Proposal “KUVACASH-NOVEMBER-LAUNCH-FUNDING“ (Closed)Back
| Title: | KUVACASH November Launch Funding |
| Owner: | kuvateam |
| Monthly amount: | 860 DASH (26595 USD) |
| Completed payments: | no payments occurred yet (3 month remaining) |
| Payment start/end: | 2018-10-17 / 2019-01-15 (added on 2018-10-18) |
| Final voting deadline: | in passed |
| Votes: | 556 Yes / 358 No / 37 Abstain |
Proposal description
KUVACASH November Pilot Launch Funding (restructured) (Base 004)
*****
https://www.coindesk.com/dash-crypto-venezuela-zimbabwe/
KUVACASH SOFTWARE DEMONSTRATION VIDEO***
The video demonstration of the full Kuvacash software suite which also explains the business model for Kuvacash at launch. Please find the video link below, and feel free to post us any questions.
The video shows the full Kuvacash solution for launch, from the remittance web-applications to the Kuva Wallet through to cash-out/exchange as well as Agent functions and some of our back-office. All this software is live and functional we are showing the latest state of Kuva's systems running on production hardware. Over the last month we have taken the opportunity to update and make consistent all branding across the products.
This is a new launch proposal for Kuvacash.
Month-to-month funding for such an initiative is difficult to manage, and contingency is required precisely for the reason that DAO funding is uncertain. There is now a considerable level of intellectual property in the business, including Kuva software and apps which run on the Dash network, licenses and partnerships to enable Kuva to launch, but capital is required for launch - enough so we can meet commitments. These commitments include costs from our financial services partners who are integrated in our operations stack between UK and Zim, ongoing software development contracts so we can ensure we get the product right as fast as possible, the leasing of production infrastructure and other contractor functionks such as PEN testing prior to release, trained individuals who run a concierge service that allows us to run a pre-pilot with a few people so we can build up a launch group to get to a pilot and main launch via a member-get-member strategy.
Pausing the project
As DAO funding did not come through, project launch was taken offline and contingency measures taken with partners and stakeholders. In short, with existing commitments, the project would have needed to be wound down in its current form. Pausing a project like Kuvacash outright is not possible - it has subsequently been restructured rather than closed down. What allowed us to do this is that our partners and stakeholders have been more supportive than we anticipated and in particular the software demonstration and our market entry strategy was compelling enough for us to make savings through their cooperation and cost deferrals and continue our work. In fact, we have now confirmed a new partner for the prepay credit-card proposition we are including in the Kuva app as well, on-boarded during the 'down' period.
We have reduced the pay of the executive by 50.5% by deferral until at least the launch, contingent on the DAO providing the funds for us to proceed. The project has been running for 12 months, supported across two funding periods to allow Kuvacash to develop the necessary software, legal frameworks, business structure and partnerships for launch. James and Drako have personally deferred both of their own payments for the time being
Team
Kuvacash has put together a world-class team of experienced professionals who have the skills required to land Kuvacash powered by Dash as a viable money system in Zimbabwe
https://www.kuvacash.com/our-team/
LinkedIn Profiles for the Kuvacash Executive Team
James HERE
Drako HERE
Spiro HERE
Judy HERE
Steve HERE
Regulatory and Legal Progress
• Tier 2 ADLA received 4/24/18 (Verified by Dash Watch)
• Tier 1 ADLA received 6/06/18 (Verified by Dash Watch)
Kuvacash is now licensed on the highest tier of ADLA regulation in Zimbabwe. This means both inbound and outbound remittance funds can be handled by Kuvacash
These licenses have not only regulatory freedom to operate legally inside of Zimbabwe but have open partnership opportunities with other regulated entities who feel comfortable dealing with a Tier 1 ADLA approved company like Kuvacash
Achievements - fully attested by DashWatch or publicly known
1. ADLA Tier 1 license received from Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe -
2. Kuvacash head offices established in Harare, inspected by RBZ, amendments made, re-inspected and full operational license signed off for ADLA Tier 1 operations.
3. We have the Kuva app and software produced to enterprise standards, have demonstrated (tested fully, demonstrated at Moneyconf and additional functionality to DW), showcased it in a video demo and had two members of the community view it (@solarguy installed on his own handset for the attestation, and @krish was shown over Hangout)
4. We have the required financial services partnerships signed and ready to go - from bank accounts to exchange services to remittance businesses with customer bases. It forms a complete ecosystem and operational stack, and provides for services that are needed in order to facilitate adoption by businesses and users alike.
5. With Kuva, we have a brand and positioning that makes sense and is compelling in particular to users in Zimbabwe (The word itself means, phonetically 'To Have' in Shona).
6. Through professionalism, transparency and record-keeping, communication (which was perhaps overly long at times) and cooperation with Dashwatch, Kuvacash is a project that has set the standard for reporting on the DAO.
7. NDA's executed with two major telecommunications companies in Zimbabwe with a reach of over 4M people
8. Application prepared with the assistance of FSCOM and submitted to the FCA for an MSB license in the UK
9. Feasibility study completed for a ropeway-based transportation infrastructure project where ticketing is paid for through Kuvacash using Dash, and an NDA signed by a major pension fund that approached Kuva to provide investment for the building of the ropeway (Dashwatch attested)
Summary
Following 10 months of software development, regulatory and legal work as well as business structuring, Kuvacash will now be launching its service in Zimbabwe.
The launch date of November is our on-schedule date, this has also been planned with partners, we are now back on a committed schedule.
A full written attestation by Dashwatch on Kuvacash activities is here:
https://dashwatch.org/files/1532801904838.pdf
The fully indexed video is here - click on the top title bar of the video to watch on YouTube:
A BIP32/39/44 secure wallet for storing cryptocurrency completed to MVP for pre-pilot and demonstrated to Dash Watch representative and Solarguy a well-respected Dash MNO
• Kuvacash Wallet Onboarding/KYC HERE
Like many other propositions that bridge between crypto and regulated financial services, merchant services and partner propositions, we have an onboarding system that combines KYC required by law with a secure HD wallet system to store Dash. This allows us to approach regulated businesses and do business with them – for example, partner network for cash-out, or a telecommunications provider.
• Pay to Contact HERE
People in many African countries use their phone number as their ID and also even as a way to pay and transfer money. We aim to make this as close as possible to the experience they already have – so it is familiar and intuitive to use Kuvacash and send Dash to other people
• Pay with Paycode HERE
(Paycode is a way to pay people without giving out a phone number – it is a 7-digit number that resolves to a wallet address and can be read over the phone or scanned via a very simple QR code. This is important since transferring wallet addresses and the associated payment data is needed to implement payments smoothly and quickly in a busy context or one where it is hard to scan a QR code for example.
• Pay with QR Code HERE
Paying with a simple QR code that transfers information about the transaction, allows for last-step checkout configuration is critical for us to have easy partner integrations as well as lower the read errors by having to send large amounts of data over QR. Our simple QR code is only 7 characters and allows any amount of metadata to be sent to configure a transaction, including multiple wallet addresses, value of transaction, what the transaction is for etc.
• USD/Dash Transfer HERE
In Africa, USD cash is king. By allowing easy transfer between Dash and USD we build the trust of users, that this is also ‘proper money’. It is important to note that nearly all major supply chains are denominated in USD, so for merchant services and anyone receiving funds to pay a supplier it is necessary to exchange to USD (until of course the rest of the world decides to all use Dash across their supply chains, but for now, this is not the case)
• Scheduling and Completing a Cashout HERE
Cash is in short supply, especially in Zimbabwe – we have a way to make cash available and independent agents provision the cash-out service themselves, which is why we can operate the service at such low cost. We don’t have the same level of fixed costs as we’d have if we had bricks-and-mortar to pay for – like Western Union, for example. By using partners and independent agents, we can keep our own fixed costs low and scale the business easily, while providing value to Kuva users.
• Inbound remittances HERE
Users in a country need some way to obtain Dash in order to be able to spend it. The remittance market in Zimbabwe is approximately 1 Billion USD (formal channels) which does not include informal channels. By providing a seamless way for users outside of Zimbabwe to make remittances to family in the country from their bank account directly to the Kuva wallet where it can be stored as Dash (and/or cashed out), we have a way to provide Dash to users.
• Kuva Agent Verification of new user HERE
When a user is onboarded, some details are taken so that an agent can also verify that users identity when they are picking up cash. This serves also to stop any fraud – for example other people who impersonate a user attempting a pickup.
• Overview of the Kuvacash model: HERE
The Kuvacash model is able to redirect money already coming into Zimbabwe into a wallet that uses Dash as the value storage – and allows the services a person needs to cash-out, pay others easily, and allows Kuva to integrate with other regulated partners, so that we can get as wide adoption as fast as possible.
• Kuvacash Android Holding App HERE
We have created an application to allow people to pre-register with Kuva – this allows us to build a launch platform that we can run our pre-pilot and pilot from, inviting specific users to activate a full wallet as we need them to. It also allows us to have users spread the word about Kuva and bring on other members. We’ve not yet implemented our full campaign, but have had over the last few days nearly 200 registrations, enough for our pre-launch and first wave of private pilot.
• OpenKuva Initiative HERE
OpenKuva is an open source software (OSS) initiative to release some of our base libraries (Kuvabase) that we have developed for Kuvacash to the community. Our first release is a native Android Dash-BWS client, with documentation and an example application.
