Welcome!

Below is a quote from the recently posted DASH core article on DASH being fully compliant with FATF regulations:

https://blog.dash.org/dash-complies-with-the-financial-action-task-force-fatf-guidelines-including-the-travel-rule-a4c658efc89d?gi=8af39c2a3a59

VASP = Virtual Asset Service Providers

the VASP can choose to identify, block, and report on all transactions sent with Dash PrivateSend and can track and report on all the components of a mixed transaction.
• Reporting on your users’ blockchain transactions
• Establish an automated record keeping system for suspicious activity
• Activity reporting, customer due diligence, and currency transaction reporting.
• Track anonymity enhanced convertible virtual currencies and wallet addresses sending more private transactions.
• Customizable risk scoring
With these tools, any VA (including Dash and Bitcoin) transactions that are privacy enhanced are identified, blocked, and reported to the VASP.
We are happy to introduce any of our partner exchanges to these companies to explore their services and help ensure they remain compliant with the Travel Rule and Dash (as well as multiple other VAs).

I also spoke with coin tracking services at Malta delta conference and with several legal firms. The confirmed that mixed coins are given a considerably higher risk rating. They stated it is up to the exchange if they decide to accept that risk.

Bearing the above in mind these are my concerns

Exchanges may well block transactions if they have been mixed rather than take the risk of accepting them. Does this therefore mean DASH mixed coins are less likely to be accepted by exchanges? If so, does this not mean that by mixing DASH it actually reduces fungibility because fewer places will accept them?

What quantity of mixed coins is likely to be blocked by an exchange?

If a MNO has mixed their masternodes DASH and they want to now cash out into fiat how are we going to be able to do this now if exchanges are likely to not accept large quantities of mixed coins? What is the recommended procedure?

One of the coin tracking firms stated they would be able to track if a user has mixed their coins and then sent them to multiple other addresses which they also own in an attempt to distance the mixing event. According to one of the legal firms I spoke to they stated that sending coins multiple times to the same address that an owner has after a mixing event will increase the risk further of those coins because it now appears they are attempting to hide the mixing event. They said why would someone attempt to do that?

It seems to me, in the current climate, that mixing DASH coins is reducing the fungibility rather than increasing it and not only this it endangers customers with large volumes of DASH to losing the fungibility of their investment. Mixing appears to cause more harm than good in this current climate for large quantities of DASH. For smaller quantities it may not be such a big deal. If that is the case then shouldn't there at least be a clear warning on the DASH mixing feature to properly inform unwitting users of DASH that mixing their coins will increase their risk value and may not be accepted by an exchange may not accept their coins.

I have to admit to mixing my coins not because I want to hide anything but simply to assist the network in maintaining fungibility of DASH. Now I regret doing this because I did not know the risks and consequences of doing this. I would like to know how to deal with this situation now so my coins will not be tainted?

we got on major exchanges. I would vote no to changing anything. Dont kiss ass.

I see no problems in preparing a plan B. Another vote would surely occur should plan B be proposed to be implemented. This current vote is for a plan B to be formulated.

The only plan here should be to use mixing regardless.

Voting no because your boot licking approach is wrong from the beginning.

I work with the Dash Core Group to support Japanese exchanges list Dash again.

I think the Coincheck in Japan delisted Dash because of their lack of research. Also the FSA that oversees Coincheck may not have done any active research on Dash.

The DCG's release of “PrivateSend Legal Position” should be highly appreciated. I think it is important to continue to provide information to exchanges and regulators.

In the future, if bitcoin is heavily used for crime, it may be delisted in Japan. It is not important whether the third party provides the mixing. The issue for Japanese regulators is whether the coin is prone to crime.

In my opinion, it’s premature to worry about this. I’m voting no for now, but will continue to monitor responses.

And the number of exchanges listing Dash continues, with top crypto exchange BitMart the 11th exchange in four weeks that added Dash.

Lets take a look why Bitmart (a globally integrated trading platform, officially registered in the Cayman Islands and with offices around the world) added Dash :

“We also took tremendous time and effort to develop our own compliance review system to make sure that our listings of certain tokens/coins do not run afoul of local laws. Our compliance team prudently reviewed all the materials we were provided on a case-by-case basis and reported that DASH is structured and promoted as “Utility Token”, and therefore, should be not categorized as “Security”. We finally decided that listing DASH is in compliance with local rules and regulations in areas where we operate.”

Frankly, I couldn't care less what regulators say. My privacy is already violated 1000x.

But then again, this is not a privacy issue, this is a fungibility issue. The exchanges already know WHO I AM. Chain analysis is all about filling in the gaps between Txn-A and Txn-Z.

People always say, "bitcoin is anti-fragile", and that is what makes crypto both loved and hated in equal measure. No one is going to de-list bitcoin when it's privacy is improved. There will be no DCG to poll.

Dash will only replace bitcoin when it has proved to everyone that it is also anti-fragile, unbendable, unstoppable,

Removing PS will make the clear statement that one unit of dash is akin to a share in a company; that dash holders are more concerned with USD value than anything else.

And btw, there is no "3rd party". DCG *is* the 3rd party, a dash contractor like anyone else.

Bitcoin Core team members could face legal problems if they implement it. It might need to be implemented by more anonymous developers

DCG could be considered a 2nd party

The coins are already not fungible. Exchanges and businesses can risk score their incoming transactions and treat them differently based on just looking at whether or not the coins have been mixed. Unless all transactions look the same and have the same history, there is not true fungibility in my view.

