Proposal “DASH_EMBASSY_D-A-CH_Q4_18“ (Closed)Back

Title:Dash Embassy D-A-CH Q4/18
Owner:DASH_Embassy_DACH
Monthly amount: 366 DASH (11496 USD)
Completed payments: 2 totaling in 732 DASH (1 month remaining)
Payment start/end: 2018-10-17 / 2019-01-14 (added on 2018-10-05)
Votes: 798 Yes / 302 No / 28 Abstain

Proposal description

Reporting Q3 and Outlook Q4 2018 -- Quarterly Conference Call:








Presentation Link: Q3/2018 Reporting and Q4/2018 Outlook
https://drive.google.com/a/dash-embassy.org/file/d/1lEItIt9L6UhSNue9M0xI42bAPEbFw1Ga/view?usp=sharing

1. About Dash Embassy D-A-CH


Dash Embassy D-A-CH UG (haftungsbeschränkt) is the first legal European open-source Dash company. It is incorporated in Germany and is a Dash Funded Organisation (DFO), which is acting as an professional marketing, education, integration and support service agency for Dash. The term D-A-CH (D = Germany, A= Austria, CH = Switzerland) means, that we are focused on the German speaking countries in Europe. Our overall goal is to increase the acceptance of Dash as a payment option by growing the Dash ecosystem.

Visit our website: https://www.dash-embassy.org/


1.1 Corporate Structure

At the moment we are organized in 4 divisions:

Marketing and Education
Integration and Sales
Support
Administration and Law

Have a look at the team here: http://www.dash-embassy.org/embassy/organisation/

See our detailed corporate structure here:
https://www.mindmeister.com/de/1023125548/dash-embassy-d-a-ch-ug-haftungsbeschr-nkt-corporate-structure?fullscreen=1


1.2 Dash Embassy Concept - Basic Starter Guide:

Because we have been funded as an open source company for the Dash community, we created a basic starter guide for teams all around the globe, who want to benefit from our experience and build up their own Dash Embassy https://drive.google.com/open?id=1hmW89v4EACbdEG-zelh0N4ZSJ1HNCQaV

Additionally to this guide we provide all documents we are using for our daily work and a copy of our website to those who get funded and want to use them.

Currently we are supporting https://www.dashcentral.org/p/Thailand


1.3 Dash Infrastructure concept

We created a Dash infrastructure concept a while ago and are still keen on your feedback https://drive.google.com/file/d/1YbOJc0QxvTjCuD3a2o9RkEuSxr5kUh5L/view?usp=sharing


What will Dash get from our proposal for the 4th quarter of 2018?


2. Marketing and Education


2.1 PR

We scaled down our PR activities and switched our approach from working with the PR agency Hoschke and Consorten on a regular basis to an “on demand” service. This means that we will only use the PR agency, if there are big topics we can´t handle ourselves (mass media). For crypto related releases we will use our own mailing lists and contacts in the future.

Let's have a look at the current numbers in comparison to other cryptos in German speaking media.

Number of articles (total and in percent)

Q2: BTC: 19,781(52.4%) ; EOS: 4,054 ; (10.7%), ETH: 4,659 (12.3%) DASH: 2,773 (7.3%), XRP: 1,934 (5.1%), BCH: 1,612 (4.3%), IOTA: 1,123 (3.0%), LTC: 1,175 (3.1%), XMR: 647 (1.7%)

Q3: BTC: 19,342 (49.7%) ; EOS: 5,045 (13.0%) ; ETH: 4,646 (11.9%) ; DASH: 2,511 (6.5%) ; XRP: 2,221 (5.7%), BCH: 1,523 (3.9%), IOTA: 1,266 (3.3%), LTC: 1,405 (3.6%), XMR: 950 (2.4%)


Reach (total and in percent)

Q2: BTC: 28,069,000 (48.8%) ; EOS: 6,659,000 (11.6%) ; ETH: 6,075,000 (10.6%) ; DASH: 5,999,000 (10.4%), XRP: 3,708,000 (6.4%), BCH: 2,674,000 (4.6%), LTC: 1,711,000 (3.0%), XMR: 997,414 (1.7%), IOTA: 1,641,000 (2.9%)

Q3: BTC: 24,852,000 (44.7%), EOS: 8,880,000 (16.0%), DASH: 5,966,000 (10.7%),  ETH: 5,798,000 (10.4%), XRP: 3,425,000 (6.2%), BCH: 2,160,000 (3.9%), LTC: 1,946,000 (3.5%), XMR: 1,201,000 (2.2%), IOTA: 1,372,000 (2.5%)


At the moment Dash is on the heels of Bitcoin and more present than BTC Cash, LTC and Monero combined (in German speaking media). Additionally Dash got the best article/reach ratio of all compared projects. We think this is connected to our efforts in Q2. We had some articles in mass media and those have a bigger reach than articles in crypto media for example. We can already see that the down scaled strategy affected the performance of Dash in the number of articles, but we’ll of course try our best to keep it as high as possible even with a down scaled budget.

Therefor we started a PR cooperation between Dash Embassy D-A-CH, DCG and DFN. This means that we coordinate our activities on a weekly base (monday meeting) and use each others press announcements and resources.

In conclusion:

  • International press releases in german speaking media (provided by DCG and DFN)
  • D-A-CH press releases in international media (published by DCG and DFN)
  • Lower costs by lowering the usage of Hoschke and Consorten and using our own contacts
  • Higher cost efficiency due to PR alliance with DCG and DFN

2.2 Conferences

We promised to visit 20 conferences as partner and/or as speaker during 2018. Currently 12 of 20 are done. For Q4 we have already 7 confirmations, so 1 event is left. Meanwhile important event organizers are asking us to attend their conferences as speakers without paying for speaker slots as you can see in the list below. In our opinion this is because of our PR success and the value our Dash presentations have offered at conferences in the past. The fruits we earned through the past events will be presented in the integration division. These are the confirmed events for Q4 (some of them have already been paid in Q2 and Q3):

  • 06.-08.11.2018 - GENOhackathon (free)
    https://genohub.de/   
    (support by DCG: Alexander Block - @codablock)

2.3 Roadshow

The Dash Roadshow is up and running. Because of some difficulties with our staff in the past and the budget situation we probably won't reach our goal of 20 tour stops, but 4 of 20 are already done (30 attendees on average, 20 goodie bags on average) and 6 are already confirmed. We will organize as much events as possible during the end of the year, even with the scaled down budget. These are the upcoming tour stops:

  • 09.10.2018 - Bamberg - IGZ - https://www.igzbamberg.de/
  • 16.10.2018 - Schleswig - IHK (Chamber of Commerce)
  • 26.10.2018 - Berlin - rent24 - https://www.rent24.com/
  • 29.10.2018 - Essen - Blockchain Hotel
  • 08.11.2018 - Konstanz - Universität Konstanz (University of Konstanz)
  • 16.11.2018 - Wien - Impact Hub
Our content partners and speakers are: https://www.btc-echo.de/, https://www.blockchainhotel.de/en/, https://www.winheller.com/, https://www.wolftheiss.com/, https://cryptotax.io  

The slides we are using for this are available on https://docs.dash.org/en/latest/marketing.html
(it's the Meetup Presentation we created during the last quarter)

Reports are available on our Blog: https://www.dash-embassy.org/embassy/blog/
Announcements and line-ups are available on: https://www.dash-embassy.org/events/


2.4 Meetups

Due to the scaled down budget our Dash Ambassador program is on hold for Q4. That's why we won't be able to deliver all the 50 Meetups we promised for this year (we have done 4).

In order to find a more cost efficient solution we will try to combine meetups with our integration efforts at BTC accepting merchants (see Integration division below). This means that after we convinced those merchants to accept Dash we want to support them by organizing meetups in their stores. In this way we will get chicken and egg in one room and hopefully not only educate people about Dash but also increase the transactions at Dash accepting merchants.

Additionally to this we will get in contact with the Turkish immigrant community in D-A-CH and try to organize meetups in their cultural clubs. With more than 3 million turkish people in D-A-CH our region has one of the strongest Turkish communities in Europe. By educating these people we hope to push the remittance market between D-A-CH and Turkey (48% of remittance to Turkey comes from Germany alone).


2.5 Book/E-Learning

The book we are working on is almost done, but the review takes longer than we thought before. Of course this is not like we planned it, but from the budget point of view this shouldn't be a problem, because we need to do the review by ourselves and will not pay anyone for this. For those of you understanding the german language, please have a look at the current 180 pages right here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1KF5JRYbi16bCg-i79uTDvZGBTholuUWpeVr0zgBKXPs/edit?usp=sharing

  • final review until the end of 2018
  • design update for graphics and cover early 2019
  • translation into english in 2019
  • publish the final book and start converting it to e-learning in 2019


2.6 IDEN (former Satoshi School Club)

After some name issues IDEN (Initiative dezentrale Bildung) is up and running. For those who don´t know it already: IDEN is Germany's first educational initiative for private and public educational institutions with the aim of making it easier for schools and teachers to access topics like decentralization, blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies. We as Dash Embassy D-A-CH are supporting this initiative with content (e.g. the book above) and with a small initial funding. You can watch the latest update right here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htuWL8ZyCXQ

The Website is up and running: https://www.dezentrale-bildung.org/
Please also have a look at the DFN article: https://www.dashforcenews.com/dash-excelling-at-educational-initiatives/

After the first press release which earned attention in crypto related media mostly (e.g. https://www.btc-echo.de/iden-erste-bildungsinitiative-fuer-krypto-schule-gestartet/) the next steps are:

  • get in contact with secondary schools
  • get in contact with education politics
  • connect with some more players from the blockchain industry (not payment related, no direct competitors to Dash)
  • attend a teachers meetup on the 3rd of October in Berlin
  • attend East-West Crypto Conference (see conferences above)


2.7 Website

We have done a lot to improve the general performance and usability of our website (https://www.dash-embassy.org/?lang=en), but as most of you might know running a website means that you need to update and improve all the time. At the moment we are waiting for DCG and their new web-design to adopt it before we go on with further changes. Here is a list of what we have done in Q3

  • we published a crypto and blockchain dictionary
  • we published the legal section for Switzerland
  • we published a section for wallets
  • we published a section for hardware wallet (affiliate)
  • we published a section for partner exchanges (affiliate)
  • we published a section for payment solutions for merchants (affiliate)

The announced community page for ordering marketing materials is currently on hold. This is because DCG is working on something similar at the moment and we don't want to do things double. We hope to find a global solution for this and will keep you updated during Q4 together with Fernando.

Plans for Q4 are

  • integrate a contact form which leads to our CRM for merchants
  • integrate a contact form for a free initial consultation regarding taxes (by cryptotax.io)
  • add a Turkish language version
  • do a design relaunch after DCG did the update
  • do an export and provide the current version to Dash Embassy Thailand so they can adopt it https://www.facebook.com/DashEmbassyThailand/

Current Numbers:

user: 2,014 (Q2) vs 2,238 (Q3) - +10.6%
sessions: 3,371 (Q2) vs 3,615 (Q3)  - +6.6%
bounce-rate: 59.74% (Q2) vs 55.46% (Q3) - -6.9%
session-duration: 2.50 min (Q2) vs 2.21 min (Q3) - -18.5%


2.8 Social Media

At the moment we are absolutely not focused on social media, but as we are running several channels we want to publish the latest data from facebook and twitter.

Facebook (180 fans)

Q2: 83 new users: reach: 16,982
Q3: 44 new users: reach: 43,626

Twitter (216 follower)

Q2: 107 new follower, reach: 136,000
Q3: 135 new follower, reach: 548,000
(The discrepancy in new followers vs. current followers is related to spam bots)

Steemit (230 follower)

Q2: 373 upvotes
Q3: 1300 upvotes


You can see that the reach is growing, although Facebook user growth has slowed down. This means we got a loyal user base that wants to get informed. Therefor we will start sharing more articles of DFN and everything we can get from the community.

If you want to subscribe to our channels, we will be happy to welcome you as our fans/followers.

https://www.facebook.com/dashembassydach/
https://twitter.com/dashembassydach
https://steemit.com/@dash-embassy
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuLSfeIMuQ_npjjBY3J_FPA
https://www.linkedin.com/company/dash-embassy-d-a-ch/
https://www.xing.com/companies/dashembassyd-a-chug
https://www.minds.com/DashEmbassy
https://www.bitchute.com/channel/dashembassyd-a-ch/


3 Integration and Sales

3.1 Sales and Strategy

After the intense conference performance in Q2 we replied to a lot of new prospects. Workshops, sales pitches, integrations and talks have been successfully continued. Having sessions with SMEs like restaurants, market makers like voucher start up’s and payment gateway provider from the fiat and exchange world. While the merchant base is growing we also gain from new learnings after 9 months of market penetration.

  • FIAT Payment Providers: The big payment players are still not interested in cooperation with Dash or any other cryptocurrency. They do not see a business case in terms of transaction volume potential. Two are willing to talk about integration, but only if the DAO is willing to pay all costs.
  • BTC accepting merchants: The Bitcoin accepted letter campaign to 350 merchants started in Q3 and will last to Q4. Feedback for a Dash integration is positive with an estimated 27% conversion rate. These small and medium enterprises can bring some transaction volume but can most of all be used for spreading the message through marketing materials, use cases and meetups.
  • Remittance: Facing a 3 Mio. Turkish population in the D-A-CH region and the massive integration of 1,2 Mio. refugees in the last 2 years we underestimated the potential of remittance. This results in a chance for Dash. We will focus on follow ups with early adopters as low hanging fruits and market enablers like ATM and exchange platforms. Additional prioritization on so called  “High Transactions Businesses” allows a focus on merchants in the field of remittance and online gambling. Point of Sales Provider and merchants in the touristic space will complete our sales approach.