Partnerships
• Success Microfinance Bank Partnership (5 branches in the major cities in Zimbabwe)
(short explanation of why that is important and part of the Kuva roadmap)
• MOU signed with Deven Engineering (‘KA’ project - Kuva exclusive payments for commuter transport solution)
• Two major mobile carriers - both progressed to NDA stage, and ongoing discussions
• Arizona State University as an expert partner in blockchain technology research study
• MOU with ZNCOOO, Zimbabwe’s Omnibus Authority Union
• Multiple financial services partnerships in UK and abroad to implement operational stack for remittances and credit cards
Strategic Initiatives
• Cable Car Services Feasibility Study HERE Dash Watch covering question on the feasibility study HERE
The ropeway feasibility study, otherwise known as Kuva City Air was a comprehensive study for a ropeway in Harare that was paid for by the DAO and where the payments would be through the Kuva wallet, powered by Dash. This was commissioned by Kuvacash, as the integrated Dash wallet and merchant services provide for a way for institutional investors to ‘secure payments channels’ such that they reduce the risk of such a project to the point they can invest in it. This is enabled by use of the Dash platform together with the bridge that Kuva provides.
Media Attention
Starting From Scratch HERE
Coindesk Article HERE
Cable Car Video HERE
Funding scope
As before, the funding will cover Kuva’s launch – Phase 1 Pre-Pilot and Phase 2 Pilot activities in Harare, Zimbabwe.
The pilot phases will expand from 10-25 users in the Pre-pilot through to 250+ users in the Phase 2 Pilot, and will be used to implement our end-to-end operations. This includes bringing on an Operations Director, implementing our cash management activities, training our partners and marketing/outreach for inbound remittance services. It will give us the opportunity to bring the software and operations of Kuva’s services to a standard that we can scale from. Once launch has commenced, it will be a continuum through to public launch and scale-out.
The funding will cover our base requirements, and will in addition to this include;
1. Ongoing software and web development activities to support operationalizing Kuvacash
2. Premises have been set-up and agent training has commenced for cash-out and remittance services
3. Operational ancillaries such as security staffing, cash-replenishment, printed collateral
4. Operations Director and staff to support launch and pilot operations - recruited and onboarded
5. BA and Project Manager roles to support pilot launch - recruited and onboarded
6. Outreach and partner activities to bring on inbound remittance users - registration app completed and launched
Reporting and transparency
The Dash DGBB and treasury funds Kuvacash’s activities, and from the beginning of the project Kuvacash has been providing regular updates to the network. We wish to set the standard for proposal updates and reporting. We believe in radical transparency, and in showing as much detail as possible without compromising our other functions or competitiveness as the organization grows.
7 live progress report and update webinars have been produced so far, and are published on our Kuvacash YouTube channel here:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAqKI-u6xS9Ry2PdqMdIVkQ
These include proposal consultation pre-funding through to bi-monthly full updates from the team and monthly mini-updates. In addition to this, the Dashwatch full to-date open-book validation report through to July 2018 and accompanying video report has been posted at the top of this proposal document.
Financial Summary for funding
Kuva Core Projected(USD)
Complete financials and comparatives with prior projections and liquidations - see Dashwatch report: pages 6, 7 and 8
https://dashwatch.org/files/1532801904838.pdf
----
MONTH Nov 18 Dec-18 Jan-18
Executive Team - 27,000 27,000 27,000
Software Development - 64,969 64,969 64,969
Legal and Advisory - 18,760 10,560 10,560
Travel, Office, Fees mktng - 16,200 11,000 12,000
Zimbabwe Ground Operations - 15,660 17,435 17,435
Cable Car Services (deferred) 7,174 7,174 0
_____________________________________________________
Total Run 149,762 138,137 131,964
DAO Funding requested 133,300 133,300 133,300
@$155.00 USD/Dash
----
Other Notes:
Announcement for supporters is rescheduled for November:
This will be made in due course - following the Kuva Ropeway project video being leaked and trending in Zimbabwe, to capitalise on this we reallocated resources to complete a Kuvacash pre-registration app as a priority. This has now been launched on Google Play.
***DASH EXCLUSIVITY - SIGNED LETTER OF INTENT (LoI)***
Community members have requested that Kuvacash indicate their intent that the solution is Dash-exclusive. As there is no central authority for the DAO, a clear and open Letter of Intent has been drafted and signed by both James, CEO and co-founder and Drako, Director of Strategy and Propositions for Kuvacash. The link to the signed Letter of Intent (LoI) is provided below:
Kuvacash - Dash Exclusivity signed LoI
***OPENKUVA - Open Source Kuva Libraries***
Kuva has also launched its open-source initiative with a release of an original Client Access Library for BWS. This is a core component of the Kuvacash system, and has been released under the permissive (commercial and non-commercial use) Clear BSD license. We hope that the library is useful to other community members looking to develop Dash-platform based systems. The Github and associated sample apps and binaries are here:
https://github.com/kuvabase/Kuvabase-BWCJ
https://bintray.com/kuvabase/maven/bwcj
https://github.com/kuvabase/Kuvabase-BWCJ-sample-app
We aim to release other libraries as appropriate - starting with various Dash toolchain packages we have built that we are now using internally in Kuvacash. Please issue pull requests if you have contributions to make - the libraries are in their early stages, and any contributions are appreciated.
Thank you,
James, Drako, Steve, Judy and Spiro - and the rest of us here at Team Kuva
*****
https://www.coindesk.com/dash-crypto-venezuela-zimbabwe/
KUVACASH SOFTWARE DEMONSTRATION VIDEO***
The video demonstration of the full Kuvacash software suite which also explains the business model for Kuvacash at launch. Please find the video link below, and feel free to post us any questions.
The video shows the full Kuvacash solution for launch, from the remittance web-applications to the Kuva Wallet through to cash-out/exchange as well as Agent functions and some of our back-office. All this software is live and functional we are showing the latest state of Kuva's systems running on production hardware. Over the last month we have taken the opportunity to update and make consistent all branding across the products.
This is a new launch proposal for Kuvacash.
Month-to-month funding for such an initiative is difficult to manage, and contingency is required precisely for the reason that DAO funding is uncertain. There is now a considerable level of intellectual property in the business, including Kuva software and apps which run on the Dash network, licenses and partnerships to enable Kuva to launch, but capital is required for launch - enough so we can meet commitments. These commitments include costs from our financial services partners who are integrated in our operations stack between UK and Zim, ongoing software development contracts so we can ensure we get the product right as fast as possible, the leasing of production infrastructure and other contractor functionks such as PEN testing prior to release, trained individuals who run a concierge service that allows us to run a pre-pilot with a few people so we can build up a launch group to get to a pilot and main launch via a member-get-member strategy.
Pausing the project
As DAO funding did not come through, project launch was taken offline and contingency measures taken with partners and stakeholders. In short, with existing commitments, the project would have needed to be wound down in its current form. Pausing a project like Kuvacash outright is not possible - it has subsequently been restructured rather than closed down. What allowed us to do this is that our partners and stakeholders have been more supportive than we anticipated and in particular the software demonstration and our market entry strategy was compelling enough for us to make savings through their cooperation and cost deferrals and continue our work. In fact, we have now confirmed a new partner for the prepay credit-card proposition we are including in the Kuva app as well, on-boarded during the 'down' period.
We have reduced the pay of the executive by 50.5% by deferral until at least the launch, contingent on the DAO providing the funds for us to proceed. The project has been running for 12 months, supported across two funding periods to allow Kuvacash to develop the necessary software, legal frameworks, business structure and partnerships for launch. James and Drako have personally deferred both of their own payments for the time being
Team
Kuvacash has put together a world-class team of experienced professionals who have the skills required to land Kuvacash powered by Dash as a viable money system in Zimbabwe
https://www.kuvacash.com/our-team/
LinkedIn Profiles for the Kuvacash Executive Team
James HERE
Drako HERE
Spiro HERE
Judy HERE
Steve HERE
Regulatory and Legal Progress
• Tier 2 ADLA received 4/24/18 (Verified by Dash Watch)
• Tier 1 ADLA received 6/06/18 (Verified by Dash Watch)
Kuvacash is now licensed on the highest tier of ADLA regulation in Zimbabwe. This means both inbound and outbound remittance funds can be handled by Kuvacash
These licenses have not only regulatory freedom to operate legally inside of Zimbabwe but have open partnership opportunities with other regulated entities who feel comfortable dealing with a Tier 1 ADLA approved company like Kuvacash
Achievements - fully attested by DashWatch or publicly known
1. ADLA Tier 1 license received from Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe -
2. Kuvacash head offices established in Harare, inspected by RBZ, amendments made, re-inspected and full operational license signed off for ADLA Tier 1 operations.
3. We have the Kuva app and software produced to enterprise standards, have demonstrated (tested fully, demonstrated at Moneyconf and additional functionality to DW), showcased it in a video demo and had two members of the community view it (@solarguy installed on his own handset for the attestation, and @krish was shown over Hangout)
4. We have the required financial services partnerships signed and ready to go - from bank accounts to exchange services to remittance businesses with customer bases. It forms a complete ecosystem and operational stack, and provides for services that are needed in order to facilitate adoption by businesses and users alike.