I agree, but I see no value in making it easier for someone else to try and uncover transactions not in their direct and immediate sight. Dash development needs to improve fungibility such that it is invisible to the end user, zero interaction needed.

@TroyDash I spoke with several cointracking and legal firms recently at the Malta Delta Summit. They informed me that if the mixing transaction occurred sufficiently long time ago in the transaction history e.g. 20 hops or more over an extended period of time and the ownership of the wallets was different entity, along with other factors such as IP owner location of current coins then the transaction may be classed as OK. It depends on quite a number of factors. The coin tracking firms assign a risk factor on the transaction that combines numerous criteria. However you are quite correct. If a DASH user mixes their coins and then sends them right away to a regulated exchanged and the funds are of sufficient quantity there is a high possibility the transaction would be either rejected. The cointracking firms simply assign a risk factor to the transaction and it is up to the exchange to decide if they wish to accept the transaction or not. Mixing greatly increases the risk factor.

I decided to vote no. I dont feel a particular need to have DCG put their valuable time in making an extensive analysis and presentation about the pro's and con's of shifting Dash privacy feature from its Dash Core wallets to third party wallets. I just want to keep them focussed on their current work and not get distracted by all these polls (poll #4 already).

If this analysis is so important to poll creator, he can ask DCG for such an analysis on dash.org/forum or on one of Dash quarterly summary calls (which frankly i feel he should have done in the first place).

I agree. Evolution is a priority. The exchanges delisting us weren't very large, we're on coinbase which is one of the strictest regulatory brokerages we could get on.

The DCG members who would be formulating a response to this likely aren't the Evolution developers, so I doubt this would impact Evo timeline. It's not really a coding question...

Reworking the protocol/core wallets to remove privateSend as an ACT OF APPEASEMENT (which never gets you anywhere but stepped on) would absolutely be a coding question. But you're right, its more of an ethical question.

People like me got into Dash in the first place because WE AGREED with its optional but strong privacy stance. This proposal, which comes from a recognized troll btw, only would serve to renig on that contract. In business you're not allowed to do that, I see no reason why we should allow such destructive and detrimental behavior here either.

Just because something can be done doesn't mean it should. Hell, we could lower the blocksize tomorrow. Wouldn't be much of a 'coding question' either. But it would be a fundamental betrayal of the founding and formative principles and social contract upon which this network was built.

A couple points:

I strongly take issue with the idea that "who the proposal owner is" should have anything to do with judging the proposal on its own merit. IMO we should get used to the idea of proposals coming out of left field, from sources that are unknown or not part of the "in-crowd". The proposal system was not designed such that only proposals from groupies are supposed to be considered valid.

I don't doubt that you and many others were originally drawn to Dash because of its privacy feature. I also value this feature myself quite highly. But I don't think we should be permanently locked into making decisions based on what a bunch of early adopters wanted. Failure to adapt to market realities and consumer demand is why a lot of businesses fail. There are indeed some significant user-experience issues with PrivateSend (as MasterMined pointed out), and I don't think it is wise to hold the privacy "ideal" as a priority above all else that could be going on around us. I think it is a good idea to always be on the lookout to re-evaluate our product. I am not saying that I am supporting removing PS, I am only saying that I support doing an evaluation as opposed to taking it for granted that "privacy-supported-natively-no-matter-what" is best.

I will sell all my Dash if it abandons privacy. It's one of the core values for which I got into it.
Also, cash MUST be fungible (or any crypto that aims to replace it), or it isn't cash.

@Dandy Dash is already private, even without private send. DASH would not be abandoning privacy, it would be abandoning trace-ability.

Could you define what you mean by "abandoning privacy" exactly so that we might have a better understand of your concern. I genuinely want to understand why you, and others reaction is against even discussing this issue in a reasonable manner. If we do not discuss this in a rational way how can we not come to a more fuller and broader understanding of the issues involved?

In any case, as I live in a country that already had hyperinflation, crony banks that ran away with the money of their clients, press censorship and that is slowly implementing more and more surveillance state methods, I will never vote for anything that reduces the privacy, only for features that enhance it.
I really don't give a fuck about "it can be used for shady business argument" as the biggest criminals here are state-sanctioned and use banks regularly.

I don't want everyone and their mother to able to see my balance on the address I sent the Dash from when I pay for coffee. Not to mention that they could probably easily trace it a little further and figure out I'm an MN owner.
I'm looking forward to mobile wallet mixing (hopefully by default), as that is actually the proper use case for that feature.

I don't buy the fungibility argument because we don't even have complete fungibility now *with* privatesend. See other comments

@TroyDash agreed. If DASH mixes coins then the coins become tainted. I attended the Malta Delta Summit and spoke with legal firms and companies specialising in coin tracking. They all informed me the same thing. Mixed coins = highly suspicious. Exchanges would be taking a big risk to accept such coins. This means that mixing coins decreases the likelyhood that exchanges would accept them which by definition means that DASH looses its fungibility.

Therefore mixing = loss of fungibility.

To all those that are advocates of mixing what you are therefore saying is you are advocating DASH being a non fungible coin i.e. not cash.

That's why we should make PrivateSend the default.

I think the reason OKEx Korea is re-evaluating its earlier decision to delist Dash and Zcash, is because both are offering an optional form of privacy.
Hopefully OKEx Korea re-evaluation of Dash will keep it listed after all (keeping my fingers crossed).

If we make privatesend as default on our wallets we loose the optional part and could end up getting viewed more as a privacy centric cryptocurrency with all its associated risks.