D-A-CH is an asset driven market and has a high potential for remittance. Therefore we change our prioritization from early adopter merchants in Q3 into high transaction businesses (HTBs) in Q4.
In here we will focus on market enablers like ATM providers, Wallets and exchange platforms.


3.2 Prioritization as follows:

  1. Exchanges, Wallets and ATM Provider in Germany, Austria and Switzerland - stronger mass adoption players
  2. Remittance market between Germany and Turkey - hyperinfaltion pain to be solved by Dash
  3. Sales via Partners – approach E-Commerce Players and Gambling Sector - sales increase by incentives and affiliates

ongoing:

  • BTC accepting merchants - a Germany, Austrian and Swiss campaign to all early adopters to to start accepting Dash
  • POS Solutions - Integration projects with local POS systems and payment service provider
  • Sales @ future conferences, roadshows and hackathons
  • Switch sales approach from “payment revolution” into clear customer pain and gain solution
  • Ramping up more integration deals via best practises and market reputation
  • Increasing short sales cycle integrations to crypto infrastructure provider like Wallet-, ATM-, POS-, PSP- or Exchange provider
  • Increasing long sales cycle integrations to transform the old economy like banks, energy companies and automobile industry
  • Integration focus on market makers, such as enablers like benefit cards were Dash is acquired without using FIAT

To maximise our sales efforts we are delighted to share our new cooperation between Dash Core Group and Dash Embassy D-A-CH.  Whenever a new partner or merchant requests a Dash integration or partnership, he will be redirected to the local Dash entity. Dash Core leads to us requests for Europe, while we are sharing international projects with Dash Core Group. This alliance will strengthen the integration quality and user experience for Dash Core globally and with Dash Embassy D-A-CH regionaly.


3.3 Integration Pipelines

3.3.1 Exchanges/Wallets

Acquisition: https://www.vpeag.com/, https://bisonapp.de/, https://www.bitcoin.de/de, https://bitmeister.de/, https://scx.ch/, https://qiwi.com/, https://www.paribu.com/ https://www.btcturk.com/, https://koinim.com/
Early Stage: https://www.dzbank.de/
Mid Stage: https://chronobank.io/, https://dyos.io/
Late Stage: https://www.mbaex.com/, https://saifu.ai/, https://trivecoin.org/
Done:
Affiliate Partner: https://coinfinity.co/, https://www.merkeleon.at/de/


3.3.2 ATMs

Acquisition: https://www.btm-service.com/, https://www.vaerdex.ch/
Early Stage:
Mid Stage:
Late Stage:
Done:
Affiliate Partner: https://www.kurant.at/


3.3.3 E-Commerce

Acquisition: https://www.wien-ticket.at/de/home, https://www.mollie.com/, https://bitcrystals.com/ https://www.herocoin.io/, https://eu.wargaming.net/, https://www.photoeditionberlin.com/, https://www.audi.de/, https://www.porsche.com/germany/aboutporsche/service/porschedigitallab/, https://www.optiopay.com/, https://cryptovoucher.io/, https://coinify.com/, https://www.bitcoinpay.com/de/
Early Stage: https://foodgenius.de/
Mid Stage: https://www.kaufdahoam.at/, https://www.fussstolz.de/, https://ap-donovan.com/de/, https://www.techbold.at/
Late Stage: https://www.orangutan.de/, https://www.parkasite.de/, https://www.wadsack.ch/,
Done: https://www.conda.eu/home/, https://www.angermann.at/, http://www.capewine.at/ https://www.donaulife.com/, https://www.victoreanum.com/
Affiliate Partner: https://utrust.com/


3.3.4 POS

Acquisition: https://www.posbill.com/, https://www.salamantex.com/de/, https://factoryberlin.com/, https://trust.restaurant/, https://pundix.com/
Early Stage: http://cafehummel.at/, https://www.rent24.com/, https://www.mainzer-mobilitaet.de/, https://caroo.at/
Mid Stage: http://katana-world.de/, https://bistro-am-brunnen.eatbu.com/
Late Stage: https://www.ihrbeulendoktor.de/
Done: http://www.pfotenranch.de/,  http://www.pfotenranch.de/ https://www.transformationsmanager.at/
Affiliate Partner:


4 Support

The demand for our support (Chat and E-Mail) has been growing during the last quarter. This is mostly because of the Dash Roadshow and the BTC letter campaign. It increased from 12 merchants in Q2 to 30 merchants in Q3. We decided to keep the support despite our downscaling efforts, because the demand is growing and the costs are really low.

To improve this service in Q4 we will

  • Constantly expand the cryptocurrency and blockchain dictionary on our website
  • Expand support knowledge base according to new costumer requests
  • Keep the support via live chat and email


5 Administration and Law

5.1 Operations and staff

Even though the last months have been a challenge because of the budget situation and also the staff issues we had, but we managed to keep all divisions operationally running. Therefore some changes have been necessary:

  • we merged Marketing and Education to one division. We made Jan Heinrich Meyer (@essra) the leader of this newly merged division instead of hiring a new division leader for education  
  • we hired Vanessa Wriedt to support Jan with Marketing and Education efforts
  • we scaled down the tools we are using (CRM, Support) to a minimum to save costs
  • we scaled down the PR agency to a minimum to save costs
  • we scaled down travel expanses to a minimum to save costs
  • we scaled down event sponsoring to a minimum to save costs
  • we registered for affiliate programs (for example hardware wallets) to create new income streams

For Q4 we plan to increase our financial efficiency again and to onboard teams for further Embassies as we are currently doing in Thailand:



5.2 Lobbying

After several talks with the associations we are already part of (https://www.bundesblock.de/, https://www.austrianstartups.com/) we got invited by https://deutschestartups.org/ to help them with their positioning paper for the leading German political parties. In our opinion this is a significant milestone, because we might be able to influence the regulators and further political decisions as representatives of a cryptocurrency. Of course we will do this in cooperation with the associations we are already part of and our legal network.

We want to increase our political and social influence in all three countries of the D-A-CH region by joining further associations such as https://www.bevh.org/, https://www.bitkom.org/, https://www.bitcoinassociation.ch/ https://cryptovalley.swiss/, http://hayekianer.ch/, https://swissfinte.ch https://swissfinancestartups.com/

We still plan to do some events together with those associations and their regional working groups and hope we can give you an update about this soon.


5.3 Legal

We enlarged our legal network (https://www.winheller.com/, https://www.wolftheiss.com/, https://cryptotax.io, https://www.steuerberater-berlin-schuermann.de/, https://www.wadsack.ch/) by https://www.cllb.de/, https://www.nbs-partners.de/. Since the middle of Q3 we are able to provide tax information regarding trading, mining, masternodes, merchants and proposals in all three jurisdictions of the D-A-CH region (https://www.dash-embassy.org/knowledge/?lang=en#recht-steuer).

The legal part at our Roadshow events is one of the most discussed topic in the Q and A sessions. These lectures help the audience a lot. That's why we think building up this legal network was key for building up trust in Dash even though it took some time to see the benefits.

We have also been invited to a workshop organized by https://www.winheller.com/ to explain to their customers what Dash is and how their businesses can benefit from using it.

Our plans for Q4

  • increase the number of partners in our legal network
  • offer a free initial consultation regarding taxes on our website (by cryptotax.io)
  • Reach a general legal solution for the German Sales Tax issue we have encountered with the German Financial Authorities, which are currently assessing the case
We are still waiting to reach a general legal solution for the German Sales Tax issue we have encountered with the German Financial Authorities. These institutions are acting very slow, but we believe we will receive a positive answer by the end of this year. They will need to answer our request in the beginning of 2019 latest.


6 Financials

6.1 Financials Q3/2018:

We requested 408 Dash/month for Q3: This equals @ estimated avg. Dash Price of $ 350 = $ 429k or € 307k. Sales of Dash received from the treasury and beneficences together were just € 87k instead of € 307k planned. We hope we can pay all the remaining bills of Q3 with the coming October payment cycle.

The major impacting factor to our budget is the Dash price, which declined another 50% in the third quarter. As mentioned above this lead to several issues for all of our operations, because the financing of the planned projects were not secure anymore. Due to the missing funding for two months we got into a critical phase of financing, because our previously build-up liquidity strength got burned.


Q3 2018 avg. planned Costs

Admin/Legal          6,000€ / month
Staff                      40,800€ / month
Marketing            25,600€ / month
Education             26,000€ / month
Integration             3,300€ / month
Support                     450€ / month

TOTAL               102,150€ / month


307,000€ planned - 87,000€ received = 220,000€ missed

We have already received the October payment of 408 Dash and will pay our remaining bills.



6.2 Financials Q4/2018:

We have only survived because of some generous beneficences and instantly scaling down all of our operations. Therefore we will stay scaled down until a stronger Dash price recovery has happened and then start to rebuild our capital puffers first as soon as possible. This very difficult quarter taught us that we need to push strong to add our own income streams as soon as possible.

For now this means that we will miss some of our original project goals, but we can keep the percentage of the treasury we are asking for at a similar amount in Dash like we have been asking for in the beginning of this year.


Q4 2018 avg. planned Costs                SCALED DOWN by

Admin/Legal           5,233€ / month                -18,51%
Staff                       32,767€ / month                  -6,58%
Marketing               4,400€ / month                -83,01%
Education               8,000€ / month                -69,23%
Integration             1,834€ / month                -44,44%
Support                     167€ / month                 -58,33%

TOTAL                  52,400€ / month                -48,82%

Scaled Down by 48,82%
- Reduction of 49,750€ each month


We calculated with an average estimated Dash Price of $200 for the 4th quarter of 2018. We request the following total amount included German sales tax for three months:

187.070,05 € at a EUR/USD Spot Price of 1,1749 results in $ 219.788,60. With an estimated average Dash Price of $ 200 this represents 1.098,94 DASH. Divided in 3 monthly payments this results in 366 Dash, which is $ 73.200,00 at a EUR/USD Spot Price of 1,1749 = 62.303,18 € per month.


Here you can find the scaled down Q4 budget numbers in detail:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1hcxPe1y2XpQbf4RdXXZA9MSU4NJvwq0P_DiIbIaVtvY/edit?usp=sharing


Links to our Liquidity and Capital Resources:


Public Budget Planning and Accounting 2018:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/18aT27QVhymXuTH8AVKZF5jbnPsxf2-IlkdT2a1uz09Y/edit#gid=1772385164

Corporate Wallet Address:
https://insight.dash.org/insight/address/XuMeunJDZrAusw45B4oreuH8RcKUY2fkMN


7 Reporting

We have set the standards of reporting and transparency at the legal maximum to ourselves. We will therefore always provide the public and the Dash Community with all data we can legally publish as usual. We cooperate with Dash Watch and provide our monthly reporting to them. Furthermore we publish all our PR, events, announcements, articles, interviews, workshops, conference attendances and integration successes on our website. The reporting is also available on the Dash Forum, Dash Central and in our channels on Dash Discord.

Our Q1/2018 Proposal Link: https://www.dashcentral.org/p/DASH_Embassy_D-A-CH_Q1_18
Our Q2/2018 Proposal Link: https://www.dashcentral.org/p/DASH_EMBASSY_D-A-CH_Q2_18
Our Q3/2018 Proposal Link: https://www.dashcentral.org/p/DASH_EMBASSY_D-A-CH_Q3_18

https://www.dash.org/forum/threads/dash-embassy-d-a-ch-q1-2018-update-feb.30105/
https://www.dash.org/forum/threads/dash-embassy-d-a-ch-q1-2018-update-march-new-proposal-q2-2018.32473/
https://www.dash.org/forum/threads/dash-embassy-d-a-ch-networking-meeting-marathon-austria.35347/
https://www.dash.org/forum/threads/dash-embassy-d-a-ch-q2-2018-update-april.36690/
https://www.dash.org/forum/threads/dash-embassy-d-a-ch-q2-2018-update-may.37467/
https://www.dash.org/forum/threads/dash-embassy-d-a-ch-q2-2018-update-june-new-proposal-q3-2018.38450/
https://www.dash.org/forum/threads/dash-embassy-d-a-ch-updates-activities.39155/
https://www.dash.org/forum/threads/how-to-sustainably-grow-dash%C2%B4s-ecosystem-dash-infrastructure-program.40256/


Thanks for your support! In Dash we trust!

We are eager on your comments and thankful for your advice.

Your Dash Embassy D-A-CH Team

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Discussion: Should we fund this proposal?

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2 points,5 years ago
Dear Masternodes,

as you all know we haven't received any funding for January, because the budget was too tight in this cycle. Because this has happened for the second time now, we asked ourselves what the reason for this might be. We came to the conclusion that our previous reporting lacked transparency. That's why we have compiled a comprehensive page that lists all our efforts, achievements and costs in the past.

We are planning to update you in this format for every month from now on, while still keeping in touch with Dash Watch of course.

Please also consider donating to us since we are completely out of budget and can't go on with projects like DZ Bank, PosBill, Salamantex, Saifu, Bitwala, bitcoin.de, Värdex, utrust, Bison and many more without your support.