5. With Kuva, we have a brand and positioning that makes sense and is compelling in particular to users in Zimbabwe (The word itself means, phonetically 'To Have' in Shona).
6. Through professionalism, transparency and record-keeping, communication (which was perhaps overly long at times) and cooperation with Dashwatch, Kuvacash is a project that has set the standard for reporting on the DAO.
7. NDA's executed with two major telecommunications companies in Zimbabwe with a reach of over 4M people
8. Application prepared with the assistance of FSCOM and submitted to the FCA for an MSB license in the UK
9. Feasibility study completed for a ropeway-based transportation infrastructure project where ticketing is paid for through Kuvacash using Dash, and an NDA signed by a major pension fund that approached Kuva to provide investment for the building of the ropeway (Dashwatch attested)
Summary
Following 10 months of software development, regulatory and legal work as well as business structuring, Kuvacash will now be launching its service in Zimbabwe.
The launch date of November is our on-schedule date, this has also been planned with partners, we are now back on a committed schedule.
A full written attestation by Dashwatch on Kuvacash activities is here:
https://dashwatch.org/files/1532801904838.pdf
The fully indexed video is here - click on the top title bar of the video to watch on YouTube:
A BIP32/39/44 secure wallet for storing cryptocurrency completed to MVP for pre-pilot and demonstrated to Dash Watch representative and Solarguy a well-respected Dash MNO
• Kuvacash Wallet Onboarding/KYC HERE
Like many other propositions that bridge between crypto and regulated financial services, merchant services and partner propositions, we have an onboarding system that combines KYC required by law with a secure HD wallet system to store Dash. This allows us to approach regulated businesses and do business with them – for example, partner network for cash-out, or a telecommunications provider.
• Pay to Contact HERE
People in many African countries use their phone number as their ID and also even as a way to pay and transfer money. We aim to make this as close as possible to the experience they already have – so it is familiar and intuitive to use Kuvacash and send Dash to other people
• Pay with Paycode HERE
(Paycode is a way to pay people without giving out a phone number – it is a 7-digit number that resolves to a wallet address and can be read over the phone or scanned via a very simple QR code. This is important since transferring wallet addresses and the associated payment data is needed to implement payments smoothly and quickly in a busy context or one where it is hard to scan a QR code for example.
• Pay with QR Code HERE
Paying with a simple QR code that transfers information about the transaction, allows for last-step checkout configuration is critical for us to have easy partner integrations as well as lower the read errors by having to send large amounts of data over QR. Our simple QR code is only 7 characters and allows any amount of metadata to be sent to configure a transaction, including multiple wallet addresses, value of transaction, what the transaction is for etc.
• USD/Dash Transfer HERE
In Africa, USD cash is king. By allowing easy transfer between Dash and USD we build the trust of users, that this is also ‘proper money’. It is important to note that nearly all major supply chains are denominated in USD, so for merchant services and anyone receiving funds to pay a supplier it is necessary to exchange to USD (until of course the rest of the world decides to all use Dash across their supply chains, but for now, this is not the case)
• Scheduling and Completing a Cashout HERE
Cash is in short supply, especially in Zimbabwe – we have a way to make cash available and independent agents provision the cash-out service themselves, which is why we can operate the service at such low cost. We don’t have the same level of fixed costs as we’d have if we had bricks-and-mortar to pay for – like Western Union, for example. By using partners and independent agents, we can keep our own fixed costs low and scale the business easily, while providing value to Kuva users.
• Inbound remittances HERE
Users in a country need some way to obtain Dash in order to be able to spend it. The remittance market in Zimbabwe is approximately 1 Billion USD (formal channels) which does not include informal channels. By providing a seamless way for users outside of Zimbabwe to make remittances to family in the country from their bank account directly to the Kuva wallet where it can be stored as Dash (and/or cashed out), we have a way to provide Dash to users.
• Kuva Agent Verification of new user HERE
When a user is onboarded, some details are taken so that an agent can also verify that users identity when they are picking up cash. This serves also to stop any fraud – for example other people who impersonate a user attempting a pickup.
• Overview of the Kuvacash model: HERE
The Kuvacash model is able to redirect money already coming into Zimbabwe into a wallet that uses Dash as the value storage – and allows the services a person needs to cash-out, pay others easily, and allows Kuva to integrate with other regulated partners, so that we can get as wide adoption as fast as possible.
• Kuvacash Android Holding App HERE
We have created an application to allow people to pre-register with Kuva – this allows us to build a launch platform that we can run our pre-pilot and pilot from, inviting specific users to activate a full wallet as we need them to. It also allows us to have users spread the word about Kuva and bring on other members. We’ve not yet implemented our full campaign, but have had over the last few days nearly 200 registrations, enough for our pre-launch and first wave of private pilot.
• OpenKuva Initiative HERE
OpenKuva is an open source software (OSS) initiative to release some of our base libraries (Kuvabase) that we have developed for Kuvacash to the community. Our first release is a native Android Dash-BWS client, with documentation and an example application.
Partnerships
• Success Microfinance Bank Partnership (5 branches in the major cities in Zimbabwe)
(short explanation of why that is important and part of the Kuva roadmap)
• MOU signed with Deven Engineering (‘KA’ project - Kuva exclusive payments for commuter transport solution)
• Two major mobile carriers - both progressed to NDA stage, and ongoing discussions
• Arizona State University as an expert partner in blockchain technology research study
• MOU with ZNCOOO, Zimbabwe’s Omnibus Authority Union
• Multiple financial services partnerships in UK and abroad to implement operational stack for remittances and credit cards
Strategic Initiatives
• Cable Car Services Feasibility Study HERE Dash Watch covering question on the feasibility study HERE
The ropeway feasibility study, otherwise known as Kuva City Air was a comprehensive study for a ropeway in Harare that was paid for by the DAO and where the payments would be through the Kuva wallet, powered by Dash. This was commissioned by Kuvacash, as the integrated Dash wallet and merchant services provide for a way for institutional investors to ‘secure payments channels’ such that they reduce the risk of such a project to the point they can invest in it. This is enabled by use of the Dash platform together with the bridge that Kuva provides.
Media Attention
Starting From Scratch HERE
Coindesk Article HERE
Cable Car Video HERE
Funding scope
As before, the funding will cover Kuva’s launch – Phase 1 Pre-Pilot and Phase 2 Pilot activities in Harare, Zimbabwe.
The pilot phases will expand from 10-25 users in the Pre-pilot through to 250+ users in the Phase 2 Pilot, and will be used to implement our end-to-end operations. This includes bringing on an Operations Director, implementing our cash management activities, training our partners and marketing/outreach for inbound remittance services. It will give us the opportunity to bring the software and operations of Kuva’s services to a standard that we can scale from. Once launch has commenced, it will be a continuum through to public launch and scale-out.
The funding will cover our base requirements, and will in addition to this include;
1. Ongoing software and web development activities to support operationalizing Kuvacash
2. Premises have been set-up and agent training has commenced for cash-out and remittance services
3. Operational ancillaries such as security staffing, cash-replenishment, printed collateral
4. Operations Director and staff to support launch and pilot operations - recruited and onboarded
5. BA and Project Manager roles to support pilot launch - recruited and onboarded
6. Outreach and partner activities to bring on inbound remittance users - registration app completed and launched
Reporting and transparency
The Dash DGBB and treasury funds Kuvacash’s activities, and from the beginning of the project Kuvacash has been providing regular updates to the network. We wish to set the standard for proposal updates and reporting. We believe in radical transparency, and in showing as much detail as possible without compromising our other functions or competitiveness as the organization grows.
7 live progress report and update webinars have been produced so far, and are published on our Kuvacash YouTube channel here:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAqKI-u6xS9Ry2PdqMdIVkQ
These include proposal consultation pre-funding through to bi-monthly full updates from the team and monthly mini-updates. In addition to this, the Dashwatch full to-date open-book validation report through to July 2018 and accompanying video report has been posted at the top of this proposal document.
Financial Summary for funding
Kuva Core Projected(USD)
Complete financials and comparatives with prior projections and liquidations - see Dashwatch report: pages 6, 7 and 8
https://dashwatch.org/files/1532801904838.pdf
----
MONTH Nov 18 Dec-18 Jan-18
Executive Team - 27,000 27,000 27,000
Software Development - 64,969 64,969 64,969
Legal and Advisory - 18,760 10,560 10,560
Travel, Office, Fees mktng - 16,200 11,000 12,000
Zimbabwe Ground Operations - 15,660 17,435 17,435
Cable Car Services (deferred) 7,174 7,174 0
_____________________________________________________
Total Run 149,762 138,137 131,964
DAO Funding requested 133,300 133,300 133,300
@$155.00 USD/Dash
----
Other Notes:
Announcement for supporters is rescheduled for November:
This will be made in due course - following the Kuva Ropeway project video being leaked and trending in Zimbabwe, to capitalise on this we reallocated resources to complete a Kuvacash pre-registration app as a priority. This has now been launched on Google Play.