In the current climate I feel we definitely need a full and comprehensive review of the privacy features of DASH. I realise that Ryan produced a PDF report recently on DASH however I feel it needs expanding to specifically state how DASH meets FATF regulations.

According to an EU report published in 2018 they specifically classified DASH an anonymous coin in its summary table found on Table 2 on page 51 of this document due to the optional mixing features in the core wallet. It classified Bitcoin as pseudonymous.

http://www.europarl.europa.eu/cmsdata/150761/TAX3%20Study%20on%20cryptocurrencies%20and%20blockchain.pdf

The report also stresses the dangers of anonymous coins with respect to tax evasion and money laundering. There are other EU directives I read a few years ago that specifically stated that anonymous coins would not be accepted within the EU under AML directives.

It has been stated in this proposal by several MNOs that private send is needed to ensure fungibility.

Fungibility means that 1 unit of currency is valued the same irrespective of its history or location. However if that is the definition then mixing actually makes DASH less fungible because many exchanges I spoke to at the Delta Blockchain conference a few days ago specifically stated they treat a highly suspicious coins that have been recently mixed and would not accept them. Therefore mixing reduces fungibility because now the coins are labelled as tainted by many exchanges. There are other factors e.g. the size of the transfer but they were all clear. Mixed coins = highly suspicious and they would be taking a risk to accept them.

Whilst at the Malta Delta blockchain conference I also spoke with 2 coin tracking services. They both told me that mixed coins are labelled as highly suspicious and therefore the coins are tainted. Sending coins to your own address multiple times to try and distance the coins from a mixing event is also fruitless according to one coin tracking service I spoke to. They said they have developed algorithms that can detect if a user has been sending their coins to wallet addresses which they own. Therefore trying to hide mixing events also leads to coins being tainted and therefore losing their fungibility. Therefore in the current environment mixing reduces fungibility because those coins are now tainted.

DASH is already private, even without mixing. If we removed DASH mixing from the core wallet we would remove a lot of the potential issues that are coming our way through the EU legislation. If DASH is blocked from the EU we could not class DASH a fungible either.

Pseudonymous appears to provide a balance between privacy and being accepted by the EU and exchanges and is not going to DASH banned or labelled as an anonymous coin.

DASH is being de-listed by huge Korean exchanges such as OKEx . If you look at the majority of the trading activity for DASH it was coming out of Korea. We have now lost much of that trading activity.

There are other issues also to consider which greatly affect DASH uptake e.g. in the UK there are "source of wealth" laws. These laws require that the source of an individual's wealth be traceable from source. I don't see how DASH can meet those laws if people use private send because the history is now obscured.

Other issues such as making governments accountable for our spending is essential for any money system. Therefore by having anonymity features in DASH we would also be giving the same tools of anonymity to governments.

DASH is already private even without private send. I am deeply concerned that the built in mixing features of DASH into the core wallet will to do more harm than good for DASH at this stage of cryptocurrency's evolution.

I feel that we need a full and complete comprehensive legal review of what level of privacy is required by a cryptocurrency in order to ensure maximal world uptake. I feel the balance may well be having a coin that is pseudonymous is the right balance.

The fact is that coins that are anonymous will be more readily chosen by organised crime, corrupt governments, human traffickers and others crime organizations once a coin reaches a level of adoption because it facilitates and assists their illicit actions. Anonymity is a double edged sword. It also gives power to those that can misuse it. Pseudonymous coins still provide a high level of privacy without coins being tainted by mixing.

DASH is now in 18th position and falling. I feel that we definitely need a legal review of what level of privacy DASH needs to take in order for us to remain compliant with current climate and legislation on cryptocurrency.

Whatever happens we need to have our stance on privacy clearly spelled out in detail on the official DASH youtube channel. None of our innovations have been clearly highlighted and gone through in-depth. e.g. I wanted to see a full and complete set of videos specifically on DASH privacy and showing how it meets all legislative requirements if that is the case. A PDF document is useful but it is not enough. We need all our innovations to be broadcast, explained and to expand on the benefits of those innovations in video format on the official DASH youtube channel.

Personally I would like a full and complete legal review of what DASH needs to do in terms of privacy in order to ensure our project does not get blocked by the pending legislation. If there is a danger that DASH could be blocked from the EU or from other major exchanges due to the mixing feature in the core wallet I would prefer to remove it at this stage so that we can get greater adoption of DASH.

"However if that is the definition then mixing actually makes DASH less fungible because many exchanges I spoke to at the Delta Blockchain conference a few days ago specifically stated they treat a highly suspicious coins that have been recently mixed and would not accept them. " Correct, mixing decreases fungibility at exchanges

Dash is not delisted or getting delisted on OKEx, Dash even has margin trading there. Please dont confuse OKEx with OKEx Korea, two different exchanges with each their own listing of crypto assets.

@qwizzie have you read the EU report on the link below where it specifically labels DASH as an anonymous coin and the dangers associated with anonymous coins as far as the EU is concerned?
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/cmsdata/150761/TAX3%20Study%20on%20cryptocurrencies%20and%20blockchain.pdf

I also stated clearly OKex Korea in original post. Please read again.

I spoke with exchanges at the Malta blockchain conference. The said they specifically stated mixed coins are marked as suspicious and would be high risk to accept - the word they used was "tainted" therefore mixed coins is reducing fungibility in the current climate - is that what you want?

"DASH is being de-listed by huge Korean exchanges such as OKEx "
You should have stated OKEx Korea here, not OKEx. Just like any article that came out reporting on this, specificly used the name ''OKEx Korea''. Doing otherwise just creates confusion to readers.