Thank you for your time,

essra & Dash Embassy D-A-CH team

https://sites.google.com/dash-embassy.org/reports/q4-2018
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4 points,5 years ago
******TO ALL MNO's*******

PLEASE READ THE LATEST DASHWATCH REPORT ON DACH, and in fact all previous reports on these guys. They have delivered nothing meaningful of value.
They endlessly post up their 'wins' and little videos of nothingness but Hopium sugar-coating them so that they can get next month's funding ***from which they pay themselves 96% of the proceeds*** (as per Dashwatch reports).

Less than 4% goes to 'Integration and Sales'. IS THIS VALUE? OR IS IT A GRAVY TRAIN FOR ESSRA AND SIMON...

VOTING <NO> TO DACH, AND SO SHOULD YOU. AGAIN, PLEASE ACTUALLY READ DASHWATCH REPORTS AND UNDERSTAND THAT THIS IS A WORTHLESS PROPOSAL PAYING A PILE OF MONEY FOR NOTHING IN RETURN OF VALUE.

DASHWATCH REPORT IS HERE:
http://bit.ly/DWEmbassyDACHDEC18

Thanks,
Drako
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-1 point,5 years ago
Dear MNOs,

please have a look at our integration pipeline when reading DW report.

Thanks,
essra
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1 point,5 years ago
Dear MNO's
Please consider that the integration pipeline appears to be more fluff from D-A-C-H. Note their 'integrations', to which they allocate less than 3.5% of the funds. Mostly worthless or pure Hopium. Hold DACH accountable for this!

PLEASE USE YOUR EYES MNO'S OR YOU WILL HAVE THE WOOL PULLED OVER THEM AGAIN. NOTE THEIR PREVIOUS 'PIPELINE' AND THE ONE BEFORE THAT (PRIOR DASHWATCH REPORTS). IF THAT DOESN'T SEND ALARM BELLS RINGING, WELL...VOTE AWAY.

VOTING NO WAY

Thanks,
Drako
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4 points,5 years ago
Happy to see those no votes coming in now for the DACH project.

Need quite a few more to defund them in the next few hours, or more money will be given to this ‘team’.

Can we get a last minute switch of votes to defund what seems like a waste of our limited Dash resources? (I doubt it)

Can any DACH ‘yes voting’ MNOs please read the latest Dash watch report on DACH December activities and cost breakdown and explain why they continue to vote for this proposal.

Did the large german bank ATM integration materialise?

I see almost all money spent on ‘admin and legal’. Essra has his money back now following their 19% ‘tax confusion’.

Also, no tracking of wallet installs, only 40 people attending their meet ups (was that worth 1000 euros pp), and low value high cost merchant integrations like an e-cigarette seller.

They’ve had a very long run, an empty office which no one visits, and near-zero results. They don’t even attempt to count wallet installs let alone report them.

Can all DACH ‘yes voting’ MNOs please read the latest Dash watch report on DACH December activities and vote NO to finally end this unsuccessful experiment.

http://bit.ly/DWEmbassyDACHDEC18
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-2 points,5 years ago
Hello Tripto,

it´s sad that you still don´t see the whole picture and only talk about a few things we are doing, so we will give you a short update about the most exiting ones:

"german bank ATM": our next workshop with DZ Bank will happen 16th - 17th of january. In addition you will see updates regarding a Dash integration at https://www.posbill.com/ - a cashier system for gastronomy with 10,000 customers, a Dash integration in https://www.salamantex.com/en/ - a POS solution entering the DACH market and parts of Asia in 2019 and a Dash integration in https://utrust.com/ who are focusing on e-commerce. In addition you will see integrations at major german and turkish exchanges soon.

We will try to make our integration pipeline more transparent in future to deliver live updates about everything we are doing in business development.
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5 points,5 years ago
Hi Embassy,

96% of your funding goes to 'Administration and Law' - ie paying yourselves obscene amounts of money to deliver nothing of value. 41K Euro for:

>>Untracked number of wallet installs - (might as well be zero)
>>43 attendees (a cost to the DAO of approx 1000 Euro per attendee!)
>>1 'Print' and 2 'Web' articles. ie no value at all to the DAO
>>1.6K Euro out of 41K Euro for 'Integration and Sales' - less than 3.5% of what you were paid.

MNO's wake up please, start reading Dashwatch reports, and VOTE NO to rubbish like this.

Thanks,
Drako
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0 points,5 years ago
Most MNO are voting for hopium it seems
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-5 points,5 years ago
Drako,

you calculation is malicious and you are missing every achievement connected to business development aka Integration & Sales. History will show that you are on the wrong track, but go ahead and keep your narrow mind.

Thanks,
essra
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2 points,5 years ago
Essra, it’s unfortunate we had to spend soo much money on you guys and have nothing of value to show for it as far as users and wallet installs. Very weak performance for an embassy that has had hundreds of thousands spent on it this year.

We don’t need an embassy. If the MNOs wish to spend more money on your brand of DACH hopium then so be it.

When reading the December Dash Watch report I was gobsmacked to find out about your frivolous waste of resources around a VAT /GST issue which your team attempted to spin into being something of value to the network.

At least you got your 30k Euro back and I hope that is the end of your run with the Dash treasury.

MNOs I don’t believe we have a chance to stop this last spend, but it’s worth a try.
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1 point,5 years ago
Actually, they have been defunded - no funds in Treasury. Good riddance to DACH.

Thanks,
Drako
Reply
3 points,5 years ago
Dash Watch December 25th 2018 Report on
Dash Embassy D-A-CH Q4/18 by DASH_Embassy_DACH
http://bit.ly/DWEmbassyDACHDEC18
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2 points,5 years ago
Dash visits Kaufdahoam in Gmunden: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UuEvb7r6IIY

“How usable are crypto currencies in everyday life if you can’t even buy food with them?” Many crypto users already had to answer this question, and most of them can only refer to restaurants, but the majority of people do not visit a restaurant every day, especially if there is only one local restaurant that accepts Dash or Bitcoin.

The wholesaler Kaufdahoam from Gmunden, which also delivers to Austria and Germany, represents a necessary step in the right direction. Crypto users are able to order many organic and local products from Austria, that can be used to prepare or refine a healthy meal. Locals can also shop on location or use one of the shop’s ATMs.

Klaus Hipfinger from the Dash Embassy D-A-CH visited the shop and was shown around by Rainer Tuppinger and Anita Strasser, the shop owners. They also carried out a purchase using Dash, which is available to every customer at Kaufdahoam.

Among the products Kaufdahoam offers are pasta, mustard, schnapps, wine, sausages and organic cosmetics.

Pictures are available at: https://www.dash-embassy.org/2018/12/19/dash-visits-kaufdahoam-in-gmunden/?lang=en
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1 point,5 years ago
The Dash Embassy has visited the Kelterei Schmidt for a guided tour, where the owner Josche Schmidt introduced us to his regional products and his production facilities. Following the tour, we were able to purchase the well-known crypto liqueur from the winery and pay with Dash. This liqueur called "Fuel to the Moon" with the flavour "Drown the FUD" is exactly the right thing to sweeten the current bear market.

For more information about the winery visit: https://www.joschesapfel.de
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1 point,5 years ago
BOS Germany now accepts Dash donations for the survival of the endangered orang-utan.
Cryptocurrencies are speculative assets for a lot of people, but they are an important technological innovation for others because they are increasingly finding their way into their everyday lives. In the Advent and Christmas season, donations are just as much a part of everyday life for many people as shopping for Christmas presents and visiting a Christmas market.

Therefore, we are very happy that the Borneo Orang-Utan Survival Foundation (BOS) now accepts Dash as a donation method. The BOS Foundation is an Indonesian non-profit NGO founded in 1991 by Dr Willie Smits and has dedicated itself to protecting the endangered Orang-Utan and its habitat by involving the local population.

The Orang-Utan is living in the rainforest of Indonesia, which is one of the last places in the world with a huge biodiversity. They are the largest tree dwellers in the world and they play a central part in the ecosystem of the forest. They are very intelligent creatures, and they have an emotional world that is very similar to that of humans – those who threaten their survival by deforesting and scorching their forests for tropical woods, mineral resources and giant single-crop plantations.

You can find more information and the donation option at: https://www.orangutan.de/einzelspende

BOS Germany presents itself in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GfTYa1sEnkU
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1 point,5 years ago
The Dash Roadshow visited the Berufliche Schulen in Wolfach on November 29, 2018 in cooperation with the Initiative Dezentrale Bildung. The founder and CEO of the Dash Embassy D-A-CH, Jan Heinrich Meyer, introduced the students, teachers and local entrepreneurs to the world of cryptocurrencies. In his lecture he explained the current monetary system with its advantages and disadvantages and how blockchain technology works. Another big topic was Dash, on which the attendees learned how it can be used as Digital Cash and how anonymous transactions are possible.

The first Euro in Dash was given them as a gift by the Embassy, and then they were able to spend it at the kiosk for water. Quick and easy.

An article about the event can be found here: https://www.schwarzwaelder-bote.de/...sch.50d1b227-a9b6-444f-86d1-7166b22c2e3e.html
https://www.dash-embassy.org/2018/1...hers-and-companies-dash-embassy-iden/?lang=en
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1 point,5 years ago
Dash News article: https://dashnews.org/dash-outreach-in-turkey-promises-economic-relief-sparks-interest/
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3 points,5 years ago
volatility of national currency is very low in Germany, will be extremely difficult to win market-share for Dash there. Challenge to redirect these 366/month to a different proposal where volatility of national currency is higher than Dash's volatility : )
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5 points,5 years ago
Dash Watch November 26th 2018 Report on
Dash Embassy D-A-CH July-September/18 by DASH_Embassy_DACH
http://bit.ly/DWEmbassyDACHNOV18
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0 points,5 years ago
If you have not already seen it: we have published the Turkish translation for the Dash Embassy website:

https://www.dash-embassy.org/2018/11/26/turkish-translation-for-dash-embassy-website-has-been-published/?lang=en
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5 points,5 years ago
Luxury, first world, low impact projects such as this must get the boot with the falling Dash price. These guys have had a great time but clearly the party is over.
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-2 points,5 years ago
In November, the Euro Finance Week in Frankfurt opened its doors for the 21st time and Dash was there again. For four days, the top-class conference was devoted to the trends and topics in the financial and banking world. After the opening conference on the first day, theme days were devoted to regulation, digitisation and asset management. Each of the days featured a varied schedule of talks, panels and break-out sessions.

Following the previous year’s successful participation, Jan Heinrich Meyer, CEO and founder of the Dash Embassy D-A-CH, participated in the event again this year.

https://www.dash-embassy.org/2018/11/15/euro-finance-week-in-frankfurt/?lang=en
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-2 points,5 years ago
With this project-pitch Dash Embassy D-A-CH succeeded at GENOhackathon on the 8th of November 2018. The "GENO-KRYPTO-APPLICATION" project was elected as 1 of 3 out of 36 projects to be researched in detail in the beginning of 2019.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=312&v=1Q7485SuVjw

More details are in the latest article on Dash Force News: https://www.dashforcenews.com/dash-...cryptocurrency-adoption-at-5th-genohackathon/
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-2 points,5 years ago
From 6th to 8th of November 2018 Jan Heinrich Meyer (Dash Embassy D-A-CH) Alexander Block ( Dash Core) and Jon Durdel joined the GENOhackathon (https://genohub.de/) to bring cryptocurrencies to the masses by integrating them in the existing infrastructure of the GENObanks.

For further updates please stay tuned!

This is the initial 1-minute-pitch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjki6hR0fYY
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0 points,5 years ago
The second biggest German bank is tweeting out a picture and a quote from our talk today at the Euro Finance Conference: https://twitter.com/dzbank/status/1062335776984391680
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4 points,5 years ago
While I appreciate DASH_Embassy_DACH scaling down their proposal in a bear market, it's still far too expensive IMO for what they're able to prove they've produced. 52,000 euros a month to host 1 meetup per week and answer ~2-3 support tickets per week sounds horrendously expensive.

Meetups and support tickets aren't the only things they're doing, but unless I'm missing something, they're the only things they're set up to measure and report back on to give MNOs data we can compare to other marketing proposals.

Also, if the primary purpose is marketing, why scale down salaries by -6,58% but scale down marketing by -83,01%? What are these 6 salaried people (making an average of 5,400 euros a month each) doing that's so critical to marketing Dash that it's worth slashing their outside marketing budget by a factor of 6?

I'll be voting NO until I see credible Key Performance Indicators that are competitive with other marketing proposals.
Reply
0 points,5 years ago
Podcast@btc-echo, which is the biggest German Crypto News Portal: https://www.btc-echo.de/podcast-dash-und-die-dezentrale-governance/
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0 points,5 years ago
This year’s 25th Interdisziplinäre Wissenschaftliche Konferenz Mittweida (25th Interdisciplinary Scientific Conference Mittweida) included a panel discussion between experts from the established financial and banking system and two representatives of blockchain-based cryptocurrencies, speaking on the topic of “Digital exchanges – even without the Euro?”

https://www.dash-embassy.org/2018/11/06/digital-exchanges-even-without-the-euro-dash-at-the-university-of-applied-sciences-mittweida/?lang=en
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1 point,5 years ago
News Update: https://www.dashforcenews.com/dash-embassy-d-a-ch-spreads-dash-awareness-with-roadshow-and-atms/
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0 points,5 years ago
At the EWCC in Frankfurt we had a speaking slot and also participated in a panel discussion with representatives from NEO, NEM and Zillaq: https://www.dash-embassy.org/2018/11/02/dash-embassy-at-the-ewcc/?lang=en
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2 points,5 years ago
The coworking space vendor rent24 invited the Dash Embassy Roadshow to educate visitors about cryptocurrencies and Dash – Digital Cash.

