking for 1200 Dash in 3 budget cycles.
• Will payback 1200 Dash starting 6 months out and ending in 12 months. The benefit to Dash is an dash/fiat exchange - there isn't a reason to pay back more than the 1200 Dash. How this is paid back is another discussion.
• Add some detail on timing/revenue. How long will this take to setup, how you expect to gain customers, your expected profits/mo, your expected exchange fee, etc. Show us that this is a thought out plan and it is likely to be successful.

This allows you to keep all profits moving forward and keeps that discussion out of the proposal. The voters would then judge this proposal based on your skill set, reputation, business plan, and risk of paying back the funds.

Interesting idea. 6 months seems a bit short for something like this to start generating revenue to pay 1,200 DASH back. There's multiple months of development and beta testing needed before a full public launch. That's also placing quite high exchange rate risk on us. Dash could go up 10 times over the next 6-12 months.

The first 2-3 months would likely be internal development, and then another 1-2 months of beta testing and refinement. We'd use multiple methods to gain customers (posting on various dash community sites, crypto news site, direct approaches to merchants already accepting bitcoin with Bitpay/Coinbase, etc.). Fees would be 1%, but there may be times when it is lowered to 0% (new customers, beta testing, etc.).

In terms of revenue I'm not really willing to try and predict it. I could come up with some numbers that seem achievable, but in reality they are unlikely to match what we'll actually achieve. Dash (and crypto in general) is so rapidly evolving and unstable.

We're here for the long run, not a quick buck. Even if we run at a loss for a year or two we'll keep at it as long as we can afford to. While making profit is the end goal we truly believe in Dash, and that this is a key piece of infrastructure for growth going forwards.

 

[DartPayments]

If the vote for your 1200 Dash doesn't come to fruition, why not put out a call for investors from the Dash community.
100 shares/12 Dash or 50 shares/24 Dash. You just need to make it worth the investors spend.
Either part ownership in your business or a monthly % return on investment or treat as a loan you payback with interest.
Good to see a couple of Southern Hemisphere guys giving it a go.
Good luck!

Anyone is welcome to contact us if they would like to help/join us in some way.

Raising funds from individuals this way would be entering fairly dodgy legal territory, but we're probably small enough to pass under the radar.

 

[Dunedoo]

12 Dash is a nice entry investment for small timers, I could live with letting it slide for a year a two.

 

[Solarminer]

Interesting idea. 6 months seems a bit short for something like this to start generating revenue to pay 1,200 DASH back. There's multiple months of development and beta testing needed before a full public launch. That's also placing quite high exchange rate risk on us. Dash could go up 10 times over the next 6-12 months.

Thanks for your answers. Be sure to include this in your proposal writeup.

You could also offer to pay back the loan in Dash at the US$ rate when it was taken out. Or gold oz rate - whatever. For example
Payments at 1200 Dash x $4/dash = $4800
At time of return if Dash is $8: $4800/$8/dash = 600 Dash.

The payment term of the loan can be changed...I just gave an example with 6 months.

 

[DartPayments]

Thanks for your answers. Be sure to include this in your proposal writeup.

Yeah, that's a good idea. We'll probably have a 'Other funding option' section or something to that effect.

I do like your idea though, but perhaps not quite right for us at this stage. If we start seeing some revenue but need more funds then we would be more confident in making a proposal like you suggest, and paying it back on time.