@qwizzie thanks for clarifying your concern on my statement. Have you also read the EU report I gave the link to? If so, what is your view on this report?

This specific poll is about having DCG do an analysis and presentation of the pro's and con's of moving Dash privacy from Dash Core wallets to third party wallets. You seem to want a different analysis from DCG. An analysis more focussed on on Dash whole privacy feauture, which is not what this specific poll is about.

One other point that I gleaned from the Malta DELTA blockchain summit was that it was confirmed by several legal firms that pseudonymous coins meet GDPR regulations i.e. they are private enough for EU privacy legislation.

I am voting a FIRM NO on this. PrivateSend is a core/key feature for Dash and development and maintenance of this feature belongs in the hands of our capable Core team. Dash's privacy is very strong but its still just 'Bitcoin', removing this privacy feature from our core wallet will only give much needed ammunition to our opposition. The exchanges that matter have listed Dash. Coinbase being one of them, which means we have been accepted by one of the most strigent exchanges (technically a 'brokerage') in the regulatory space.

This seems more like concern trolling to me than an actual concern. Dash's OKEX volume is number 41 at only ~$2 mil USD a day. That's not a very good reason to artificially hamper our protocol.

41 Dash Dash DASH/USDT $1,832,001

Frankly, Dash's privacy is so strong because its a concerted, network-wide effort. I routinely use privateSend every day and it is fast, convenient and much better than CashShuffle. That's because DCG has worked to protect and curate it. If they give it to '3rd party wallets' I can only see malicious individuals coming forward (from the monero community) offering to 'help' and then crippling the features (lowering anonymity set, making it harder to use, etc.) in order to fud and attack our coin. "See!!! Monero is a better privacy coin after all! HA!"

From my 3 years of arguing and defeating these trolls I have learned an intuitive sense for how they feel and think. They are very petty and immature. They don't care about right and wrong, only winning at all costs. Even if it means infiltrating their competition and trying to remove their best features. Privacy is a right for everyone and Dash Core made the right move in incorporating it into the Core Wallet.

Voting for this proposal is based on future concerns, prevention, etc--NOT just on what has happened already with OKEX Korea

Correction, that is the Dash OKex 24 hour volume. The Dash Okex Korea 24 hour volume is a whopping $342!

https://coinmarketcap.com/exchanges/okex-korea/

So we've got a troll trying to get us to remove our privacy features so we can have that 'sweet okex volume'??? This is concern trolling, we shouldn't even pay attention to this proposal or the masternodes who support it.

@therealDashman21 I am sorry. I don't agree with your point of view. Dash privacy needs a review in this current regulatory climate. I don't think trolls posted this poll because of the way it was worded it appears to have positive intent and I for one have been deeply concerned about DASH mixing in the core wallet. We have lost considerable trading out of Korea which accounted for the DASH price increases we saw previously. The Korean trading has dropped off significantly. I personally put that down to DASH's mixing features and the problems associated with it in terms of legislation.

I believe I read below in another comment confirmation that the person who created this proposal has trolled before. The fact of the matter is that Dash was created because of BTC's lack of privacy. Now BTC, and BCH are rushing to incorporate privacy features into their tech and individuals such as yourself wish to limit our effectiveness in this environment?

You have to think about the entire network, not just your personal concerns. Dash is attempting to provide fianncial freedom to billions of people. "Concerns" from regulators about non-violent, non-criminal activity are nothing more than stumbling blocks and concern trolling.

Korea is a small market for Dash. OkEx only had 2 million dollars in volume. Dash's price increase recently comes from many places and while Korea has its part to destroy the privacy of everyone else just because you're scared IS NOT beneficial behavior for the network. We have to do what's best for everyone and PrivateSend is part of the Dash social contract. You are not arguing in good faith if you wish to force others to accept a NEW contract just because you're afraid to be delisted from a ONE exchange (while we added 5 others).

If you're not concern trolling, be aware, this is exactly what concern trolling sounds and looks like.

@therealDashman21 DASH is already private. To prove it I could give you any number of addresses and you would not be able to tell me what the transactions were for. What I think you are saying is you do not want historically traceable transactions. If you want that then what you are also saying is you want to promote human trafficking, corrupt governments and illicit activities because that is what they also want. That is not privacy that is anonymity.

The fact is that mixing coins taints the coins. This is a fact because I've spoken to legal firms, exchanges and coin tracking services at several blockchain conferences. They all concur. Mixing = highly suspicious activity = tainted coins = non fungible DASH = highly unlikely to accept the transaction.

So what you are saying by promoting mixing is that you want DASH to be non fungible and to promote illegal activity so that you and other can be anonymous.

You need to wake up to reality man. DASH is at 18th position and falling. Anonymity is not the way to go. If Bitcoin and other coins go down that route they will be taken down in the same way as liberty reserve was taken down from 17 different countries.

You are also incorrect in stating that Korea has 2 million dollar volume. in 2017 when the DASH price hit all time highs the majority of the transaction volume was from Korea.

You seem to be having an over reaction to discussing this subject in a reasonable manner. That tells me something about yourself. If anyone is a troll it is people that are non rational with closed minds unwilling to consider others peoples points of view in a reasonable manner. I have requested a review of the DASH privacy based on the current environment. I don't see how that can be classed as trolling. People who don't have a strong point of view and can't reasonably defend it like yourself result in labelling it some sort of irrational attack like trolling.

Provide reasonable arguments not attacks on someone's motives.