The BTC Echo journalist Alex Roos opened with an introduction about Money & Money Policy followed by Jan Heinrich Meyer, founder and CEO of the Dash Embassy D-A-CH, who introduced Bitcoin & Blockchain and Dash – Digital Cash to the audience on Friday. Afterwards, Benjamin Kirschbaum, lawyer at the law firm Winheller from Frankfurt, described how to handle income and the sale of cryptocurrencies with regard to taxes.

https://www.dash-embassy.org/2018/10/30/26-10-2018-dash-roadshow-berlin/?lang=en
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1 point,5 years ago
BTC-Echo, Germanys most important cryptocurrency news site, has published an article about the Dash integration into MBAex: https://www.btc-echo.de/bitcoin-boerse-mbaex-bringt-dash-nach-suedostasien/
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5 points,5 years ago
After all the discussions had, and the latest quite devastating Dashwatch report.
DACH gets a fat at paycheck. I truly wonder how much of the MNO voter actually read the factual discussions going around.

This is a major Red flag for anyone who is action going invest or keep his investment in Dash. Especially in the light of reason discussion in and around the costs of proposals and the available budget. All I can say we are lucky that 99% of the people doesn't dig that deep into there investments, do I am reasonably sure that at least some institutional investors are going to pick up on this.

I wish there was a way to get true to all the no-voters for me, because this simply is a bad investment from a business perspective. Please MNO owners I implore you, get a better education how to run a business, because at the end of the Day Dash is a business, and we are the board of directors, steering this ship straight onto an iceberg.
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2 points,5 years ago
edit, I meant I wish there was a way to get true to all the YES-voters (I hope that was obvious do)
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-4 points,5 years ago
I think you meant the Kuva No voters because you are up in arms for your camp and think this proposal is related in your Kuva vs the rest of unworthy proposals war. This just proved you bias and that comment proves your dishonesty. Big red flags.
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2 points,5 years ago
Please read latest Dashwatch. Or are you saying Dashwatch is up in arms as well ?!?

At any-rate you should read the reasons why people like myself vote no for this. aka insufficient measurable results for a way to high a pricetag. Feel free to discus this with me I a ready and willing to debate so that you may show me the errors in my ways.

More to the point it looks like you're up in arms and accusing me of something, and you're not providing any proof of the sort that I used underhanded tactics. Right now what you are doing is to attempt to slander my name, and until you provide proof you're in fact the one that dishonest.
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-3 points,5 years ago
What No Voters are you talking about?
This proposal is passing.
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4 points,5 years ago
I pity the uninformed, deluded imbeciles who voted up this crap proposal.
Another masternode worth of funds wasted for literally nothing in return, how great is that?
In 5 years time these master deceivers will own 5times more masternodes than the average MNO in here.

But i guess all the degenerate suckers voting for this useless, money-burning organization will feel satisfied with such an accomplishment.
Eventually they will wake up, someday, in about 5 years, perhaps.
Until then, good night
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4 points,5 years ago
@themarshall mnos are waking up just very slowly while wasting dash on sluggish low performing projects
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-1 point,5 years ago
voting YES. The sheer investment side of things is probably the market to target rather than payments in the region. There are a lot of parts to this project.
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0 points,5 years ago
How many results can you link to ? And why would a solisalist country such German be a prime target. Solistists be leave in large overbearing Governments, decentralized crypto-currency are not under there control and are therefore in fact the wrong region to target.
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1 point,5 years ago
Yeah...look, I smh at the little that remains of Germany and western Europe (personally I have other names for these regions). The whole of the western world is in very big trouble IMHO. IMHO cryptocurrencies are going to be in trouble much later on as globalists/feminists/cultural Marxists/socialists keep banning things they don't control. The potential future Islamic factor vs socialist globalists is very interesting too.
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2 points,5 years ago
I do not disagree that these point are interesting and that crypto provides help in those department, but I don't think it's worth this large a chuck of he budget, at 1/10x of the price than it would be an yes.
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-1 point,5 years ago
Strange that's exactly the amount Master Draco has suggested. 5K per month. Well done, Node, salute your Master.
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0 points,5 years ago
Really ?!? I did not know that, its quit interesting that even do I never discussed this with Draco, we have come to the same conclusion. You will find that like minded individuals often come to the same conclusion. Well accept for economists perhaps.

In this case we both are active in the same type of fields and have learned certain things from these fields, and you should see that Draco is quit succesful in his field, meaning instead of insulting him you should attempt to learn from him instead, and perhaps even more so if you have something to teach us, do start with personal insults, because they don't get you anywhere, so please stick to the facts you know and I will listen.
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-1 point,5 years ago
You are such a ridiculous liar. Just go away.
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10 points,5 years ago
Dash Watch October 25th 2018 Report on
Dash Embassy D-A-CH July-September/18 by DASH_Embassy_DACH
http://bit.ly/DWEmbassyDACHOCT18
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4 points,5 years ago
Everybody please read the report and than vote.
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-2 points,5 years ago
Inspired by the embassy model, and after long deliberations with Chuck Williams and others on what's missing in the network, I've launched a new initiative to significantly increase Dash's worldwide presence. We will be working closely with the Dash Embassy DACH to learn from the successes and limitations of the embassy model to make sure Dash has a dominant physical presence everywhere, from merchants to conferences and meetups.
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0 points,5 years ago
Thank you for your support, tdl. We are happy to work with you and share everything we got.
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0 points,5 years ago
idea for brainstorming: if the team's strategy could be much better focused on high inflation countries for savings /purchase power protection? for turkey, bloomberg has a june 4, 2018 article which cites an annual inflation rate of 12.2%. Any other high inflation countries that the DACH team is considering?
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0 points,5 years ago
Not at the moment. Turkey fits to our market, because we can push the remittance market through the 3 million turkeys living in our region. For further high inflation countries it might need other teams than ours, but we will see what future holds.
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2 points,5 years ago
We are happy to announce a promotional partnership for 40 FIAT to Crypto ATMs in Germany. They will be installed all around the country during the next months. We will help to find locations and therefor have a prominent Dash branding on the maschines: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPCPpX0aSro
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5 points,5 years ago
Fellow MNOs please pay attention to what is being presented between the lines,

) Dach attempts to be a jack of all trades
2) dach mandate was germany austria and swiss they know this is not working and as such exploring options like turkey
3) dach roadshows and some other intiatives lack traction i.e 30 users
4) dach is attempting to sugar-coat their activities as such their twitter / steemit has only 200~ followers
5) almost 60k usd goes towards salries greater than 75% of the ask


Anyone wonder why dach is targetting turkey? Its because simple as dcg has said fiat works well in those regions people are not going to dotch it for crypto.

Trying to salvage dash be attempting to branch into other regions is a feeble minded move one can expect of dach embassy when nothing at home succeeds, go elsewhere.

Voting NO
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1 point,5 years ago
You sure are unbiased, unemotional and lazer focussed on business with your between the lines reading.
Anyone familiar with the german-turkish situation will laugh at you and the DACH guys stated from the very beginning that they intend to be a template for other regions. Ask the folks from Thailand if they agree or not.
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0 points,5 years ago
You clearly lack comprehenshion

I did state;

1) that they are branching off into regions not within their original mandate
2) doing so just to save face

I did not state;

1) that users setting up their own embassy in turkey is a bad thing and being a template for others with a lower ask
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-2 points,5 years ago
I did state and I repeat that you display speculation as fact. They don't have to save their face as they never lost it, much to the chagrin of some malevolent trolls others that like to call others "poisonous elements".
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-4 points,5 years ago
Seems like you have no life, and are feeble minded clown
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0 points,5 years ago
Hello Realmrhack,

saying that DACH isn´t working for us not seems to be right. The best example might be the invitation to the DZ Bank hackathon, the ATM partnership with kurant and other ongoing integration projects you can find in the proposal description.

We are at 75% salaries of our ask, because we scaled down almost everything external costs to a absolute minimum, which doesn´t mean that there is no work for us to do.

Regarding turkey: when you got a turkish community of 3 million people in your region, which are responsable for round about 45% of the remittance market to a country that´s in trouble because of a weak currency, it´s a logical step to start efforts in this direction, we think. And yes, we did that inspired by Core and the projects from Venezuela.

If you don´t agree, vote no. If you like to learn more about what we are doing, we will be happy to answer.
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0 points,5 years ago
S/be/by
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-1 point,5 years ago
Trying to salvage dach by attempting to branch into other regions is a feeble minded move one can expect of dach embassy when nothing at home succeeds, go elsewhere.
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2 points,5 years ago
https://www.dashforcenews.com/cryptocurrency-exchange-to-bring-advantages-of-dash-to-southeast-asia-with-new-integration/

"MBAex, the Southeast Asian cryptocurrency exchange, will be integrating Dash into its platform with USDT, BTC and MDP (their own platform token) trading pairs, thanks to the work from Dash Embassy D-A-CH."

Nice work.
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1 point,5 years ago
oh darn, you already posted this .. my mistake (i overlooked it)
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2 points,5 years ago
Integration Update: https://www.dashforcenews.com/cryptocurrency-exchange-to-bring-advantages-of-dash-to-southeast-asia-with-new-integration/
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2 points,5 years ago
Although it's not DACH we are happy to announce that the integration at MBAex is finished: https://www.dashforcenews.com/cryptocurrency-exchange-to-bring-advantages-of-dash-to-southeast-asia-with-new-integration/
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2 points,5 years ago
DACh was not involved? the article cites that DACH was involved
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0 points,5 years ago
Hi telegon_heights,

We mean with "it´s not DACH", that it is no an integration for the DACH-region (D=Germany, A=Austria, CH=Switzerland) because it is an Asian integration and yes we made it happen together with MBAex.
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6 points,5 years ago
I haven't weighed in much on the DACH proposals in the past, but I'll comment on this one. I agree with technoir's assessment.

In short:
Does this team work hard? Yes
Are they passionate about Dash? Yes
Is this a good spend for the Dash network? No

I'm going to need to vote with my head, not my heart, on this one.
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3 points,5 years ago
Thank you for seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.
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1 point,5 years ago
Hello TroyDASH,

thank you for your support regarding our team and passion. It feels good to be appreciated. Maybe you can share some thoughts about how you think we can improve our efforts and be a good spend for Dash in future? FIAT gateways, remittance, B2B events, PR, conferences, IDEN, investment, ... or do you think that our region should not be in the DAOs focus in general?

It would be great to know more about your point of view.
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5 points,5 years ago
As we talked about briefly earlier in Discord, I think the scope can be narrowed significantly, as the current approach is somewhat jack-of-all-trades. The suggestions put forth by JW Weatherman are a good start in my opinion. Personally I would prefer a much larger allocation of funding directed to pursuing larger integrations (perhaps piggybacking on bitcoin, not necessarily dash exclusive), and significantly less on PR/education, and to halt the roadshow events altogether.

I do not think that Germany and the surrounding region are an ideal fit for the DAO to "focus" on per se because I think the demand is just not there compared to some other regions. But that doesn't mean there aren't still opportunities or that we shouldn't have a presence.
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-1 point,5 years ago
Hello TroyDASH,

some of our activities are connected to others, for example we should use PR to push big integrations, which will lead to a higher level of confidence for Dash and make our work easier regarding following integrations, but I´m sure we´ll find a consense in some way. Therefor we started a survey (there already was one in Aug, so it´s a new one) to learn what matters most for MNOs. It´s available in MNO-VIP channel on DN Discord. We´d be happy to get your feedback there also.

Thank you
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7 points,5 years ago
Questions and some points that have me voting no at the moment:

1) From Q2 to Q3 there is a drop in the articles posted for Dash. Reach remained almost the same. Also you claim that Dash is on the heels of Bitcoin which is absurd. Percentage of articles and reach for Bitcoin sits at ~50% while Dash is at ~6-10%. That is significantly less and in no way we are at the heels of Bitcoin. ---> This is a strong signal that the region king is Bitcoin and we have not succeeded in grabbing any significant percentage of that attention.

These are not numbers to be proud of and I haven't even touched on the futility of getting articles published about crypto in 1st world countries.

2) What are the partners or businesses that you are targeting in the conferences that you will attend? Have you done any prep work for pitching Dash to those targets? What problems will you solve for your targets with Dash?

3) What is the purpose of the Dash Roadshow? Attendance is very very low. What are you trying to achieve with this?

4) You had a target of 50 meetups for the year but you only managed to do 4 and due to budget you are placing this on hold. Firstly, this can only be counted as a failure. Also it is unnecessary since it got trimmed pretty easily due to budget constraints.

5) Non-german speaking MNOs cannot review the quality of the book you are preparing. Will it go on sale when finished? If yes do the profits go to DACH? In case DACH gets defunded but the book is already out what happens to the sales profits (if any) ?

6) How does Dash benefit by IDEN?

7) Your social media presence is nothing to phone home about and the fact that you are absolutely not focused on it is a mistake. How can you ignore social media in this day and age?

8) You claim 27% conversion rate on your letter to BTC merchants. When will we see these 94 merchants go live with accepting Dash? What solution will they use? Who is going to provide support and training for them?