***DASH EXCLUSIVITY - SIGNED LETTER OF INTENT (LoI)***
Community members have requested that Kuvacash indicate their intent that the solution is Dash-exclusive. As there is no central authority for the DAO, a clear and open Letter of Intent has been drafted and signed by both James, CEO and co-founder and Drako, Director of Strategy and Propositions for Kuvacash. The link to the signed Letter of Intent (LoI) is provided below:
Kuvacash - Dash Exclusivity signed LoI
***OPENKUVA - Open Source Kuva Libraries***
Kuva has also launched its open-source initiative with a release of an original Client Access Library for BWS. This is a core component of the Kuvacash system, and has been released under the permissive (commercial and non-commercial use) Clear BSD license. We hope that the library is useful to other community members looking to develop Dash-platform based systems. The Github and associated sample apps and binaries are here:
https://github.com/kuvabase/Kuvabase-BWCJ
https://bintray.com/kuvabase/maven/bwcj
https://github.com/kuvabase/Kuvabase-BWCJ-sample-app
We aim to release other libraries as appropriate - starting with various Dash toolchain packages we have built that we are now using internally in Kuvacash. Please issue pull requests if you have contributions to make - the libraries are in their early stages, and any contributions are appreciated.
Thank you,
James, Drako, Steve, Judy and Spiro - and the rest of us here at Team Kuva
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What happened? Honestly, I don't know. We have a lot of people who used to support the proposal who now no longer do, and when asked in the discord, were unable to provide any legitimate reasoning for defunding this proposal. Yet here we are we 340~ no votes to 413 yes votes. We as a network have collectively spent $1.2 million USD on this project. They have worked together with local banks, regulators, telecom businesses all in an effort to make Dash's use case very clear to see and easy to use (what cryptos need for mass adoption). All of which will be thrown away, tarnishing our reputation and limiting our effectiveness as an organization.
Apparently, defunding Ben Swann was the start of a lot of bad blood in our community. I wrote about Ben's proposal and why I agreed with defunding it. However, apparently a prominent member of the KuvaCash team was (partially) responsible for this and in the course of his argumentation greatly offended regulars in the space, because of this, they now appear to want to defund Kuva in retaliation. This is not acceptable behavior for MNOs. With 1 day left to go before the voting deadline, it appears that the MNOs are going to throw away the last year and $1.2 million dollar investment we've made. Every participant in the Dash ecosystem has roles and responsibilities coming along with their participation.
DCG has to develop, test, and deploy the underlying software that powers the network. If they fail they get defunded. DFN has to write a certain amount of articles, and coverages of Dash in order to get funded. The masternode owners also have a responsibility to the network. As a MNO, it is your duty to vote for proposals that will grow the Dash network, and vote against proposals that won't, to the best of your ability. Voting against an active proposal out of spite, so you can 'get someone back' is NOT part of the job description.
Somebody in the Discord mentioned sth about a 'sunk cost fallacy'. Recognize the sunk cost fallacy only applies when pursuing the current course of action is not beneficial. Clearly if you invest in a business and it is growing and succeeding, it is not a 'sunk cost fallacy' to keep investing in and working on that business; it is actually worth it.
So again, that doesn't apply here. This is the third time they've been turned down for funding. They were supposed to launch in Sept. Then Oct. Now Nov. They've been patient and held it back for us, but if we neglect them this time, they will go and take all the $1.2 mil investment from the network to our competitors. I don't blame them, they have to launch eventually and we are reneging on our commitment to them. You should already be familiar with them, they've posted many updates, DashWatch has confirmed that they have produced deliverables (you can see all 9 of them in their report here ).
They also did an interview with TaoOfSatoshi answering many of the rather superficial criticisms that have been levied against them. Most of these criticisms are similar to the ones made against core, i.e. lacking in proper business sense, not fully understanding the environment we're in and what it needs. This is a project that has 30 people working for it already, second only in size to DCG. This is a full technology stack from back end to front end. What they're attempting is a game changer people. If they succeed, they will put Dash on the map not just in Africa, but globally.
There are no other coins that are doing what they're doing. The MNs decided a year ago to support these guys with the network. However, like I've outlined many times, it is my firm opinion that our price is actively being suppressed in order to prevent our treasury from seeing anywhere near its maximum efficacy. Evidence of which can easily be seen both at https://coinfairvalue.com and coinmarketcap. Look at all the 'spikes' for our price and notice they never plataeu like other coins, but immediately encounter strong sell pressure. This causes unnecessary friction as there is competition over what budget remains. A project like KuvaCash is necessary to break this cycle.
The KuvaCash project is an entire Fiat -> crypto ecosystem in Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe is a country experience hyperinflation just like Venezeula, which means that it is a perfect place for us. Cryptos do well when the Fiat system isn't working well. Merchants, remittance services, direct Fiat to crypto, cash outs, KuvaCash is exactly what we need to develop for the these third world countries. They have a Tier-1 license from the govt there! They have sealed a deal where they have a credit card that they can buy dash with. I mean this is mass adoption on a platter.
I don't know guys, if this proposal doesn't pass honestly it would be a dark day for Dash imo. It may seem like I'm exaggerating, but r/bitcoin was destroyed and turned from "P2P digital cash" to "Use your credit card and sell BTC for fiat!" in just 10 years. Bitcoin Cash shouldn't exist. It exists because the original project was hijacked. If we allow our egos to get in the way, we too will be hijacked. Review the evidence, review DashWatch's assessment of their work, look at the demovideo, GIVE THEM A CHANCE TO LAUNCH AND THEN LET'S SEE. We've already invested $1.2 mil. We've paid for their software, we paid for everything they're using. Let's put it out there and see if it works, forget the petty B.S.
You are wrong with Ben Swann though. Nobody cares about that anymore. Ok, I can only speak for myself, don’t know what others think about that. That applies actually to everything I say.
But Swann had to be defunded. It was the right thing to do. Some of our members could have been more polite, I see that also as our responsibility as MNO, if you apply certain ideas of customer care to our work.
But no, Ben Swann is not the issue here. So I am sorry, but your analysis is wrong regarding that.
You talked about Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash in your last paraphrase and you understood that this community split was really good (ironic statement).
Lets built on that.
Why do you support someone who is known as main reason for the current division? And still is propagating it, that this was good.
Do you also agree with that?
Maybe we should split more then.
You can come with all the money spent and the merits. Not points we need to talk about atm, to convince those that say NO or ABSTAIN.
Like I said, I see the opportunity we have with Kuva. But I also see the threat of the community split and certain behaviors of some people that caused it.
The problem is also that we will have the same tiring discussions and talks in the future if this is not remedied now or soon.
I am trying to mediate the conflict, because I usually know how those conflicts are resolved. But understanding and change is slow.
"..What I will apologise for is this, I'm sorry people feel that I was aggressive in putting through my convictions, but there was, and continues to be a lot of aggression coming the other way, and I'll choose to respond to that at times. I'd have preferred for there not to have been a community split, but we at Kuva have a view of how business should be done, and are walking the walk..."
Thank you Drako for your understanding and for the apology. I can feel the change and how this conflict gives us an opportunity to learn and too grow as a community/ DAO. You should get the funding.
1. This project has delivered clearly on all goals.
2. The project is ABOUT TO LAUNCH.
3. They have waited for two months for us to get our act together. They were supposed to launch in Sept, then Oct.
4. We have already payed for everything they are going to use.
5. They will launch WITH OR WITHOUT US.
Given these simple facts, I spent many hours in the thunderdome/discord attempting to reason with that side to come to the table. I was decidedly neutral before that time. I had no idea about Ben Swann or that the split had gotten this deep.
While Drako was not willing to go to the thunderdome, I understand why now, he was willing to discuss with any of the detractors and hear their concerns. The other side however was unreasonable, with the exception of a couple members.
Most refused to debate, or had conditions that were clearly never going to be met (Drako be fired from the team he put together). In short they were not trying to negotiate, sinking this proposal at all costs was their objectives, and they trolled and ridiculed me in an attempt to make me angry so I could be banned.
Guys, this is TOXIC behavior. We cannot survive with people like this on our team. Every proposal should be evaluated on its OWN merits. And if you have emotional reasons for being unable to do this, YOU MUST ABSTAIN. This is called business. This is what adult males do. We must put aside our feelings and get to work. If we cannot do this we will lose business partnerships and integrations, we will lose respect in the crypto community and we will LOSE the cryptocurrency competition.
We have all the tools needed to not let that happen. Let's use them.
2 quotes from your part very quick:
Theman2121 – yesterday at 7:44 pm
"THEN YOU"RE A FUCKING IDIOT"
theman2121 – yesterday at 8:17 pm
"Again this is NOT REASONABLE BEHAVIOR"
You were the one consistently shouting. The others confronted you with tough answers, but I couldn't see a single insult or shout from their part.
And now your are talking about TOXIC behavior. That is funny as hell. You are the emotional one here.
the account seems quite new. Is it you triptolemoose? Funny how those practices can backfire, don't you think Drako?
it amazes me how you are convinced that those tactics are good business practices.
People on all sides have expressed themselves provocatively. Regardless, there is a major piece of strategic asset here in the form of manpower, software, regulatory licenses and competitive advantage that is potentially about to be discarded.
If you want to make the case that doing so is of greater advantage to the network than retaining and working with it the please make it. I have not seen that case made.
In my view it has nothing to do with provocative written exchanges and everything to do with Dash's marketing priorities as a remittence network.