Coinbase listed Dash and are the most regulated exchange. This issue is a non-issue. Who is "Dash Marketing"? Another trollposal I take it.

Yes. IMHO, this is a troll attempting to gain some credibility by starting with a reasonable "concern" about something that is holding Dash back from adoption. They are also trying to set a precedent that any idiot with five Dash can direct DCG to do something.

Good call. There's a lot to unpack in this attack.

Fungibility is one of the core features of cash. Dash must have a mechanism for it or it's useless as digital cash.
Voting no.

Since the delisting of Dash seems to be more related to a level of unfamiliarity of certain exchanges with Dash privacy workings and with Dash still getting branded a "privacy centric" coin, i dont see a move of Dash optional privacy feature from Dash Core wallets to third party wallets do anything to fix that incorrect perception. Only a continuous pro-active approach towards exchanges and regulators with regards to how Dash privacy feature works, seems to have a good effect (it got us a lot of new exchange integrations these last four weeks).

Also by moving the Dash privacy feature from officially supported Dash Core wallets to third party wallets (per definition not officially supported), Dash risks opening new attack / explotation vectors. We know from the MyDash wallet security breach, at which length attackers are willing to go to hack these third party wallets. Third party wallets are easier to manipulate, exploit and possibly leak privacy information from its users.

You guys are attacking the poster without due cause. Lets talk about the merit of the idea.

I for one am for it. I can't say how I'd vote in a final decision as to whether remove mixing from Core functionality but I am extremely interested in hearing what DashCore has to say on the matter.

If for no other reason than it saves Core the time and money of educating all the exchanges that knee jerk remove us at the first sign of trouble. That seems to be eating up valuable resources at present and not having to deal with sounds ideal.

Especially when in the future a DAP can easily handle mixing.

Some times it is justified to attack bad ideas to prevent their recurrence in the future. This isn't the first time people have tried to concern troll about Dash's privacy and get it to be removed. Everyone and their brother is copying our tech (BCH with CashShuffle and CashFusion, ZCoin with Masternodes) but we keep getting concern trolling trying to make us remove these features. Why? My guess is that our competition is TIRED of being embarassed by the fact that we solved all their problems years ago.

But they can't implement these features themselves because of the significant amount of changes it would take. They also can't bring themselves to admit they have 'backed the wrong horse'. So what do they decide to do? They decide to pretend to ignore our features WHILE WORKING FEVERISHLY TO CONVINCE US TO BE RID OF THEM!

We shouldn't be reactionary, you're correct. PrivateSend works fast, and its very strong (2nd largest anonymity set in privacy coins). Privacy is a fundamental human right and we shouldn't look to placate those jealous losers who refuse to admit that we did things the right way.

The way you are talking about Privatesend makes me question if you have ever used it. It is a terrible UI and fast is definitely not how anyone would describe the privatesend experience.

I use it nearly every day. 16 rounds too. Its faster than CashShuffle, way more private than Monero or ZCash. You're just trying to get us to remove our strong features as a form of attack. Not happening.

I wonder how many of you are aware with Bitcoin's plans to introduce privacy into their Bitcoin Core wallets, thereby making this discussion about moving Dash optional privacy feature to third party wallets in order to stay in line with Bitcoin and possibly avoid delisting, already outdated.

Link : https://www.coindesk.com/new-bips-hint-at-upcoming-taproot-bitcoin-soft-fork

Term 'wallet' doesn't appear once in article--so might be difficult to know if they would be implemented into Bitcoin Core wallets specifically.
The article doesn't go into any specifics of the privacy features these 2 BIP's would entail (ie. what level of privacy they would provide)

There are a lot of people (trolls from Monero) who wish to destroy Dash's strong privacy features so as to make their own coin offering look better. Both BCH and Monero have incentives in this regard (since CashShuffle is a workable but vastly inferior version of PrivateSend without denominations or multiple rounds or decentralization of the servers, among others). As I pointed out in this thread:

https://www.reddit.com/r/CryptoTechnology/comments/9ibrh0/cutting_to_the_chase_or_how_to_properly_evaluate/

Dash has the second-largest anonymity set of all the privacy coins at 43 million, right behind ZCash at 4.3 billion. Monero's anonymity set is only 11 and Bitcoin Cash's is only 5. Which means that concern trolling about removing our privacy would be a good way to attack us and make their coins look like a better offering in comparision. Realize that Dash has already solved all the problems they have, in a way that *they can't readily replicate*. BCH is already locked into doing things without masternodes so they have to bolt on extra features to be able to compete with Dash.

The same with Monero. There is no way that Monero can scale or catch up to Dash, ever. Neither as a coin for commerce, nor as a privacy coin. Monero's anon set is too small, its chain too bloated and its privacy too broken to be considered a privacy coin. But they still try to attack us using CONCERN TROLLING in order to get us to WEAKEN OURSELVES. That's the only way they can beat us, by using psychological tricks to get us to commit self-destructive behavior.

I called this out 11 months ago here:

https://www.reddit.com/r/dashpay/comments/9qf2m7/reminder_dash_has_a_very_strong_ecosystem_and/

@therealDashman21 I don't see anything wrong with discussing Dash's privacy issue. This poll appears to be posted with positive intent.

Dash doesn't have any 'privacy issues'. Privacy is a fundamental right, Dash provides it in a regulatorily compliant but strong way. You framing YOUR OPINION about some backwater exchange delisting us as a 'privacy issue' shows me that you're not being rational about this matter. You have already made up your mind and are pushing for this without considering the harm you would cause for such limited gain.