9) Have you done any preliminary research in the remittance market between Turkey and Germany? What are the services people are using at the moment to send money back home? What are the fees we are competing with? Have you got any insight into your target audience? What is their age, educational level and how tech savvy are they? Will you promote "raw" Dash wallets as a way to send money back home or do you actually have a solid solution in the works that will streamline the whole remittance market and be "dumb-proof" and crypto-agnostic?

These are my thoughts for now.
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-2 points,5 years ago
Hi ichigo13,

thank you for your comment. We´ll try to answer your questions as precisely as possible.

1. We scaled down the PR agency and so the number of press releases, because we needed to lower our expanses due to tight budget and because MNOs asked for that. This is the reason why the number of articles dropped. We are happy that the reach has almost been the same, as this shows an interested regarding Dash in DACH. We valvue this as sustainability of our work. We have a PR alliance with Core and DFN now, to keep these numbers high with a scaled down PR agency. „being on the heels of“ just means that Dash got the second biggest reach after Bitcoin when it comes to payment related cryptos. Dashs reach in our region is bigger than BCH, LTC and XMR combined.

2. At the conference we are aiming for FIAT gateways and regulators mostly. At EWCC we will meet a cooperative that will setup in ATMs in DE. In Ankara we will meet turkish exchanges. At EuroFinanceWeek we will talk to institutional investors, regulators and banks (the last time we talked to a bank they invited us to the GENOhackthon). At GENOhackthon we will work on a solution to integrate Dash in the ATM network of DZ Bank Group. At Mittweida the University is trying to make Mittweida a blockchain/crypto region and Dash might hopefully be the number 1 currency for them. At B&P we wanted to get in contact with e-commerce startups but ended in talks with Stadtsparkasse München (bank).

3. The overall goal of the Roadshow is to educate business people and private persons about the current monetary system, the advantages of Dash compared to Bitcoin and the tax situation and make them use it. We have just started the Roadshow and it took some time to find good edcuation partners like the IHK, where round about 100 entrepreneurs showed up. Some of them already showed interest to use Dash for their services in future. The whole concept is under ongoing improvement regarding target groups, so we will organize events with the turkish community in germany in future to push the remittance market. Additionally we might have some investment related events in future, but we are not sure about that yet.

4. To avoid costs we decided to postpone the ambassador program (similiar to DF meetup program) so yes, not reaching can be adressed as failure, but we haven´t been able to reach the KPI because of the budget situation. We refocused our approach to meetups with Dash accepting merchants so people learn about Dash and also spent it there. In our opinion this concept is more costefficient and more usefull than the one beforebecause the merchants and so the transaction volume will benefit directly from it. We will keep you updated about the progress.

5. We will transalate it to englisch as soon as the review is done. After that we will contact a publisher and sell it for the amount that is needed to pay the publisher, so we will try to keep the price as low as possible. It will be available as e-book in the first stage.

6. IDEN opens up the school system for Dash so we can educated teachers and students about almost the same topics we are talking about at the roadshow events. A first school is interested in having us and maybe even add Dash as a means of payment in their cafeteria. We will keep you updated about that as soon as possible. In addition IDEN can be used to give our book to teachers and educate them about Dash as deep as possible.

7. We don´t ignore social media, we just don´t do advertisings there and for now won´t do that in future. We are publishing news on our Roadshow and Dash accepting merchants there on a regular base. Spending a lot of money on social media adds would not be very usefull, because people in our region just don´t trust it (https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/222329/umfrage/umfrage-zum-vertrauen-in-unterschiedliche-werbeformen/)

8. Some of these merchants are already onboarded. They use services like coingate, coinpayments for e-commerce sparks in combination with uphold if necessary. Sidem and Orion are responsable for those integrations and help them via chat, mail and phone. After the integration the merchants receive marekting materials to educate their customers and get invited to organize meetups by Vanessa. Please have a look to our social media channels. We are posting every succesfull integration there and will soon publish more details about the infomaterials they are receiving.

9. Remittance is mostly handled by Western Union and regular banks. Together with Gökce Philips (https://www.linkedin.com/in/emine-gokce-phillips-phd-1b8365/) who invited us to the TR Summit we will start to educate the people in turkey so we are entering this market from both sides. Currently we are not sure if raw Dash transactions will be the right solution or if services like https://utrust.com/ may work better for this. We are already in contact with them. In addition we want the turkish people to start their own community projects so they hopefully will have Dash accepting merchants over there as soon as possible.

We hope this helps.
Reply
12 points,5 years ago
This proposal is generating a lot of controversy, so I'd like to weigh in with my thoughts.

In general I'm a supporter of Dash Embassy. I like the way Dash Embassy present themselves with a professional appearance, I'm proud to have them representing Dash at various events and I like the way they've been reporting their progress to the MNOs with detailed video updates for each area of activity.

However, it's important that we get clear about the value this organisation adds to the Dash network.

Dash Embassy operates in German speaking nations. It's Ryan Taylor's position (and I think most of us also agree) that we are unlikely to see significant adoption of Dash *as a payment method* in those sorts of countries, because they have fiat currencies and payment systems that work well enough for most people. What we can do in these sorts of countries is attract investors - this doesn't mean that we should market Dash specifically as an investment (Core have specifically advised against this), but getting Dash talked about in German media is worthwhile if it brings people who were looking to invest in cryptocurrency to Dash rather than other cryptos.

DE's work with Hoschke and Consorten seems to have been effective in getting positive press coverage for Dash in German media, and for me this is the main value of the project.

In terms of integrations/partnerships. Some of these efforts look impressive because the companies are big names like DZ Bank, Audi and Porsche, BUT those big name integrations are in a very preliminary phase meaning that the companies have been spoken to and expressed some interest in Dash. I wager that most or all of those discussions will result in nothing meaningful for Dash, but I think it's good that DE is being ambitious and pursuing them because if any of them are successful the potential impact is high. The rest of the integrations seem to be with very small companies or startups, which are worth little in my opinion because the companies are too small to generate a meaningful number of transactions for us or generate headlines.

The remaining activities carried out by Dash Embassy I am very skeptical about.

For example, roadshows with an average attendance of 30 people seems like a lot of effort and expense for minimal impact in terms of attracting new investors.

Wallet installs are almost worthless in German nations because, as Dash Embassy report from their conversations with the BTC-accepting merchants they are trying to convert to Dash, almost nobody is interested in making payments with crypto at the crypto-accepting merchants in those countries.

Likewise, signing up new merchants to Dash sounds good on paper, but in nations where there's no need for cryptocurrency as a payment method new merchants are worthless because nobody is interested in spending Dash. Personally I would not invest any more money in merchant adoption efforts outside of places like Venezuela or Africa where there's a strong case for using Dash as a currency.

TLDR; I think the main value that Dash Embassy brings is working with Hoschke and Consorten to represent Dash in German media and boost our profile to potential investors. I also think there's some value in pursuing partnerships with DZ Bank, Audi and Porsche although they are long shots. The remaining activities I think are almost worthless and I question whether we should be paying for these.
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5 points,5 years ago
(Another initiative with low value imo is the work educating secondary school students about Dash and blockchain. Again it sounds good on paper, but realistically if it does have any impact, we will be waiting 10 years or more to see it, and that's assuming the students don't later become interested in other cryptocurrencies instead of Dash)
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0 points,5 years ago
So for now it's a YES vote from me, but I do think there's scope to downsize DE's activities while retaining most of the value that we get from it.
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-2 points,5 years ago
Hi technoir,

Thanks for your critical input and support! What is your opinion about our efforts to bring Dash to Turkey and to Turkish immigrants in Germany? Turkey has one of the highest inflation rates in Europe (60%) and there are 3 Million Turkish immigrants in Germany. The remittance volume between the two countries is at around $3 billion a year. We will speak at a conference in Ankara, Turkey, and we are also in talks with Turkish exchanges that are currently not supporting Dash.

Best Regards

#itsapleasure
Reply
3 points,5 years ago
That also sounds like a worthwhile effort, as far as I know we don't have anyone else promoting Dash in Turkey - admittedly, I don't know that much about the situation there, but I saw PAC coin were targeting it so perhaps it could be a good country for us to target also.
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0 points,5 years ago
ty for that support too, we are keen on getting dashy boots on the ground there as soon as possible.

Best Regards

#itsapleasure
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4 points,5 years ago
Dash spent on those who live with dollars and euros is dash wasted, at least for now. This is very expensive, and this much money could go a very long way in countries that actually need dash.
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-4 points,5 years ago
Hi unstoppable,

We are currently targeting a currency crisis hit country named turkey and work on establishing a Dash Embassy there. Our experiences and learnings are not wasted money or expensive. We give this to other Dashers around the world. Dash Embassy Thailand is moving fast and efficient, because we share our knowledge with them and they share their experiences with us. Decentralized strength is important. Concentrating all efforts on one country is not very smart, because if politicans or banks lobby against us, all our efforts there are destroyed. So diversification in projects all over the world for Dash is key to global mass adoption. But for now, let us go to Turkey and help them.

Best Regards

#itsapleasure
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1 point,5 years ago
Your condescending reply failed to change my mind. Further, your high cost is not justified by your Turkish use case.
For any Turks out there, get on board with the Dash Force Meetup Program.
#itsapleasure
Reply
-2 points,5 years ago
Hi unstoppable,

Sorry if you feel like that, but we have significantly scaled down all our operations to a meaningful minimum to survive this severe bear market, but keep the work up and running.

Here you can find the scaled down Q4 budget numbers in detail:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1hcxPe1y2XpQbf4RdXXZA9MSU4NJvwq0P_DiIbIaVtvY/edit?usp=sharing

If you have any further questions you are welcome.

Best Regards

#itsapleasure
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0 points,5 years ago
Urban Innovation Vienna and the City of Vienna are supporting the idea of Blockchain, wherefore they invited interested industry representatives to an event already for the fourth time.
Klaus Hipfinger was there to deliver a short presentation about Dash and he was therefore the only representative of a monetary cryptocurrency.

https://www.dash-embassy.org/2018/10/18/4th-blockchain-networking-meeting-on-october-15-2018/?lang=en

#itsapleasure
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1 point,5 years ago
Breaking into a new region, especially one that has shown to be pivotal in the cryptocurrency world, is both valuable and requires a long game and concentrated effort. I have seen this team putting in the hard work and professional approach necessary to move the region forward. I support continued scaled-back funding of this operation, and consider defunding it at this stage to be a shame.
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-2 points,5 years ago
Hello CaptainDuffy,

Thank you for your support. Dash Embassy Thailand is running and to establish the next Dash Embassy in Turkey is an ambitious goal to bring Dash into the main struggling emerging market on the European border. We plain to do the Blockchain Summit in Ankara in November and we will also do a workshop at the conference and explain the Dash Embassy concept to achieve this goal fast and activate people there.
Futhermore we plan to integrate Dash in the 3 major turkish crypto-exchanges BtcTurk, Paribu and Koinim. Thus people in Turkey can change there Dash to Lira or send there money to the DACH region or elsewhere. Giving this people easy and fast access to Dash is now a main priority for the work there.

Best Regards

#itsapleasure
Reply
5 points,5 years ago
Hi Team DACH

I note in your proposal the 44%-83% reduction in spending on your actual activities vs only a 6.5% reduction in team salaries.

I have asked the team (Simon and Essra) for a breakdown in the salary spend, hourly rates for themselves and ambassador staff etc, but this was refused due to a GDPR issue.

Therefore I ask both CEOs, Simon the ravager and Essra (the executive) to disclose their own personal salaries. Nothing in GDPR prevents them from personally disclosing their own gross salary, or even the hourly rate that they are being paid (before tax).

Without these numbers, the Dash MNOs don’t know what kind of value we are getting out of those two CEOs.

How can we assess value without placing costs beside any measurable results?

Thanks,
Triptolemoose
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0 points,5 years ago
Hi Triptolemoose,

as mentioned already we will not publish details regarding our salary. You can see the value you are getting out of "those two CEOs" by having a look at the whole proposal. We have scaled down salaries as much as possible. We won´t go any further, because cost of living don´t go down only because the Dash price does. If we would reduce salaries even more we will loose our employees, because they are working for Dash in fulltime and need a proper salary for what they are doing. So do we (CEOs).

Here is kind of a cross post regarding our salary from another post here on DC:

32k budget (incl. 20% employer taxes) brings us to a budget of 25.6k gross. Using this budget for 7 full time employees you will get to 3,657.14€ per person on average. By having a look at the qualification of our team members (https://www.dash-embassy.org/embassy/organisation/) I think you can imagine that the salary for the CEOs can´t be as high as you might imagine.

For more details about our staff situation please have a look at the document we shared with you on Dash Talk Discord already: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1mMKulN5KP5j-AHaGBs7XiJcs08IuLUYbE4RzgACQ3WY/edit#gid=0

This is our answer. Please refrain from repeating your question over and over again. Our answer won´t change.

Thank you

BTW: even this is not connected to salary it might be important to remind you that essra supported this project with 30k out of his own pocket in it´s beginning. He hasn´t got that money back yet and probably never will.
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2 points,5 years ago
Hi MNOs

Please note that these two DACH CEOs do not wish to let you know how much they are charging the network per hour for their scaled down activities.

This is a huge red flag!

The closest to a disclosure that I received from essra was a link to standard CEO salaries and admission that they are paying themselves a similar amount.

Therefore going by his doc, we can assume it is somewhere between 100k and 200k per year EUROs.