You might want to quote the rest of that. That was a long paragraph and I wasn't addressing anyone in particular with that hypothetical. Although I acknowledge your attempt to twist my words and smear me. Your side has consistently used manipulation and lying in order to push forward an agenda.
You attempted to use my banning from r/dashpay to turn me against TaoOfSatoshi so I would join your little pity party. Did you really think being nice to me all of 2 secs would be enough to get me to throw aside the quest for the truth?
As for the second quote, again that was the end of paragraphs of reasoning. The shouting is justified because you guys are deliberately hurting MY POCKETS and you're hiding behind a personality dispute. You have picked off the weakest emotionally among us for they are easily corrupted. Now you are using negativity to fan the flames and cause confusion. These are CLEAR TROLL TACTICS only used by malicious actors. You are not arguing in good faith, you are misrepresenting the 8-10 hours I spent Sat and Sun trying to reason with your side, and you are trying to project your toxic behavior onto me because you know the people reading likely didn't see the debate.
They didn't see the hitler memes and other 'dank meme's that you guys were posting as ridicule. They didn't see the sarcasm laden replies meant to further degrade the conversation. You are trying to fan flames of a personality dispute that took place MONTHS ago in order to provide cover for your true goal of preventing Dash's mass adoption. That is why you're attempting to use misdirection here to reflect my justified accusations back: you do not want your true intentions exposed.
I want to apologize for that comment above. Apparently it is not a troll or a second account, but a member of our community.
You are witness of some darker days our community experiences or recently has experienced.
Well what can I say. Our emotions that drive us, when we fundamentally believe something is right, can lead to such behavior.
Even the seemingly smart people can turn completely wild and hostile to their own.
They even don’t realize how they thwart one's own cause.
Our emotions shall not be an excuse for such an attitude. I personally condemn that (and I am sure that many others do as well).
Insults and this twisting rhetoric have no place in a healthy community.
If you want to look deeper into the accusations go to staydashy.com and make up your own mind.
Let‘s hope that the emotions have settled down now and that we can get back to a more respectful and modest exchange of ideas, even if we have different opinions.
Thank you very much for your understanding!
The project has delivered - on expectations, on relevance, on productivity and on regulatory licensing. If you want to throw it all away because you need "an apology" on top, then don't be surprised if some of us take exception to your choice of priorities.
You can say that that is not the issue and I respect your opinion, but I disagree. There were NO legitimate reasons given for DEFUNDING this proposal and wasting $1.2 mil dollars of investment. The only time people behave like this is during times of spite/retaliation. If you can present to me a better reason for DEFUNDING AN ACTIVE PROPOSAL before launch, I'm all ears.
Ben Swann might not have been it for you, but the people I talked to it was a sticking point. There was a lot of defensiveness when I even broached the issue. Its clear that that is still a pain point for some in the community. And guess what? It will CONTINUE to be until we deal with it. We cannot sugarcoat this, we cannot skip over it. It has already doomed 1 year of our work and network investment.
I have not yet heard or received a SINGLE reason to vote no on this proposal. Not one. There hasn't been a single good reason. Something that says, "this is for the benefit of Dash". The only reasons left therefore, are bad ones.
"When you've eliminated the impossible, whatever left, no matter how improbable must be the truth."
Cheers.
It appears that as a persistent detractor you also ignore the main gorilla on the court here;
1. Kuvacash delivered everything it said it would, in readiness for launch, on-time and on-budget
2. The software is finished and beautiful as attested by community members who have seen it or had a play.
3. We have over 1000 signups or pre-registrations with no major marketing efforts, showing the demand is there
4. We have all licenses ready to operate for the UK<>Zim corridor
5. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Not many countries exist where a dictator was deposed and the fiat system has failed, and where most people already use a form of mobile money that is inadequate. If you know of another opportunity please let me know.
People here want to know if you are voting against Dash because of a minor personality conflict - if so, you are voting against what appears to be in the best interest of the Dash network because of ‘feelings’, making the point for many of my recent arguments on this matter.
If you can see the light, I welcome your YES vote, you will be helping to make history.
Thanks,
Drako
Good luck next cycle.
Just stay the way you are, don't change anything. Seems to be a winning strategy.
I want post them here so, that Kuva-Cash can atleast have the change to reply to them.
A post in Thunderome form Mastermined(he is also a mod and part creator of DFN chat):
This has all been discussed ad nauseum, check the pins in this channel. Here is a brief copy and paste of my thoughts from a few days ago…
“If this is all such a sure thing i'm sure @Max Yoga can just sell a few of his masternodes to launch kuva and then pay himself back.
Sounds like kuva will be just fine without DAO fund
Dash can no longer afford kuva. I'm not saying kuva should be abandoned but if they want to continue getting funding from Dash they are going to have to give up some equity, which they have said no to.
If kuva is as great as they claim they will have no problem getting funding to launch, they will just have to give up some equity is all.
I'm sure they will be fine and launch in the next few months. No other coin is going to fund them so we don't have to worry about them moving to smartcash or anything like that.
I'm sure they will come up with funding, they are just trying to see who has the best deal. Right now they are hoping they can get funded by Dash for zero equity. I don't think that is going to happen.”
They have business partnerships and they don't OWN all the IP, they are using other people's libraries etc. So its not even all theirs to give equity in. And the network, including all masternode holders, DIRECTLY benefit from the increased demand for Dash. As we know price determined by supply and demand. Our supply and its inflation are fixed, so what happens when demand shoots up? Yes price does too. So there is NO RATIONAL REASON to defund this proposal. None.
If that was an issue it should've been raised 1 year ago when they started. There should've been a framework in place deciding how much, if any, of a startup we fund will belong to the network. In the absence of that, it is unfair, punitive and destructive to the network to hold this proposal hostage, at the last minute like this. The DAO was built to fund proposals to grow the network. It is NOT to be used to further personal agendas whether they be financial or emotional. This is not how you do business, all the no voters are risking tarnishing our reputation with this.
Voting no on the basis of no equity makes even less sense when you consider that Dash Ventures doesn't exist and we have no way currently for the DAO to own equity in companies.
Seeing he isn't doing it his argument is mute, he should come up with a better one, or stop pretending he has one.
That being said, the Kuva project is not yet a "sunk cost fallacy" in that the argument is not continued funding in the hopes that it might be successful. The argument advanced by most proponents--including the Kuva team itself, whether in good faith or out of desperation--is that the project ought to be funded up to launch, because it's only then that it can reasonably and accurately be determined whether or not the project is indeed a sunk cost.
As it stands, funds have been poured in, but this has been in accordance with a previously stipulated timeline to which the project has held and voted for successfully by the DAO. The team has also committed to a further timeline from the Pre-Pilot to Pilot and projections about funding requirements from then on. A deviation from these projections or failures to meet their projected expectations could reasonably be seen as actual evidence that the project should no longer be funded in its current form.
So in order to truly qualify as something making the supporter complicit in either an error in reasoning or an error in perception, there needs to be some objective way in which to determine what the case actually is. The failure to meet explicit deadlines or projections is the only reasonable, objective standard that I can postulate that accomplishes this. Thus, until the project is allowed to be funded to such a point, I would advance that further arguments against funding on those lines would be on the order of something like a perceptual or reasoning error. If the assertion is that it will just continue to incur further costs with no end in sight, this is clearly false, as the DAO has monthly opportunities to pull funding indefinitely, and a very clearly stipulated set of conditions for the next "round" of funding up through the pre-pilot to launch.
There are of course other objections that are being leveled toward the project that must be addressed, but rationally speaking, the "sunk cost fallacy" and the attendant claim that the project has failed to produce "value" aren't really relevant claims at this juncture, because the conditions for those arguments to obtain have not yet been met.
One other thing that I'll mention here is that if this project is successful, the true strength of it is that it could much more easily be transplanted in to other regions--not just other African nations--without having to spend as much time/effort/resources slogging through the slow process of grass-roots adoption, and furthermore, it could potentially be the missing link for galvanizing the efforts in Venezuela.
It's touted that all these things can be achieved through smaller, grass-roots efforts, but like it or not, however inconsistent or corrupt, money changing services are almost always subject to strict regulation, and if you're going to be able to provide fiat <-> crypto liquidity--which is desperately needed in all of our markets--you're going to need at least some partner with the requisite financial licenses. Existing partners like Uphold could be tapped for this, but the advantage that a project like Kuva ostensibly provides is that its Trust-based business model doesn't bleed profits away from Dash, its success directly enriches the Dash blockchain and its profits are reinvested in to further expansion of the project itself.
This is also an argument against the constant assertion that Dash needs equity in the Kuva project in particular. This would require the project to be completely restructured from the Trust model to one where private equity is issued, and in this model even if we would receive some direct equity in the project, the amount that would bleed out in to the hands of private investors and other markets instead of being recaptured and reinvested in to the Dash ecosystem directly (unless we had 100% or otherwise sufficient equity in the project to offset what goes in to the hands of private investors) might actually make it worse for Dash in the long run, depending on how much equity Dash would be able to hold in the project relative to other interests. The Trust model ensures that Dash and only Dash is enriched, even if that enrichment is indirect, as under the Trust model, profits only expand Kuva which in turn feeds back in to Dash. Under an Equity model, profits are shared with other investors and as shareholders, their interests and desires will need to be represented and the direction the project takes would be subject to their whims.