Privacy is a fundamental human right and Dash was created because BTC didn't have enough of it. If you are going to destroy the original social contract you need a hell of a lot better reason than this to do it. The amount of concern trolling surrounding Dash is picking up it seems.

If governments go in the direction of cracking down more on mixing then it could become no longer be regulatory compliant. This proposal is to plan ahead for future possibilities

@therealDashman21 privacy is a right but anonymity is not because it breads crime. You my friend, are mixing up the two definitions.

May I ask could you define privacy and separately anonymity so that I can better understand what you are so upset about.

@qwizzie, even if bitcoin rolls out greater privacy it will come under the same regulatory scrutiny eventually and it bitcoin will be taken down if it is deemed a threat. Bitcoin mining is highly centralized now - most of the mining is coming out of China. It is no big deal to take out most of the bitcoin mining farms if required. Just in the same way a liberty reserve was taken down when it was operating out of 17 different countries.

My advice to you is to sell your masternode and sell your Dash. It seems you are not satisfied with Dash in its current form and wish to 'change it' to more suit your tastes. It is disingenuous to curry investment based on an idea, a social contract, and then abandon that idea half-way while your investors are still sold on the original contract. Your concerns are not significant enough to rob the thousands of daily Dash users of their privacy.

Once these BIP's get through i exspect even more advanced privacy techniques to emerge as these BIP's not only increase privacy, but also function as a foundation to implement additional privacy features on.

I am going to assume that "Dash-Marketing" is the same as the anonymous entity "realist," who recently posted “Should Fernando Gutierrez continue to be the Chief Marketing Officer for Dash Core Group? “

The goal of this entity is to troll DCG and to create division in the Dash community, and use the discussions and/or results of these "governance proposals" as fodder for tweets on DashCrypto.

Well, whoever this Dash-Marketing person is, i hope he is aware that polling proposals (at least the valid ones) are given a higher treshold (due to their polling nature), then normal budget proposals who just have a 10% treshold.

Since Dash-Marketing has not introduced a higher treshold for his polling proposal, i guess its now up the masternode owners to discuss this as well.

What do you mean a higher threshold? When have we ever had a polling proposal that was given a higher threshold than 10%?

https://www.dashcentral.org/p/2mb-blocksize

"As far as determining if this proposal passes, we will consider more yes votes than no votes approval by the network as long as more than 33% of the network votes. If less than 33% of the network votes, we will consider the proposal denied and will not raise the blocksize limitation. "

Its important with polls that there are not only more yes votes then no votes, but that it is also broadly carried on the Dash network (which gets achieved with having at least 33% voting participation).

Its not very usefull to have network polls, when only a handfull masternode owners take a vote and of those handfull of votes a yes vote gets on top. You need to have some decent voting participation among masternode owners as well. Two separate conditions.

I see. I think that is more DCG's decision, in terms of what amount of support for the proposal would be required for them to take any actions, if any. Regardless of how DCG plans to handle it, this proposal can at least be used as a barometer.

Any governance proposal that does not originate from DCG, DIT, or DIF, or at least from a known community member, is null and void IMHO. It's a troll.

Kind of defeats the purpose of a proposal system where the only requirement is 5 dash when you have that attitude.

Some proposals are not made in good faith. IMHO, this is one of them. There is nothing stopping the PO from doing the analysis they are requesting from DCG. If they are intelligent enough to write up this proposal, why don't they do the analysis and present it to the network? Hmm?

How is someone other than DashCore supposed to do an analysis like this?

They are the ones dealing with exchanges, businesses, and regulators.

If I'm going to be honest you seem like the troll in this conversation. You are making posts all over this proposal, making up rules (2 mb was for a protocol change, this is simply a directive asking core to look into something, there is no logical argument as to why it would require 1/3 of nodes) , and trying to whip everyone into a frenzy.

Whether or not this person had I'll intent or not is besides the point. The community clearly has differing opinions on this and as such it should be discussed and voted on.

I am not a troll.

I'm simply arguing that DCG should not be directed to waste time and energy on elucidating why PS should not be removed from the core wallet, and that we should therefore vote NO on this proposal.

DCG may not be able to comment on all the relationships that they are in the process of building. And anyone is free to fork the coin and remove PS BTW.

That is unrelated to this conversation. We aren't talking about whether privatesend should be in some fork of Dash.

We are talking about whether we should ask Core to do an analysis of the Pros and Cons of disabling privatesend

> We are talking about whether we should ask Core to do an analysis of the Pros and Cons of disabling privatesend

The proposal does not say "ask". It says "DCG to prepare+present analysis...".

Regardless of how the proposal is phrased, it's really not possible for it to be anything other than an ask, or simply a statement about what the DAO would like to have happen.

I think one issue is that currently not everyone is in agreement w/that. Some people think it should be a mandate.

Yeah no, you're the troll here. Geert's POV represents probably the majority of non-malicious masternode owners. Ever since I proved that you exist you have now been coming out of the woodworks in order to manipulate our discussions and prevent effective votes on proposals.

I'm sorry I seem to be lost in your delusions of grandeur.

1) I've been involved in the Dash proposal system literally since the first budget vote. So I don't know what woodwork you think I've been hiding in or what exactly you think you have proved.

2) I know this is going to shock you, but people can have different opinions on something without being a troll.

In what way has my conduct here made me come across as a troll other than the fact that I disagree with you?