If we assume a conservative 120k Euro per year for each CEO, this leaves us with the remaining 4-5 full time staff possibly each earning something close to minimum wage. Maybe between 12 and 14 euros per hour = 2500 Euro per month.

What this leaves us with is a salary for CEOs of over 9000 Euros each per month (more than 50 Euros per hour).

I suggest the team come clean in the spirit of transparency and I ask Dash Watch to please at least attest to them having the 5 staff as full timers, and viewing the payments to each.

If the remaining staff aren’t actually full time (as claimed), then who knows what these CEOs are really pocketing every hour.

In the spirit of transparency, I suggest MNOs begin to apply some gentle pressure to our DACH ambassadors (Simon the Ravager and Essra) for their ‘CEO’ salary disclosure.
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-3 points,5 years ago
Already added my 12 no votes. I'm currently voting no to all these big, permanent, poorly defined, expensive and centralized projects - including Core, Kuvacash, Dash nation, DACH embassies and Dash nexus (for affiliation with Dash nation).

We already have the DAO, make some to the point proposals and ask for specified budgets for specified Dash relevant projects.

Too much trash on here and too many secondary organizations (that never seem to deliver).
Reply
-3 points,5 years ago
lol - try to pay a sales director, a studied IT person, an eventmager and support/transaltion for crypto with minimum wages. You can do this calculation the other way around and assume that because of high salaries for the employees the CEOs aren´t earning enough... whatever.. you handed this over to DW and we are already in talks with them.

They´ll come back to you asap so our talks here are over again as they have been in our Q3 proposal, sadly.
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1 point,5 years ago
Dash Roadshow Update: 90 attendees (business) @ chamber of commerce in Schleswig https://www.dash-embassy.org/2018/10/17/dash-roadshow-ihk-flensburg-chamber-of-commerce-selker-abend-16-10-2018/?lang=en
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1 point,5 years ago
In all fairness @lemonysnicket raises some valid points i have noticed also on many occasions how a useless member of core (tungfa) acts and endorses projects.

Furthermore disclosure of ceo salaries is rather normal course of business and does not require a GDPR. Defence which imo is extremely feeble attempt.

Concerns have been mounting for sometime where the value proposition of their continual monthly asks are. Currently at 800k usd per year AFTER IT WAS REDUCED

Original budget would be closer to 1.4 million or more.

Voting no

#itsapleasure
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0 points,5 years ago
Hello Realmrhack,

thank you for your comment. As we adressed salary questions already in other posts here, we will not repeat our answer again. If you don´t think we are worth our ask vote no. I think we won´t be able to change your mind, even if we would start to explain what our value is, because we already did that in the proposal description above.

Have a great day,

essra
Reply
0 points,5 years ago
Roadshow Update: https://www.dash-embassy.org/2018/10/17/dash-roadshow-ihk-flensburg-chamber-of-commerce-selker-abend-16-10-2018/?lang=en

Stefan Wesemann, director of the IHK Schleswig, said about the evening:

Our expectations have been fully met by this event and the attendees gave us also a very positive feedback. The topic is exciting and highly innovative, and not all regulations and standards have been defined by now. Cryptocurrencies are already a vital part of our regional economy, either as a payment method or as a store of value, as a measure for the exchange of goods or services, as a speculative asset or as a source of revenue. The IHK is convinced that the financial world will change significantly as a result of digitization.

#itsapleasure
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3 points,5 years ago
Yes from me, good luck.
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-1 point,5 years ago
Thank you for your support, qwizzie
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6 points,5 years ago
@lemonysnicket

It's fine to post the own opinion in 1-3 posts within one thread. But 9+ posts all over the proposal is too much and distracting from other opinions. Please calm down a bit.
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2 points,5 years ago
Thank you rango, would be the best that everyone of us returns back to his work FOR Dash. ty
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-3 points,5 years ago
I'm sure you'd be pleased with that Essra - you don't like this project being exposed, and hard questions being asked, so better I go away, right?

Thanks,
Drako
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-2 points,5 years ago
Hi Rango,
No worries - although if I get replies from him, and these are nonsense or diversionary, I'd like to point it out. I am an MNO as well as a major proposal owner, working to ensure other MNO's get to see the truth about the DACH proposal. I will also attend to other proposals also delivering little or zero value to Dash.

Thanks,
Drako
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7 points,5 years ago
I INITIALLY believed DACH to be a positive initiative that was pushing for integrations on exchanges and apparently pipelining these, which I supported. (I did not support their marketing initiatives, indeed at this stage I don't think burning money on marketing does anything for Dash)

Following discussions to try to bring down DACH's ask, by having them focus on integrations (the negotiations were not successful), @Triptolemoose was himself not convinced that all was what it seemed, and he dug deeper into what exactly DACH had been doing with their "integrations" and "marketing". He brought this research to me, because it's hard to see unless you look closely - the truth is that DACH are doing next to nothing for Dash and costing a fortune, and apparently paying themselves handsomely. Anyone who takes time to have actually read any of the Dash Watch reports on DACH knows this.

There have been zero integrations, extremely expensive meet-ups with minimal attendance, and little transparency as to how much Essra and Simontheraveger have been paying themselves, even as a single consolidated 'executive pay' entry - the evidence is they pay themselves the salary range of top CEO's/executives - they are certainly not of this caliber. They have cited GDPR as the reason they won't disclose any amount - which is of course not applicable at all and a diversion. They are an 'Embassy' for Dash, and a pure cost centre so let us see these costs.

It may be no secret that between Kuvacash and DACH there is no particular love lost. Following an initial interaction where I believed that they were delivering value, and tried to bring them in to balance the DAO budget between a number of proposals (they declined to participate, having had enough votes to pass for the month), what was brought to light by Triptolemoose and others is that there is very little value being brought to Dash by DACH. They are paid to attend conferences, drink beer and eat snacks, travel, socialise and have no accountability to anything whatsoever. They have added no meaningful business value to Dash, and every month is a new money burn, it appears that nothing of value is retained. You will note that they will attempt to divert discussion regarding this, will claim they are doing 'business development' and have 'in progress' integrations, although have zero to show for it other than a few videos of early stage startup people talking up how great Dash is - "Hopium" as it were, and sugar-coated metrics, and showing us that they need an office to store their Dash t-shirts and pens.

Tungfa and Kot (Phillip and Robert) from Core shamefully attempt to advocate for them, clearly not having seen any results from DACH, nor pointing to any meaningful metrics.

MNO's it's time to read reports, see through the sugar-coating, the endless and somewhat nauseating sucking up to Good Opinion with 'pleasure' and realise there is little value in DACH;

Let's begin to demand accountability and real business deliverables from them. At the absolute least, if you feel they 'still need a chance' then lower this ask by at least 90% so we are not paying what amounts to $1 million a year for what currently amounts to minimal value or impact to Dash adoption.

Definite NO vote from me, clearly.

Thanks,
Drako
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3 points,5 years ago
Where does the "1 Million a year" figure come from?
You can't have confused it with your own ask, as that would be an absolute minimum of 1.5 to 1.8 Mio USD, likely much more, according to your own estimates.
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3 points,5 years ago
To be clear: per year...more like 2.7 million until completion (18 months) at minimum, a figure I never see over at Über transparent Kuva.
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-1 point,5 years ago
60k monthly ask currently, x 12 = 720k usd, AFTER it was reduced original budget would have put them well over 1 million usd. Please use a calculator
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4 points,5 years ago
I suggest you tell that Drako. He miscalculated, not me.
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-3 points,5 years ago
Hi Macno,
No, I calculated right. As MrHack indicated to you in another post above -

"Currently at 800k usd per year AFTER IT WAS REDUCED
Original budget would be closer to 1.4 million or more."

So I'll stick with a 1M + while you learn how to use a calculator.

Thanks,
Drako
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6 points,5 years ago
How do I enter your speculation in my calculator?
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2 points,5 years ago
Drako, round about two month ago you sent me a private message in which you told me that you appreciate our efforts and that you believe our professional team is running one of the most valuable projects for Dash. (for those who are interested, have a look at the entire chat log: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1oVXOjWPtzZmyYTeNgDH30k2ycyrujhwX/view?usp=sharing )

You wanted to form an alliance between Nexus, Dash Watch and Dash Embassy D-A-CH to overcome the hard times the past budget cycles brought to all of us. I basically agreed and wanted to add other from my perspective valuable teams like DFN, DCG and Venezuela to the table. You denied.

To prepare our call I created a requirements document for proposals and proposal owners to make sure that we are all looking in the same direction. We worked on this together with Nexus and jeff (as person, not as a representative of Dash Watch) in the beginning of the call and I still like the outcome: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1MHRVA3hiZ1gW41KpsCOoIW2Ko5Zb8qJ6R3aLlmosx4c/edit?usp=sharing

After that we switched to the “important part” (your words). You showed me what you had prepared for the call. In the end an optimized calculation of all proposals from your point of view. Thanks god you haven´t deleted it so I was able to take a screenshot: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DanHolF-nIidlG5hrLpxfKl2zdo4Q3QD/view?usp=sharing

You wanted us to scale down to 100 DASH which would have been 25% of our ask. I told you that we would be broke, if I agree to that. It turned out that you had a look at the wrong budget document of the Embassy before and there for thought that 100 DASH might be possible. After this misunderstanding was clearified you asked me whether there is an opportunity to lower our ask in someway. I told you that I need to double check with simontheravager, because he is responsable for our financials. He told me that we might be able to scale down in future to something like 350 DASH, but that there will be no possibility to lower our ask in August because we haven´t been funded for two month. After I denied to scale down you kept telling yourself that we could lower our ask and are just not willing to come to the table, even this wasn´t the case. At this point things started to get a bit weird from my perspective.

In order to get the funding for KUVA you started to fight Dash Embassy D-A-CH in every possible way. You took things so far that you have been banned from the mno-only channel (48h, right?) where you have been hiding the whole debate. In addition to that your friend triptolemoose (perma-bannend in DN, right?) wrote several offending but repeating comments on DC. He did a good job trolling us but unfortunately he did not succeed, because MNOs seem not to be as kooky as you think. So you failed in taking down a proposal for the first time. Sorry for that, but there might be a reason for this.

Now, after a lost voting cycle you are coming back and want us to be defunded. In my opinion this is pointless, but I think I know why you are doing this.

You are acting like a mulish little boy who fell off his bicycle. Instead of thinking about improving your driver skills you are looking for someone to blame and here we are. Those stupid (former professional) guys from the DACH region with “one of the worse” (former most valuable) projects in the history of Dash. I fear you will not stop trolling us until you are the winner in this totally not necessary bullshit. I also fear you will try to manipulate people and make them believe your unfounded lies are the truth (for example that we are delivering nothing).

You might need to assume that you are not the center of the universe. You shouldn´t even be the center of your own universe. The people of Zimbabwe should be. Do your job and help those guys instead of trolling valuable proposals. We don´t have the resources to go to Zimbabwe and help people to build an Embassy there at the moment, because we are focusing on DACH, Thailand and Turkey for now.

One last thing: you are not automatically on the right side of history by fighting one austrian and a couple of germans. Just keep in mind...

#itsapleasure
@essra

BTW: 32k for a team of 6 fulltime employees will not allow a “salary range of top CEO's/executives”. In fact these 32k are calculated for 7 fulltime employees.
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-2 points,5 years ago
Hi Essra,
Once again, you have diversionary tactics to distract people away from exactly what you have done for the network.

Delivered nothing of meaningful value.

Instead of talking about someone falling off a bicycle in what appears to be a weak attempt at personal insult, could you instead provide us what it is that you consider to be your actual business achievements? Why is it that you perpetually divert from this? Your fake narrative is also incorrect. I also recall our conversation on the phone - not sure what you are trying to say about your obfuscated financials or the attempt we made to create something that fits (and anyone was welcome to a copy of that - I am up front to all). You may also publish the private conversation we had on Dash Nation, in full if you like, noting that this was prior to Triptolemoose coming to me following having investigated your 'achievements'. You also continue to attempt the 'mean Drako' manoeuvre which is getting to be a tired trope by now.

I'm not concerned with anything else other than the fact that DACH is not providing any meaningful value to the network and is burning funds as a cost center. You, on the other hand, continue to divert from the facts.

Again - DACH have so far delivered nothing of meaningful value, and continue to suck up to the network, delivering nothing but hopium and videos of nothingness to 'keep the community happy and high on the hopium' while paying yourselves ridiculous amounts, without accountability to the network or impact.

No integrations. No impact.

Like I said - MNO's that read the Dashwatch report aren't foolish, they are all now beginning to see that you continue to provide little value to the network, at a very large cost.

Thank you,
Drako
Reply
1 point,5 years ago
Hi Drako,

regarding achievements please reaf the DW reports again and have a look at:

2.1 PR
2.2 Conferences
2.3 Roadshow
3.3 Integration Pipelines
5.2 Lobbying
5.3 Legal
7 Reporting

Of course it will take some time to walk through this, but as Triptolemoose always says: "do your own research." I´ll be surprised if you can´t see the value we are delivering.

Regarding rediculous amounts: this has already been answered in the comment before.

#itsapleasure
@essra
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0 points,5 years ago
Essra,
None of these are achievements - how is 'PR' an achievement? Or 'Roadshow' or 'Integration "Pipelines"', or 'Lobbying' or 'legal' or 'reporting'....

MNO's are not foolish man.

And you didn't answer the question - let me be more direct; how much are you and Simon paying yourselves for these non-achievements?