Running the project as a Trust allows for the enrichment of the DAO without direct equity, and it also allows for the project to undercut competition immensely as there's less of an incentive to maximize direct profits for the business itself (as the value that is distilled from the project is the effect it has on the Dash blockchain, and the direct profits of the business are utilized only to expand the scale and scope of that enrichment).
Walter:
Drako is being grossly optimistic about his numbers, his targets and his chances. Ecocash in Zimbabwe have a niche monopoly with an insurmountable economic moat in my opinion. The network effects, distribution channels and IP make them a formidable competitor. Even $5m or $10m from the DAO is not going to touch the sides.
Walter:
This 2% is rather fortunate though because this tax wasn’t even on the radar until a few weeks ago, if a model relies on government subsidy to work then it’s rickety at best imo. Govt can easily change their minds when they see all their lovely tax revenues from ecocash bleed out :wink:
I don’t think we can rely on that alone as an ecocash killer.
Walter:
Apparently corruption doesn’t exist anymore in zim if you believe what James said in the CATV interview the other day. That’s great, but I don’t believe him. Ecocash clearly have an entrenched position in Zim, this is business, how is Kuva going to overcome the headwinds faced when you go up against a monopoly? Will they grease the wheels in the same way ecocash no doubt do at every level?
Regarding the business model questions from Walter - these have been answered to multiple times but here’s a synopsis.
1. There is an incumbent Ecocash, but with Ecocash you cannot get access to hard currency. We provide that with our service. Cash is king and the rapid growth in interest in our service shows that we can displace them. It will take some capital, but we’re good to take the chance.
2. This 2% tax was a surprise to us. We don’t rely on it - our model was viable before the tax, and is viable even if we have to pay it, which it looks like we don’t according to legal opinion attested to by @solarguy.
3. James didn’t say corruption didn’t exist - he said there was a massive backlash against it, and indeed it is now a far less corrupt place to do business than, say, Venezuela (as per official oecd corruption index). Our own experience is that we have NEVER been approached for a bribe or kickback of any sort, and it seems that state and local government is actually happy we are bringing business and capability into the country.
Also @walter is incorrect - Ecocash is not a monopoly, they are a major player but they also have their critical issues, like cash availability and ability to pay overseas suppliers, which we solve for customers using our solution.
Thanks,
Drako
EcoCash website - "WHAT IS AN ECOCASH AGENT?
EcoCash Agents can be Econet dealers operating one or more outlets around Zimbabwe, other retailers with a substantial distribution network like petrol stations, distributors, supermarkets, registered SMEs, banks and micro-finance Institutions. These Agents can perform cash-in and cash-out transactions for EcoCash customers, and are also responsible for the registration of customers."
Article about CashOut - https://www.techzim.co.zw/2016/07/ecocash-lowers-tariffs-maintains-charges-cashouts/
2. Nothing further to add.
3. OK, James underplayed the level of corruption in in Zimbabwe. Comparing corruption levels to Venezuela is arbitrary at best. How about we just use the world corruption index as a guide? https://www.transparency.org/news/feature/corruption_perceptions_index_2017
Have you considered that the reason you haven't been approached for a bribe or kickback is because you don't have anything worth being bribed for?
Lastly:
Ecocash share of mobile money market in Zimbabe 98%.
https://www.techzim.co.zw/2017/10/confirmed-ecocash-zimbabwes-mobile-money-solution/
If 98% isn't a monopoly then I'd like to see your definition. During 2017 Ecocash processed over $23 billion in transactions in an economy with A GDP of $7.5 billion. They aren't just a major player, they are the only player that matters!
Thanks
Walter
"USD Ecocash is NOT usd
It is RTGS USD and you can’t get it out as hard currency. I mean, it is theoretically possible but most Zimbabweans agree it doesn’t happen. That is why there is a secondary market for RTGS USD - where it trades for 40-60% less than USD
We (Kuvacash) bring hard currency and an unencumbered way to get it. You can store your value in Dash, and you can exit to REAL USD."
If you did your research you would also find that the alternative to the ‘monopoly’ that is Ecocash is the informal economy that we are targeting. It is between 7-20 billion real USD not rtgs that is referenced. Note that because of Ecocash dominance, and because it doesn’t materially solve the issues in the market about cash availability, we have a MASSIVE opportunity to land Kuva and Dash if we provide a hedging solution/cashout along side it fed by remittances that are less than 1/4 of the cost.
Note that our Paycode-based approach is the way MasterCard has recently announced their own approach with their new QR solution, and our agent-cash-out is what people are used to already so we are well aligned with what people want and clearly have done our research - major competitors have come to the same conclusion.
Another point; most indexes agree and are not ‘arbitrary’ about Zimbabwe being less corrupt than Venezuela, this is an established consensus. Zimbabwe has a way to go, but our own experience is that a lot has changed since the elections that de-risks our project.
‘Transparency International’ is one authoritative source -
Wikipedia shows it in a nice table Here is a 2018 version of the data, showing Zimbabwe a full 10 countries less corrupt than Venezuela;
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_Perceptions_Index
Not sure how you see that a 28M usd project presented to the highest levels of government is ‘not good enough for a bribe’, you may want to rethink. Most of the country now knows what Kuva is, and we haven’t even launched.
FYI if you don’t believe we have interest, actually we have nearly 400 people signed up on pre-registration in a little over a week. Over 700 people (Zimbabweans and ex-pays) have emailed us over two weeks wanting to offer help or know more about the project (Dashwatch validated the numbers a few days ago) - in fact we will need to stop registrations soon as we have enough to take us all the way through pilot. Note: this is with zero marketing. So you can see, regardless of the monopoly, indeed even if it is a monopoly, people are desperate for an alternative that actually meets their needs, and Kuva appears to be of a lot of interest to any Zimbabwean that’s sees it (have you shown the concept to any Zimbabwean, like we have? I think it would change your tune!).
I hope you can see our approach and perspective now, and the real opportunity that exists.
Thanks,
Drako
Thanks,
Drako
Thanks,
Drako
The Euro has a monopoly in Eurolands
The Yen in China
Why oh why did anybody ever make bitcoin.
If anything does juicy numbers you state are worth take a go at especially give it only cost us 135k, and even more so Kuvacash can do things ecocash can't do, the cablecar business case comes to mind
Follow up question:
IF you where so sure Ecocash was so superior to KuvaCash than why did you not speak up in the first proposal KuvaCash created ?
Personalities come and go. They are all different. Industries outlast both them and their critics alike.
Your Yes-teams policy of rationalizing away his behavior has apparently emboldened him instead of calming things down.
By the way, afaik it is not at all clear what will happen if the proposal does not pass this cycle, or is it?
Just show us some value and we’ll fund it.. just show us 1000 users giving Kuvacash a a real good go.. it’s really not that difficult..
Walter
Please don't pass you're on speculation as fact, and don't keep walking away questions directed at you. Admit you can't answer them, or answer them !
We actually have over 1000 verified sign ups or emails from people asking to help with Kuva, attested by Dashwatch.
I trust you’ll be voting yes now that ALL your concerns have actually been addressed in full?
Thanks,
Drako
Over the last few weeks, following a video leak we now have over 1000 people signed up or who have emailed us to offer help on the Kuva project.
This includes the recent 350 signups on our pre-registration app (or iOS requests), as of last week and a bit, with no major marketing.
C’mon people. Minor personality conflicts in the community and noses out of joint will soon be be long forgotten.
Vote with your Business Brains and let’s make history!
Thanks,
Drako
The potential return for us in terms of increased Dash price and number of transactions on our network is *enormous* and in my opinion puts this proposal on the same level of importance as funding our efforts in Venezuela.
KuvaCash represents the first serious effort to build a mainstream commercial application on top of the Dash network. A major part Core's strategy with Evolution is to facilitate the development of applications on top of Dash (via DAPs). KuvaCash fits perfectly into this vision and is targeting one of the few markets that has a real need for cryptocurrency-based solutions. We do not have many projects of this calibre, and even fewer in the types of country that we should be targeting.
Dash's biggest advantage over other cryptocurrencies is that our treasury enables us to fund large projects such as this. We typically fund grass roots adoption efforts that, to date, have not resulted in a significant increase in our transaction count or price, despite a high number of merchants now accepting Dash worldwide and in particularly in Venezuela. I hope the situation improves as DashMerchantVenezuela's strategy progresses into the the next phase, however KuvaCash presents a different approach to Dash adoption and I would like to see us pursuing both grass roots and commercial strategies, and taking advantage of our treasury to fund large projects on a scale above what other cryptos can match. This is not a case of committing to 18 months worth of funding as we will know before then whether this project is succeeding. There is also the strong possibility that the Dash price increases over the next few months which would allow us to continue funding KuvaCash as well as many other worthwhile proposals that I believe are less important.
At this stage I view this as a low risk proposal with huge upside potential in a key market for us with a number of extra bonuses. Most of the hard work has already been completed and large elements of risk removed. The KuvaCash team has already built high quality working software (I requested a demo) and has the necessary banking licenses and integrations to launch their product. On top of this they have deals under NDA with two of the largest telecoms companies in Zimbabwe, have partnered with a payment card provider to provide Dash debit cards in Africa (!), and according to DashWatch there are two pension funds interested in paying for the construction of a ropeway that would see Dash used as the exclusive payment method*, generating between 40 and 60k transactions daily (our current transaction volume is ~7k per day).