1) the length of time you've been involved in the project has little bearing on whether or not you're a troll/infiltrator. In fact, we would expect MNOs that have the modus operandi of infiltration and self-destruction to have *bought up their masternodes early*, so you are actually sticking your neck out quite a bit here. Careful.

2) I know this is going to shock you but I never said they couldn't. I called you a troll for the simple reason that I've spent the last 3 years stepping on trolls. You get used to the smell.

This is the correct response. They are attempting to concern troll us into deliberately weakening ourselves so they can take our place. Just like George Donnelly did to Dash Venezuela. Not only did he completely halt the growth they accomplished down there, **but he reversed it!** While taking MORE MONEY! They are coming out full force now and not even attempting to hide their tactics and manipulation/actors. You can tell who's on the payroll by who advocates what.

I like the idea of having Privatesend handled by a 3rd party DAPP on the Dash Platform and removing it from the core protocol, so we don’t keep getting delisted.

As one of the 1% of Dash users that actually use Privatesend regularly I can confirm it is not ready for primetime. It is slow and does not work for business purposes.
It works if you only send a few small daily transactions and continuously mix, which is a PITA.
It does not work for doing payroll, like the Dash Force payroll, which I do every month. I can usually get 5-7 transaction sent before getting denomination errors. At that point I have to send whatever balance I have to a new address and mix everything again. It usually takes 24-36+ hours to mix 150-300 Dash. I have to mix at least 2 or 3 times to get everyone paid, it took about 5 days this month, it works but it sucks. There are many other (faster and easier) ways to keep transactions somewhat private and I will unfortunately be forced to use them to make a timely payroll next month for Dash Force, sad but true.

Bottom line, Privatesend does not work as intended and there is no sense getting delisted for something that is so rarely used and that makes up around one percent of daily transactions. I will 100% support a proposal to optimize Privatesend with a 3rd party DAPP on the upcoming Dash Platform.

If Dash is delisted by anyone, I am sure it's due to the lack of volume rather than because of "mixing". The "privacy" issue is a non-issue. I would be vehemently against ever removing mixing from core.

I would fork the coin myself if they attempted it...

@Mastermined I agree with your point of view.

I 100% agree with this dude, PrivateSend is very slow and gives the impression of being old-fashioned and outdated tech. The bad user experiences it exhibits, even damages our brand name.

It's way better to outsource PrivateSend (or rather a replacement thereof with a fast and much more innovative and reliable privacy technology) to a competent 3rd party DApp, distancing ourselves officially from any privacy features and demanding the exact same regulatory treatment than Bitcoin receives.

A feature that 1% (at most) of Dash users use regularly, doesn't justify to put the whole project in jeopardy.
Not by long shot.
And anti-privacy regulatory pressure will likely increase a lot in future, not go away !!!!

You're lying. PrivateSend is faster than CashShuffle, and its better than Monero. PrivateSend is the second strongest form of privacy. It looks like there's a concerted concern troll effort, complete with sockpuppets and malicious masternode owners who are attempting to split the community and weaken the protocol.

How exactly is Dash optional privacy feature putting the whole project in jeopardy ?

In the last four weeks alone, Dash already received 10 exchange integrations. To me that signals that more and more exchanges regard Dash as compliant with FATF recommendations. This year alone has been one integration after another for Dash.

I dont really see the urgency here.

>How exactly is Dash optional privacy feature putting the whole project in jeopardy ?

They are clearly concern trolling. As I pointed out in this thread:

https://www.reddit.com/r/CryptoTechnology/comments/9ibrh0/cutting_to_the_chase_or_how_to_properly_evaluate/

Dash has the second largest anonymity set at 43 million. ZEC is number 1 at 4.3 Billion, but it has severe privacy issues (a recent bug deanoned a significant amount of z-addrs and was fixed two weeks ago despite being active from the beginning of the project in 2016). Monero is a paltry 11! Bitcoin Cash is limited at 5 due to lacking Masternodes.

There is CONSIDERABLE incentive for these communities to attempt to infiltrate and concern troll us into an inferior position relative to themselves. Especially monero, not so much BCH but I've noticed a few select members of that community also attempting to spin manipulative narratives. Like the user 'satoshiSoul' who wants to pretend that Dash is only accepted at around 400 stores world-wide. Why? Because he doesn't want to admit that Dash is more widely accepted than BCH.

But most in the BCH community commend Dash, so I believe that posters like him are working together with Monero to concern troll us and make us feel self-concious about our privacy, which is way stronger than theirs. The monero community ROUTINELY uses garbage as a springboard to launch fud against us like I pointed out in this thread:

https://www.reddit.com/r/dashpay/comments/ame5bw/this_youtube_video_is_the_kind_of_propaganda_i/

In that thread I show how the user flenst made a crappy, unliked fud thread about Dash in r/cc that was somehow picked up by a semi-prominent youtuber and parroted as gospel. This is how they operate, they try to manipulate your perception of reality. Even though we've been rapidly added to 10 exchanges recently, they want you to ignore that and focus only on this tiny exchange in Korea, which recently suspended their delisting of Dash upon further review.

They were waiting for something like this so they could spring their fud on us, scare the MNOs and concern troll us into self destructive behavior. These people have no morals, no scruples and are insane, basically. They want to pretend that if they maim and destroy their competition due to spite that their coin will suddenly be better somehow. You can see it by how desparate individuals like name3 are. They NEED YOU to be scared of being delisted. So you will be more susceptible to CYNICAL SUGGESTIONING like removing privateSend. These people are all bad actors and we will need to purge them from our community eventually......