Thanks,
Drako
Reply
3 points,5 years ago
7 minutes for an additional research... you are pretty fast.

PR: we made Dash the third biggest crypto in german speaking media

Roadshow: we organized Dash events for more than 150 business attendees

Integration Pipeline: we are constantly working on integrations at FIAT Gateways (international), SMEs and big players like DZ Bank (19,600 ATMs). Some Integrations are early stage, some are mid stage, some are late stage, some are done. Additionally we started affiliate programs and will increase the nuber of those partnerships in future to get self sustainable.

Lobbying: we are forming the legal situation for crypto in general and Dash especially in cooperation with associations to level the way for mass adoption.

Legal: we help merchants, traders, miners, MNOs and everyone else in the cryptoverse to get a free of charge tax consultion and clear statements from tax office (if they are interested in and they are) - e.g.

Reporting: this one you really need to read on yourselfe, because I´ll not repeat everything we published in the forum or elsewhere.

Salary: we will not tell you details about our salary, but 32k budget (incl. 20% employer taxes) brings us to a budget of 25.6k gross. Do the math and you get to 3,657.14€ per person on average.

Now think about what simon and me can cut out of this while we are working with well educated employees.

Further questions about salary will be ignored.

#itsapleasure
Reply
-3 points,5 years ago
Hi Essra,

You are purposefully diverting and not answering my questions. Your 'achievements' illustration makes my point - you guys have done ZERO.

Do you think MNO's believe that '150 business attendees' is value for what the DAO have paid? Seriously?! This equates to the DAO paying well over $1000 per person in attendance. Nobody in their right mind would be happy with that as a cost-per-attendee.

I'm tracking the DZ Bank - and your diversionary sugar-coat of 19K ATM's - I mean, you really think MNO's are that foolish? Implying that 19K ATM's will trade your Dash, via DZ bank? Do you have an LoI or contract signed with them that says that they will do this? No you don't - because, well, it's no surprise they won't be doing that anytime soon, and you or Simon implying they will is diversionary and untruthful.

Your other "Some are done" integrations - let's see these, and what they are providing to the network in terms of transactions - yup, precisely ZERO. A few startups and nothing of value.

This is disingenuous to the point of comedy.

Your tax consultation service is pointless and isn't paving the way for mass adoption - it is providing some basic financial advice. Yes you do have to pay capital gains tax on your trading in German-speaking countries. And most other countries. What an insight.

And regarding 'average salaries' - do you think MNO's are fools? Let me clarify - what is the 'average salary' that YOU and Simon pay each other. Because if you bucket everyone, including the low-paid people you have 'on staff' - well, yes you'll get to what I calculated also.

But you're NOT paying yourself or Simon 3,657.14 € are you? Implying that you are is actually diverting from the truth.

Again, you clearly think MNO's are fools. You'll attempt to 'ignore future questions about salary' rather than just tell the truth because you know that MNO's won't like to hear exactly what you do pay yourselves, so go ahead and divert, yet again.

Thanks,
Drako
Reply
7 points,5 years ago
About salary at least, Essra never said he was paying himself 3657 €. He said that was average, to someone like me who has no beef in this discussion you are coming off as pretty disingenuous by saying that he is implying he is. Essra obviously doesn't want to declare an exact amount, and I wouldn't expect him too. I would guess he is taking 4-6k euros, and having his employees at 1.5-3k euros as I would expect and definitely not an executive level salary. The minimum salary in Germany is 1.5k euros, so even if he was paying them minimum wage, that's only 9k for Essra and Simon, which is the upper limit and lower than an executive level salary, which is at least 11k.

I'm honestly just tired about this bickering, as it is obvious you are going after other projects to try to carve a path for kuvacash. You might see it as the way for yourself, but to many MNOs including myself find it off-putting. Btw I finally voted yes on your last proposal that failed.

I just don't understand why you are going after everyone and making enemies everywhere. You got over a million dollars for kuvacash and the dash got nothing up till now, that is a fact (mind you I'm not saying you did no work), yet people like me still want to believe. Each extra enemy you make has friends and makes it more likely you will never finish your project, which makes me even sadder.
Reply
5 points,5 years ago
I agree, i also find this bickering off putting.

And eventhough i too voted yes on Drako's previous (failed) budget proposal, at some point this behaviour will effect my decision on future proposals.
Reply
1 point,5 years ago
Hi Quantum,
Was good speaking with you a couple months back, and thanks for the support of Kuva. I'm not going after every proposal - just this one at the moment, because - and you should REALLY take a closer look at DACH - it is mostly fluff and delivers little of value to the network.

With regards to our own proposal - well I'm sure there will be plenty of discussion when we actually post it up. I have to correct you though - not only did we deliver, transparently, everything we said we would in readiness for launch, but have also delivered an open-source initiative on top. You are a developer yourself, please take a look. Claiming we delivered 'nothing' is certainly not a fact - it is actually incorrect.

I am both an MNO and PO - I want to remove overpriced proposals like DACH that deliver little value to the network and in doing so ensure there is space for proposals that do have potential for material impact.

Also, I am in support of asking what the executive pay that Essra and Simon give themselves, at least as the average amount in the executive pay bracket. I've asked @Dashwatchteam to approach DACH in order to validate the pay bracket, and also validate other payments they claim to make, because as an expensive proposal they need to be far more transparent. Their 'accounting' is broad and unverified, and in need of 3rd party attestation.

I hope you can see what I'm doing here is showing the reasons that DACH is not currently value for money. Both my PO hat and my MNO hat are on for this one, that's no secret at all..

Thanks,
Drako
Reply
3 points,5 years ago
I didn't say you delivered nothing, I meant the network has seen no benefit yet, your code is not owned by the network. This isn't against you, it's just the reality that the project hasn't launched yet and it's yours to do as you like (once again just the truth, as you hold the power to open source, not the MNO network). Up till now the project is sunk cost to us.
Reply
-1 point,5 years ago
Hi Quantum,

The network has been tracking EXACTLY what was promised to be delivered by Kuva, on-time and on-budget. And actually, as a bonus we have open-sourced elements of our project to the network.

The open-source is here, for the native Android Dash-BWS client - it is original native code produced by Team Kuva, please take a look. Me and you actually discussed this on our call, it has been posted multiple times on DN and DC - I even also posted you the links via PM on DN, right? I mean....did you actually even take a look following our call?

https://github.com/kuvabase/Kuvabase-BWCJ
https://bintray.com/kuvabase/maven/bwcj
https://github.com/kuvabase/Kuvabase-BWCJ-sample-app

Remember now? So yes, the network has seen direct benefit, and on top of this we are tracking Kuva for launch, precisely to plan and budget.

I'm wondering, how is it possible you make an assessment of 'sunk cost' and on top of this imply we've open-sourced nothing, when we discussed this in detail? Are you simply another persistent detractor/kook who makes stuff up in the face of material sent to you personally, by me and with whom there is simply no point wasting any more of my time?

Or do you have an open mind and can perhaps see the light here?

Thanks,
Drako
Reply
3 points,5 years ago
Please stop attacking more Core members here and this is not a Kuva proposal comment space, so please do this in your own proposal if you need to. We would like to read constructive words here not destroying ones, as we work FOR Dash and you should have enough to work FOR Dash too. ty
Reply
0 points,5 years ago
Sometimes I wonder if you read what people say. I said you had the power to open source and not the network. Not that you hadn't done it on a portion of your product. You did open source the code to the Android app. One could still argue it doesn't give much value to Dash unless the Kuvacash project launches especially since the backend is closed source (and I understand why it is). And that's what I meant.

Again I have 0 beef with you. But unless Kuvacash launches the benefit of a wallet that relies on a backend that isn't around is to me sunk cost (and notice again I said unless), especially since you have the team that's necessary for the launch, and it would be sunk cost because I don't think anyone could use anything your team has done and open source and launch a product with that sub section.

I realize now that what I said is wrong about sunk cost, it is not sunk cost now - yet - though it might turn out to be. I don't know how you can argue with that.

I am sorry, I've been busy, the only reason I posted here, was because I really felt you aren't doing yourself a service attacking everyone. Calling my options to be either a kook, or have an open mind and agree with you is - again - not doing you any favors. Are those really the only 2 options you see?
Reply
-1 point,5 years ago
Hi Quantum,
I am criticising the DACH proposal as an MNO, as it does not deliver value to the network. As a PO, we need space for proposals that actually do deliver value to the network, and at least retain value in what we pay to them, not just burn money.

I accept your apology re 'sunk cost' - we are indeed still working hard to launch Kuvacash. Reach out to @Krish or @solarguy if you would like to hear what they think of the app itself. But this is a discussion for the Kuvacash proposal, going up shortly.

I also never said you were a kook - I said keep an open mind, and you may see the light. I only call out people who have odd/conspiracy/ideologue/personality reasons for supporting or detracting a proposal and ignore the business aspects, as 'kooks'. And only when they pretty much know it already ;)

Thanks,
Drako
Reply
-1 point,5 years ago
the only shameful thing here is your public behaviour and badmothing of other projects / proposals , i was hoping you learned your lesson in the last voting round , but no , your mud slinging has not changed ! i wish KuvaCash would throw another team member of yours in the loop so these proposals can get some sense of professionalism again ! (same as last month - you are only hurting yourself and your project with these kind of unprofessional / personalised attacks )
Reply
1 point,5 years ago
Philipp, you are such a sheep!
Reply
2 points,5 years ago
Hi Phillip,

Interesting how you consider my valid critique as an MNO 'mudslinging'. Could you please now answer my question to you, given your nebulous endorsement as a member of Core to this proposal? Here it is copied below, in case you missed it:

"What exactly have they done, can you actually articulate it to show us that it has been of value? The only reliable metrics I see, like A_node_to_a_master indicate that they have delivered nothing of value.

I'd like to hear what you saw that convinced you otherwise..."

As an aside, me and various colleagues/MNO's are also aware of your utter incompetence in fulfilling your 'but I've always been there' role at Core as a 'tool' as well as your numerous failures involving security breaches, poor management of social media forums and other for which you should be completely accountable. I'm sure you know this, as I've made it clear - it's also the reason you perpetually vote against my own proposal.

So I will be coming for you also Phillip, because if the network knew the depth of your incompetence, you would be fired - please just wait your turn.

Thanks,
Drako
Reply
-1 point,5 years ago
Why did you feel the need to bring Tungfa and kot into your critique? Totally unnecessary.
"I will be coming for you" - really?
Actions have consequences, Drako.
Reply
0 points,5 years ago
Hi Troy,
I’m ok with those ‘consequences’. I am also being transparent - Robert (Kot) advocates without thinking. Phillip (Tungfa) is incompetent dead wood in Core and needs to go.

I’m certainly not the only MNO who knows this.

Thanks,
Drako
Reply
0 points,5 years ago
oh drako - same old eh
so u are threatening me now - nice one , please keep going as it is your reputation (and your project) that u pull into the mud right here AGAIN
Reply
3 points,5 years ago
DACH is hired to do marketing and education.
But the budget states that part of the budget is cut the most.

That would mean the core business of DACH has no funding to be executed ?!?
Please correct me if I am missing something.
Reply
0 points,5 years ago
Hello A_node_to_a_Master,

sometimes it seems that we are doing marketing and education most of the time, but we are also doing a lot of business development and dash infrastructure related topics like mentioned in "3 Integration and Sales". Of course marketing and sales are connected, but the scale down we did for marketing was mostly regarding our expanses for the PR agency and the events we attended as sponsor to get a speakerslot. We started to do the PR work in exchange with DFN and DCG and are doing a lot of stuff the agency did before on ourselves to save money. We hope for similar results as in the months before, but it will be a hard nut.

Regarding sponsorhips and events: we get invited as speaker without paying for it meanwhile, because we were able to build a recognized brand during the last 8 months. So this also saves us some money.

I hope this helps?

essra
Reply
0 points,5 years ago
Basically it sounds like we have expensive dash promoters.
Thank you for you're answer but its a no vote from me
Reply
0 points,5 years ago
MNO's please read the Dash Watch reports for DACH's 'Results'.

DACH delivers nothing of meaningful value, no impact to the network whatsoever.

I also encourage people to carefully read Triptolemoose's research and questions on the prior proposal - DACH is costing a fortune, delivering no impact. It is here:

https://www.dashcentral.org/p/DASH_EMBASSY_D-A-CH_Q3_18

8 months of money burn, no impact to show for it and still...MNO's vote this rubbish in!?

Definite NO from me.

Thanks,
Drako
Reply
-2 points,5 years ago
already adressed above.

#itsapleasure
Reply
1 point,5 years ago
Essra,
No, it's not.
Here, I'll copy my response again for you...you may have missed it :-)

None of these are (DACH) achievements - how is 'PR' an achievement? Or 'Roadshow' or 'Integration "Pipelines"', or 'Lobbying' or 'legal' or 'reporting'....

MNO's are not foolish man.

And you didn't answer the question - let me be more direct; how much are you and Simon paying yourselves for these non-achievements?

Thanks,
Drako
Reply
-1 point,5 years ago
essra 2 points,32 minutes ago
"
7 minutes for an additional research... you are pretty fast.

PR: we made Dash the third biggest crypto in german speaking media

Roadshow: we organized Dash events for more than 150 business attendees

Integration Pipeline: we are constantly working on integrations at FIAT Gateways (international), SMEs and big players like DZ Bank (19,600 ATMs). Some Integrations are early stage, some are mid stage, some are late stage, some are done. Additionally we started affiliate programs and will increase the nuber of those partnerships in future to get self sustainable.