*Dash as the payment method is actually a requirement of those funding the project, because it keeps the revenue secure - this is a huge win for us and requires no further funding from the treasury.
Please fellow MNOs, let's take the opportunity in front of us, vote YES to get this project launched and show what the DAO is capable of by landing Dash in Africa with a killer app that other cryptos only dream of.
Stepping back a bit and assessing the discussion and exaggerating the situation by dividing the Dash community population into two groups the yes-kuva and the no-kuva group, what I assess is that:
- The yes-kuva group argues that Kuva should be funded because it is one of the most promising proposals and a great opportunity for Dash;
- The no-kuva group's main issue is that Max Yoga is a disruptive element in the Dash community, has been disrespectful to an important part of the community, or them personally, and has lost their trust.
There are obviously nuances, like the no-kuva group has not as much faith in Kuva's business case as the yes-kuva group may have, and the yes-kuva group doesn't view Max's way of engaging as notably problematic. However, there may actually be significant overlap in the opinion of the two groups where the the yes-kuva group may agree that Max Yoga's engagement with part of the community could have been more respectful and the no-kuva group may agree that the Kuvacash proposal could offer an opportunity, people just prioritize their opinions differently. Which means that when discussing this proposal we should take into account that we have different views of the world and the no-kuva group at this point is unlikely to be persuaded by the business case argument (because they don't prioritize it) and the yes-kuva group is unlikely to be persuaded by the engagement argument (because they don't prioritize it).
What I possibly wanted to make clear in this is that, there likely are no hidden agenda's, just different world views and different priorities in what community members value.
Aezel
It appears to me that there is a contigent of masternodes with the directive to vote no at critical times for our adoption. There is no reason for us to delay funding this project now, after all the money we've spent. The 'no group' seriously expects us to believe the only reason they're voting no is because they're offended by the behavior of one man? I'm incredulous. That would be an ENORMOUSLY spiteful thing to do, because it is guaranteeing that they will also not reap the benefits of this proposal. Who benefits from this? The only people who benefit from this are the Monero community and our competition.
The more mass adoption we gain the further in the dust we leave them behind. It is plausible that those of that community, who have fudded us for four years, bought up many masternodes when the price was still cheap. They were attacking us then too, so it stands to reason they may have seen an opportunity to infiltrate our community unawares just like bitcoin core did with blockstream etc. Slowly but surely until a time such as this.
We have a golden opportunity with Kuvacash and we shouldn't waste it.
It started with them, I have seen it with my own eyes. So if you want to include the Monero community, look at your own group pls. (but chances that you find them in both of our goups are quite slim)
Your answer to Aezel, who is trying to lower the pressure, is an ENORMOUSLY spitful and ignorant thing in my eyes, to phrase it in your words.
Funny thing is, people like yourself are the reason Kuva failed. AGAIN!
Do you want to understand why?
Please read the following:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Realistic_conflict_theory
the robert-cave-experiment
The 1954 Robbers Cave Experiment by Muzafer Sherif and Carolyn Wood Sherif represents one of the most widely known demonstrations of RCT. The Sherifs' study was conducted over three weeks in a 200-acre summer camp in Robbers Cave State Park, Oklahoma, focusing on intergroup behavior. In this study, researchers posed as camp personnel, observing 22 eleven- and twelve-year-old boys who had never previously met and had comparable backgrounds.
The experiment was divided into three stages. The first stage being "ingroup formation", in which upon arrival the boys were split into two approximately equal groups based on similarities. Each group was unaware of the other group's presence. The second stage was the "friction phase", wherein the groups were entered in competition with one another in various camp games. Valued prizes were awarded to the winners. This caused both groups to develop negative attitudes and behaviors towards the outgroup. The third and final stage was the "integration stage". During this stage, tensions between the groups were reduced through teamwork-driven tasks that required intergroup cooperation.
The Sherifs made several conclusions based on the three-stage Robbers Cave Experiment. From the study, he determined that because the groups were created to be approximately equal, individual differences are not necessary or responsible for intergroup conflict to occur. As seen in the study when the boys were competing in camp games for valued prizes, Sherif noted that hostile and aggressive attitudes toward an outgroup arise when groups compete for resources that only one group can attain. Sherif also establishes that contact with an outgroup is insufficient, by itself, to reduce negative attitudes. Finally, he concludes that friction between groups can be reduced along with positive intergroup relations maintained, only in the presence of superordinate goals that promote united, cooperative action.
Conclusion: Kuvas hostile and aggressive behavior is understandable. But it was the wrong way, which lost them their funding. For the second time!
To half of the MNO, that is such a big issue, they voted against it or refrained from voting.
The other half values the results and future prospects more. I can also understand that.
Neither view is wrong actually, like Aezel has stated.
Problem is, you don't need division to get funded you need unity!
Kuvacash Base Funding 002 by kuvateam
http://bit.ly/DWKuvacashOCT18
Isn't Dashwatch job to carefully analyse and point out risks and faults with a project ? Either Dashwatch isn't doing there job properly and should be replaced with the no-voters or no-voters should take another hard look at the facts !
Thanks for the comment and also for the contributions to the discussion so far.
In addition to the progress reporting and financials, @Dashwatchteam wanted to take questions/critique from the community and provide responses to these, and I agreed.
All claims made by us are validated and attested by Dashwatch in full. All financials are checked by Dashwatch, including a recent analysis of development spending.
I'd like to think that NO voters who take the time to watch the Money2020 interview with me and James, and take an objective look at the Dashwatch report would be voting us to at least get this launch funding, then stand back to see what happens...
Thanks,
Drako
Please point out to places and situations where this type of strategy actually works ?
Or please point out how ever thought you this
With all due respect, let me be 'Drako direct' - this is a broad generalisation of a 'solution' that just isn't going to work, I call these sorts of things 'armchair strategising', sorry man.
For one, people don't have bank accounts and can't pay for Dash - let alone the fact that that site has a single US-based person selling Dash, and that person requires Paypal.
Secondly - USD cash is king, not Dash, and it requires a serious initiative that bridges the two appropriately to do this. That is what Kuva is doing.
Third, people want simple. Piecing this together isn't as simple as you think.
Thanks,
Drako
I am top posting this because I'd like to address the "no" voters in general, though my post was inspired by replying to @red's last comments below in particular.
I'm curious to know what's really behind the opposition to this project since the criticisms made appear "dainty" at best given the progress made and maturing stage that it's reached. While there are some relevant, well made points, they are nowhere near a justification for pulling the rug out of the final funding cycle prior to a beta launch IMO.
Why is it ok to allow thousands of Dash to have been sprayed at various non-performing and dubiously viable media projects over the years but not support a well managed, strategically cited national program that directly integrates the holy trinity of adoption - namely crypto payment rails, fiat integrations and regulatory frameworks ?
The casual justifications found for dismissing some of the proposers responses to critiscisms sound almost arbitrary and many of them are hypothetical. Do I need to remind anyone that this category of proposal isn't widely on offer - for ANY crypto, let alone Dash ? It's about the only one I've seen in the entire history of the DAO of this nature and isn't about putting stickers in shop windows - important though that is. Rather it is a direct use case (including international remittences) with a measurable performance.
I urge you to please reconsider your view and at least treat this funding round as distinct from the "open ended" aspect which formed the main basis of @red's original complaint below. Many of us have followed this project in anticipation of something of a breakthrough, not just for Dash but for any crypto trying to become established at a national level. We'd like to at least be able to make an appraisal of the beta rollout which forms the subject of this particular phase.
We have not been disappointed by Kuvacash's results so far. They have acquired regulatory licenses where it seemed unlikely to many of us at the outset. They have built software which by all accounts appears to be of a high standard, efficient and attractive. They have attracted industry partners. They have paced the project well in a way that appears to strike an optimal balance between tangible progress and technical integrity. As of last night they also have the unqualified endorsement of one of the DAO's most respected, productive and hard working contractors.
No, it's not Kuvacash that are at risk of disappointing here. Rather, it's the 284 faceless voters who don't have to account to no-one for potentially killing off the single most comprehensive adoption attempt to date. I don't question their right to vote in a manner that suits them. But I will be questioning my motivation for hanging around in a community with limited appetite for serious industrial challenges (and I won't be the only one).
Finally, if you haven't already done so, please watch the extended video interview with the Kuvacash team and Scott Farnsworth which gives a far more lucid account of what's going on than is done justice to on this column.
IMO, if we prematurely kick projects like this out without SUBSTANTIAL justification we'll be left with no more than a cosy Dash fanclub. Cosiness is nice but industry trundles on. It would be good if we could keep up !
I apologize if I have insulted you, because that's the way you do business-talks in your country, culture, town, wherever. if that's the case let me know where that is please. It would be funny to watch that.
I have explained myself in detail down there. If you have valuable feedback for me, please change my mind. Maybe I can learn something.
But to wrap it up, the cost is way to high, imo. And I am not talking about financials.
Kuvacash has produced outstanding results to date and we have not had to "trust" the proposers with anything other than opportunity cost. They, on the other hand have to trust us with their reputation with partners, with their own time, with their strategic ideas, their continuity, their personal reputations and possibly their livelihoods.