It also has been delisted from an exchange and this is all without any real regulatory conditions. When governments around the world start actively regulating cryptocurreny (as the EU just states they were going to in reaction to Libra) we will be in for some Rocky times, for a sub par feature no one uses.

The cost benefit is just not in favor of keeping it from my perspective. But I'd be interested in hearing what core has to say.

Coinbase is the exchange that matters from a regulatory perspective and we've just been listed there. You are being reactionary for no good reason and ignoring the good things that counter your message. That indicates to me that you have an agenda and are not being honest in your support of this destructive proposal.

@DavidGonzalez Agreed

Do you mean removing it from the official core wallets, or changing it so that masternodes don't even facilitate PS transactions anymore (replaced by something else)?

We would have to removing the mixing feature from the masternodes to really achieve what you are proposing. Would you support that?

The following quote from Coinbase's press release is an indication that we are probably on the right path and should not change course:

"Dash is a cryptocurrency optimized for payments that has optional speed and privacy features. At this time, Coinbase will not support these features."

You could have included this question to DCG next Quarterly Call and then have the time to see if more Dash delistings by additional exchanges followed or not.

We just got an interview with Coindesk about Dash getting listed on so many large exchanges recentely, thereby debunking that bloomberg article about Dash possible facing liquidity problems in the future and demonstrating the real issue Dash is facing is not with FATF compliance, but with certain exchanges being unfamiliar with Dash privacy workings and still think of Dash as a privacy centric coin (which is incorrect).

Timing of this poll is just a bit off, frankly it feels like someone got spooked by that Bloomberg article and did not notice the string of exchanges that integrated Dash, directly confirming Dash compliance to FATF recommendations.

Exchanges that integrated Dash these last four weeks or plan to integrate Dash soon (Binance US) :

Coinbase & Coinbase Pro
Binance US
Cointrade.cx (a rapidly growing Brazilian exchange)
Vaultoro (cryptocurrency and gold trading service)
Bibox (cryptocurrency exchange servicing primarily Asian markets)
Smart Valor (Swiss cryptocurrency exchange and security token platform)
NovaDAX (cryptocurrency exchange from Brazil)
TurtleNetwork DEX (Decentralized Exchange)
Bitasset (Hong Kong-based cryptocurrency exchange)
CriptoLAGO (state-licensed cryptocurrency exchange in Venezuela)

Now with regards to the poll itself, if masternode owners do feel a need for Dash Core Group to analyse and present the pro and cons of having the Dash privacy feature supported on official wallets, then by all means go ahead and participate in this poll.

Just understand these polls are non-binding for DCG and we have to be carefull that all these recent polls and a possibly extra work with this requested analysis & presenatation will not keepg the DCG from their work, which has to be a full focus on bringing Dash Platform / Dash Core v1.0 to testnet by the end of this year. Nothing should interfere with that.

It may be non-binding, but are you seriously suggesting DCG could do the opposite of the will of the MNO, whatever the outcome of this polling?

This poll does not even stipulate the conditions for an acceptable outcome. When you look at the 2MB size increase polling proposal it had a very defined condition :

"As far as determining if this proposal passes, we will consider more yes votes than no votes approval by the network as long as more than 33% of the network votes. If less than 33% of the network votes, we will consider the proposal denied and will not raise the blocksize limitation. "

This polling proposal is missing any of that and just asks for a yes or no vote. Thats just vague to say the least.

So yes, i can see DCG just ignore this poll if this poll is lacking in voting participation among masternode owners. If we would translate that 33% to current number of registered masternodes (4938), then participation treshold would be set at 1629 masternodes needing to participate.

You do realise, that the overall voting participation is at a low right now?
How can a PO even reach the 33% you are demanding, if maybe only 12-13% of MNO care to cast their vote?

If something passes with 10% net votes it should be valid and considered approved, even a governance proposal.
If MNO's don't care enough to take the time to cast their vote, then those have no say in the matter, it's logical.
Nobody is forcefully kept from voting here, or is he?
But how do you force somebody to cast a vote? You can't

The participation level required to possibly reach 33% would probably be in the 40% region, and such high voter participation is only seen during a bullrun in the market or at ATH price.

Having voting participation helps with shifting the uninteresting and not very usefull polls, from those polls that masternode owners actually find interesting and want to participate in.

In any normal (political) voting poll its normal to connect voting participation to it. Since the first poll ever issued also
contained voting participation as a condition, i dont see why it should not be applied to other polls as well. It does not necessarily needs to be 33%, but it does in my view needs to have a minimum level of voting participation.

Also i would like to know why proposal owner choose the name 'Dash Marketing'. Is proposal owner part of any official Dash marketing ?

I will vote Yes on this because it is something that I think needs ongoing monitoring and attention. But just removing the PS functionality from the official core wallet for end users is different from coming up with a different 3rd party mixing solution that doesn't even involve masternodes.

I think at any time, all options should be on the table, but it definitely depends on keeping a close eye on how policymakers and businesses are reacting to the tech.

I agree that privatesend is rarely used, has a terrible user experience, and for those who do use it, even fewer of them actually use it properly without doing something against the best practices that basically nukes their own privacy. But at the same time I do think it is an important feature. I think there is certainly a cost benefit analysis to be had for this

I do wonder if Taproot and Schnorr signatures, which Bitcoin is leaning towards with regards to privacy, is something that Dash can adopt as well. Depends on how it conflicts or not with Dash specific needs with regards to using quorum technology and the way masternodes are setup to communicate with each other i guess.

Those could form valid reasons for not implementing certain interesting looking privacy techniques.