Lobbying: we are forming the legal situation for crypto in general and Dash especially in cooperation with associations to level the way for mass adoption.

Legal: we help merchants, traders, miners, MNOs and everyone else in the cryptoverse to get a free of charge tax consultion and clear statements from tax office (if they are interested in and they are) - e.g.

Reporting: this one you really need to read on yourselfe, because I´ll not repeat everything we published in the forum or elsewhere.

Salary: we will not tell you details about our salary, but 32k budget (incl. 20% employer taxes) brings us to a budget of 25.6k gross. Do the math and you get to 3,657.14€ per person on average.

Now think about what simon and me can cut out of this while we are working with well educated employees.

Further questions about salary will be ignored.

#itsapleasure
"
Reply
0 points,5 years ago
Copy-pasted from above...since you have also copy-pasted.

Hi Essra,

You are purposefully diverting and not answering my questions. Your 'achievements' illustration makes my point - you guys have done ZERO.

Do you think MNO's believe that '150 business attendees' is value for what the DAO have paid? Seriously?! This equates to the DAO paying well over $1000 per person in attendance. Nobody in their right mind would be happy with that as a cost-per-attendee.

I'm tracking the DZ Bank - and your diversionary sugar-coat of 19K ATM's - I mean, you really think MNO's are that foolish? Implying that 19K ATM's will trade your Dash, via DZ bank? Do you have an LoI or contract signed with them that says that they will do this? No you don't - because, well, it's no surprise they won't be doing that anytime soon, and you or Simon implying they will is diversionary and untruthful.

Your other "Some are done" integrations - let's see these, and what they are providing to the network in terms of transactions - yup, precisely ZERO. A few startups and nothing of value.

This is disingenuous to the point of comedy.

Your tax consultation service is pointless and isn't paving the way for mass adoption - it is providing some basic financial advice. Yes you do have to pay capital gains tax on your trading in German-speaking countries. And most other countries. What an insight.

And regarding 'average salaries' - do you think MNO's are fools? Let me clarify - what is the 'average salary' that YOU and Simon pay each other. Because if you bucket everyone, including the low-paid people you have 'on staff' - well, yes you'll get to what I calculated also.

But you're NOT paying yourself or Simon 3,657.14 € are you? Implying that you are is actually diverting from the truth.

Again, you clearly think MNO's are fools. You'll attempt to 'ignore future questions about salary' rather than just tell the truth because you know that MNO's won't like to hear exactly what you do pay yourselves, so go ahead and divert, yet again.

Thanks,
Drako
Reply
5 points,5 years ago
New interview with essra: https://coinkurier.de/interview-mit-geschaeftsfuehrer-der-dash-embassy-venezuela-braucht-eine-alternative-waehrung/
Reply
4 points,5 years ago
You can find all our current updates and activities in our forum thread: https://www.dash.org/forum/threads/dash-embassy-d-a-ch-updates-activities.39155/

#itsapleasure
Reply
6 points,5 years ago
Hey guys, always like what you do here.
Vision, focus and professionalism are not strange things for you.
I will vote on you but meaby might be a good idea to split the proposals into smaller packages next time?
For bigger submits there is always a risk of not getting into the cycle and that would be a pitty.
Cheers
Reply
-1 point,5 years ago
Hello splawik,

thank you for this constructive advice. We will think about that for the next time, but it´ll be challenge because our divisions are connected in their activities. We might find a solution for this.

#itsapleasure
Reply
5 points,5 years ago
We don't have any more money to waste for your organization.
Let alone for the stupid german taxes you waste it on. Can as well burn fiat in the oven.

Way too expensive !!!!
Way too little deliverables !!!!
The guys in Venezuela do 10 times as much for Dash with 10 times lower funding.

What you have created is a HUGE money burner.
Time to stop the waste.
Reply
2 points,5 years ago
+1 MNO's please read Dashwatch reports. Nothing meaningful delivered. Smoke and mirrors from DACH. A waste of time and money.
Reply
2 points,5 years ago
+1
Reply
-2 points,5 years ago
Hello TheMarshall,

we are always very patient by answering comments on DC, but we will no longer discuss destructive comments like this. We are working off our dashy asses for round about one year now and we are delivering results that no other team in Europe is delivering (as far as we know). Neither LTC, nor BCH, nor Monero, nobody. We have not received more money than teams in Venezuela have received but even if it doesn´t matter. We will not explain ourselves for what we are doing in comparison to regions like Venezuela every month from scratch. Especially not while we are starting to help people in Turkey and scaled down our budget by round about 50%. We heard the voices of Masternode owners in the past and we are improving on a regular base.

If you don’t want to see the value of this proposal (after reading the complete description of course), the only way to help you understand what we are doing might be something like a short (public) video or voice chat, so you can address all your concerns in detail so we can understand your discontent and try to inform you about what we are doing

#itsapleasure
Reply
0 points,5 years ago
Hi Essra,
What a weak answer and diversion to what is a legitimate concern. DACH is high cost, and low value. Let me actually phrase what is happening -

You are being paid a small fortune to have delivered nothing of value, by your own admission. MNO's see the list of 'achievements' above given by Essra. Essra and Simon don't know what the word 'achievement' actually means it seems...

Material impact to the network; Zero. Voting a nice easy NO.

Thanks,
Drako
Reply
8 points,5 years ago
I was excited about the ATM proposal, but since it did not get approved, I can find no reason to continue funding your operations at $66,000 per month.

As many other MNOs have said, what makes sense right now is to fund consumer- and merchant-level adoption in countries with bad currencies. I of course agree -- and the flip side of that logic is that we should also be making business-level investments in stable countries with the capital to speculate!

So again, sorry that the ATM proposal didn't pass. I'll be voting "no" on this, but if you ever cared to come to the network with another investment idea, hopefully the MNOs would be open next time. Thank you.
Reply
-2 points,5 years ago
Hello Callalilly,

thank you for your ongoing support for our ATM proposal. We will submit something similar soon. It would be great to do our groundwork with a lower ask because of ROI from ATMs, Exchanges or a POS solution, but currently we are not able to. This groundwork btw made the ATM proposal possible. Without our current efforts we would not have been invited to the investors table. So maybe you can overthink your decission until we are self sustainable? This is exactly what we want to become. We are working on this, but we think this wil take some time. No matter what your decission will be, we thank you for your trust and support regarding our investment ideas.

#itsapleasure
Reply
-4 points,5 years ago
Hi Callalilly,

as I'm not sure if you have read the whole proposal I think I need to add something here...

"As many other MNOs have said, what makes sense right now is to fund consumer- and merchant-level adoption in countries with bad currencies."
We agree that this is important and that's why Turkey (~ 61% INFLATION RATE, 80 million people, $850 billion GDP) plays a huge role in our proposal for Q4. At the moment there is NO Turkish Dash community although 18% of Turks are already owning cryptos. Our plans regarding Turkey are:

1. Because Turkey and the D-A-CH region have a unique relationship and 3 Million Turks are currently living in Germany, we think that reaching out to this immigrant community is the best way to bring Dash to Turkey (Remittance from Germany to Turkey and from Turkey to Germany combined is currently at $2,5 Billion). -> pls check 2.4

2. We are reaching out to Turkish exchanges because most of them are not accepting Dash at the moment. -> pls check 3.2 and 3.3.1

3. We have been invited to speak at the Blockchain TR Summit in Ankara, where we want to find the right people to create a Turkish Dash team. -> pls check 2.2 and 5.1

4. We are translating our website into Turkish, so that a Turkish Dash team can immediately start operating. -> pls check 2.7

I hope this helps to reconsider your decission.

#itsapleasure
@essra
Reply
12 points,5 years ago
What is the main selling point for Dash in German speaking countries? What's the angle?
I'm finding it difficult to get excited about this
Reply
0 points,5 years ago
More Hopium about price? Your own statistics saying 80% won't consider using cryptocurrencies in future? MNO's aren't daft. German-speaking countries, and most of the western world have no use for cryptocurrencies. Where is this 'demand' that will push prices up coming from?

Thanks,
Drako
Reply
-1 point,5 years ago
Propably this demand exists because people neither trust banks: https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/71791/umfrage/vertrauen-in-finanzinstitute-und-versicherungen-in-der-finanzkrise/ nor the EZB: https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/153841/umfrage/allgemeines-vertrauen-in-die-europaeische-zentralbank/

#itsapleasure
Reply
-2 points,5 years ago
Probably demand doesn't exist like you think it does Essra, because although you are singing the hopium of crypto in your bestest voice, in developed countries most people have dozens of ways to pay, get paid or store their funds.

The study, in German, actually doesn't do anything to reinforce your view. What exactly in it were you trying to indicate by posting it? Some kind of appeal to an authority which, if you read it, actually doesn't reinforce your statement?

MNO's are not foolish, and some do read German and can see this as a strange attempt to validate your statement, and tenuously link it to demand for crypto, which it does NOT indicate.

Thanks,
Drako
Reply
2 points,5 years ago
"in developed countries most people have dozens of ways to pay, get paid or store their funds." - exactly. And crypto is one of it. We need to make sure that Dash is part of this. "Especially when big players like DZ and Stuttgarter Börse enter the market." (quote from comment below) Do you remember what happened when "stupid german money" entered a market the last time?

"In addition to this we believe that Dash adoption in our region will be a sign for other regions in Europe (like Turkey for example). That´s why we are doing education and integration in this region." (quote from comment below) and will help the Turkish to setup community projects theirselves to get #dashadoption there and push the remittance market in combination with "2.4 Meetups" So at least in this there is a demand, because:

"3 Million Turks are currently living in Germany, we think that reaching out to this immigrant community is the best way to bring Dash to Turkey (Remittance from Germany to Turkey and from Turkey to Germany combined is currently at $2,5 Billion)" (quote from a post above)

#itsapleasure
Reply
-3 points,5 years ago
Hi Essra,

You didn't answer my question, and diverted yet again, as appears to be your modus operandi.

MNO's are not daft - diverting my actual question above with more hopium wash, nothing at all to do with why you posted a completely irrelevant study, implied a correlation as an attempt to provide authoritative bias and fool people into voting for this proposal. Seriously...

Thanks,
Drako
Reply
2 points,5 years ago
Hello mikenewhouse,

the selling point for Dash in our region is that 20% of our population are willing to own cryptocurrencies in future. In our opinion this demand will push the Dash price in future (because we are talking about very wealthy countires), if people are educated about the "right" cruptocurrency and if it´s available. This will lead to a stronger treasury for all regions. Especially when big players like DZ and Stuttgarter Börse enter the market. In addition to this we believe that Dash adoption in our region will be a sign for other regions in Europe (like Turkey for example). That´s why we are doing education and integration in this region.

Regarding the 20% mentioned above please have a look at: https://think.ing.com/uploads/reports/ING_International_Survey_Mobile_Banking_2018.pdf

We will be happy to answer further question.

#itsapleasure
Reply
2 points,5 years ago
it's an interesting strategy question---investing in wealthy countries for investors into dash vs. investing into the highest inflation countries for the ppl of them to store their savings in
Reply
0 points,5 years ago
Hi from Switzerland,
you guys are doing an excellent job on the ground in increasing the visibility of DASH in the D-A-CH area and I know there is more to come in the future!
Yes, this is Marketing and Public Relation, but we need that too.
I has always been one of the big assets of DASH that we can fight back against the negative PR (aka trolling)/ silencing in crypto media.
But it is also Business Development, as they inform and assist start-ups, regulators.
And last but not least, it is INVESTOR RELATIONS, in the prosperous saving-prone heart of Europe.
Big Yes!
Reply
0 points,5 years ago
Hello Macno,

thank you for your ongoing support. We will keep up our efforts and try to be the representation Dash can have in our region.

#itsapleasure
Reply
-1 point,5 years ago
None, glorified marketting proposal
Reply
-1 point,5 years ago
+1 from me. Glorified marketing proposal, with no value delivery - and attempting marketing in a bear market is pointless.
Reply
1 point,5 years ago
Hello Realmrhack,

does this mean you think this is a glorified marketing proposal or does it mean that we are not a glorified marketing proposal? In the first case please have a look at all three proposal videos and the whole description. In the second case all we need to say is: yes, you got it buddy. That´s right.

Here to help you

#itsapleasure
Reply
6 points,5 years ago
Had a great sitdown with Essra last night, they are making proper progress in Germany (and german speaking countries) , keep it up , all yes from me
Reply
-3 points,5 years ago
Tungfa,
Some sort of very vague platitudes about 'progress' - nice. What exactly have they done, can you actually articulate it to show us that it has been of value? The only reliable metrics I see, like A_node_to_a_master indicate that they have delivered nothing of value.

I'd like to hear what you saw that convinced you otherwise...

Thanks,
Drako
Reply
9 points,5 years ago
Is there anyway you can explain that in more detail ? Because personally I only see a few reliable metrics we can base it on.
Reply
1 point,5 years ago
hello a_node_to_a_master,

i´ll be happy to help you with every question you got. if you like we can talk about it in a more vital way on discord. if you like to just ping me in one of our channels. i´ll be there.

essra
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-3 points,5 years ago
He's still waiting Essra. And you can post your answer here too - other MNO's want to see it.
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2 points,5 years ago
u need essra for that pitch , i am not here to promote anything , just commenting
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