What does that say to future large contractors ? It says you can't "trust" the DAO to asses you on your technical merits. It says the DAO is fickle. It says that indulging the individual sensitivities of voters in forums matters more than delivering material results.
That is where your concerns about "trust" are properly directed in my opinion and that is how business is done in my country and in any other country that I'm familiar with.
Finally, you may or may not remember a project called "Aurora Coin" from years back which attempted to establish a national cryptocurrency for Iceland. That project captured the imagination of the entire sector and at one point looked as if it was going to challenge Bitcoin itself. It failed - not because the idea was weak, but because the execution was undeveloped. In particular it lacked 2 strategic elements which the Kuvacash project does not - integration with the fiat system and with regulatory frameworks.
So, to address your last point, this project is not expensive IMO, it's CHEAP given the strategic challenges. Even if it fails it will be cheap because the knowledge and experience acquired will be invaluable to future such efforts and the fact that it's being executed by invested members of the Dash community gives us an advantage over competing offerings in that regard.
Again, I urge you to take a more developed view and support this particular funding phase at least.
if it were just for the achievements and results I would gladly vote yes for Kuva, like I did last time and the time before and before that. It makes totally sense. I can see that part.
But what you fail to address is the other RESULT. The achievement, that Max Yoga has divided the community through his aggressive behavior.
I have seen it personally, several times.
How do you measure that into the equation?
Well it is intangible and we can't really be objective here. But usually great projects lose an important chunk of value when sth. similar happens.
From my point of view, this is so bad that someone can promise and achieve whatever, it wouldn't change a thing. That is what I mean the cost is way to high.
I understand his emotional responses due to the current circumstances. Nobody is perfect and yes we have the right to make mistakes.
But it doesn't change the fact that those are bad business practices. Please consider, a behavior like that might have a big negative impact on Dash in the future.
And what is even more bad is the fact, that Max Yoga is not able to reflect, to understand and to adapt when he is confronted with this weakness.
Just answer me one question: Which role is more important in your opinion? Being someone who critics other proposals in a disrespectful manner while having a proposal of its own, or just being a proposal owner putting every tiny bit of energy into the vision, the project and the people involved?
Which version would have succeeded?
The 1. isn't at the moment. Again! I told him that he will fail if no change is made several days before the deadline of the last proposal passed.
And why do you think it is important that the biggest part of this mess should be able to understand, to reflect and to adapt?
I want the Kuva-vision to succeed, but not like that and with him denying his negative behavior. I want an apology from that person in order to heal the community and as a start of understanding, in order to have more respectful future dialogs and to avoid such frustration in the future. Or we will have the same fights and discussions again and again each time a proposal from Max Yoga is uploaded.
And I am deeply convinced, that the ball is at Max Yogas playground right now. A sincere apology would be a start and a solution to our problem and might convince some of the naysayers. Maybe I am wrong and it is too late.
Maybe you have a better approach, while addressing my concerns and that of others.
I am looking forward to your answer. Stay dashy!
For me, the question isn't whether his style is 'a weakness' or not, but - 'does he have a point'. An opinion which I have held and expressed for a LONG time is that many of the projects to date have either addressed the adoption objective indirectly by funding their own enterprises as a priority, or have simply not thought things through very well.
There are of course some great exceptions, but waste in the DAO is chronic and it's not really surprising that some robust views emerge about it - particularly when people are busting their buts for a project that they have no personal equity in, on behalf of the community.
I would prefer that some of Max's statements in the past had been written in a more palatable way and have called him out on it like everyone else. I've even had my "defund the f*ckr" moments. But I actually don't think he means for them to come across as antagonistic as they do. The fact is that in written communications, any naked opinion that isn't couched in a large helping of cotton wool is going to challenge sensitivities whether it has a valid basis or not. That is why I urge people to watch the more informative video interview of him in person at Money 2020 and to take note of Scott Farnsworth's commentary since he is someone who has invested his own time and energy in getting to know Max and making an appraisal of his business sensibilities.
The "sensitivities" I mention above may of course count for something significant - I'm not saying they should be dismissed at all. But the measure of whether they do is that they are consistent with an equally valid appraisal of the project execution and delivery which in this case they are not IMO. At the same time, I believe that Max has taken some heed of complaints about his forum style which looks a bit more developed to me this time around.
In my personal view he should just stop typing and do all his responses on video as he comes across far better in that medium and is less likely to be mis-understood. But that's a matter for him. I intend to support the funding round for now anyway.
Why do you think James is not intervening? To me it is painfully obvious he as CEO made a terrible choice in unleashing the Drako on the community.
The "division" in the community is only in opinion, nothing else. It's not necessarily unhealthy as long as it's not catastrophic (which it's nowhere near being right now) and has helped to crystallise opinion and force some serious introspection amongst all of us - me included.
One is people sitting comfortably behind PC screens trying to foster a cosy club-like sentiment and seeing this as "just another project amongst projects". The other is people "out in the field" with long term industrial objectives who spend every day talking to customers, regulators, commercial partners and developers who have a completely different set of priorities.
I can see how one perspective could potentially appear "poisonous" from the perspective of the other at times.
And I respect your opinion that it is not so much a weakness in your eyes.
It is still intangible.
And that today every written word has to be put into cotton balls, or someone gets offended. You are so right.
But when I overstep a line and I hurt/ offend someone, I can heal the situation by addressing that accompanied by an apology. Max Yoga hinders that development and the success of Kuva at the moment, again. If his conviction is “No matter what” I don’t see an apology as a big issue.
His apology is needed to get Kuva through and to be a better DAO.
It is a solution in my opinion.
I can‘t think of anything else to get Kuva through at the moment, and nobody even the big fighters on this platform like yourself or A_node_to_a_master are having a better idea to turn the sentiment.
Please correct me if I am wrong.
The point of pain lies in unethical behavior, that for a majority of MN is a NoGo.
Well you can make a case that the smarter one should give in. You already did. I also can understand that.
But wouldn’t be my suggestion not even smarter?
I want to invite Immanuel Kant into the discussion:
"Act only on that maxim by which you can at the same time want it to become a general law."
From that base forms a question, that has serious impact on our future.
Do we want, that a proposal owner should be able to attack others in order to push his own agenda?
Do we want, that a proposal owner tries to deceive us, with several aliases and accounts to push his agenda? (Even if those actions are emotional and the proposal owner think this practices might bring them success because it is the experience they made from previous endeavors)
Should this be our law how everybody should operate in our DAO?
This is a big precedent. If we don‘t demand the certain respect now it has a serious impact on others and our future.
If Kuva succeeds like that, others will notice and start acting accordingly. Imagine the future mess. I can tell you how that will end! A possible (maybe unlikely but still possible) future you have not considered by your Yes-vote. That is definitely not in my interest and that of others!
And remember I am not a Naysayer. I am waiting for his sincere apology and the votes will turn in Kuvas favor. Simple and easy. Not that it will change anything at the moment.
I can probably live with that as an epitaph to our fruitful exchange if you're agreed ;)
Thanks for taking the time to put together this lucid response.
If serious projects like Kuvacash don’t get funded because a few delicate individuals with a lot of MN’s have their noses put out of joint far too easily by a strong personality, and stop assessing a project by business merits and instead only by emotion, Dash will not be a viable project in the long term.
In any case cheers for trying to talk a bit of sense here, much appreciated.
Thanks,
Drako
You still don't get it. Belittling non-supporters (aka "detractors") is not going to get you to your intended goal.
It is understandable if this was overlooked in the first proposal that got funded in September 2017 when the treasury had a healthy budget due to price appreciation. Drako validated the claim that he intends to request minimum 130-150K USD per month for next 18 months.
Source: https://i.imgur.com/1oWaEse.jpg
Validation: https://i.imgur.com/j1aY1Yv.png
When you weigh the high risk of failure against the long-term impact of sidelining future alternative proposals, it would be wiser to integrate with a cryptocurrency remittance service like https://bitmari.com/ that’s already established in Zimbabwe with a working mobile app. For example BitMari already has expansion plans for another twenty additional countries. The cost of integration will be a fraction of the cost and a lot less risky.
I appreciate the network have put a lot of time and $1.25+ million into KuvaCash. I am just not sure we have done our due diligence in evaluating the proposition. It is now at this late stage we are at a crossroads and need to ask some serious and sensible questions. Do I accept the loss of a foot now or potentially a whole leg later on? Do we cut our losses now or potentially incur much larger losses later?
This is an overview of the project to date. We already voted and approved KuvaCash treasury funding of 4183 Dash. If this proposal passes it will bring the total treasury funding of project to 6763 Dash. I believe as a group we are savvy enough to avoid sunk cost fallacies, aka the "we've funded them this far, we should see it through regardless of outcome" approach, in our investment appraisals.
The treasury is expected to pay out a minimum 130-150K USD per month for next 18 months. The network has no equity in KuvaCash and all the risk. That’s a very inefficient way to go about getting adoption. I don’t want to encourage future proposal owners thinking they can come to the network to bootstrap their start-up. I am much more confident in proposals where we pay for a straight up service that is understandable, low-risk, and deliverable within a short time frame.
With available treasury funding at a low due to price downturn, we need to be strict and sensible with how we allocate funding. We are not in a position to commit to a long-term high-risk business proposition all in the hope and promise of adoption. The juice is not worth the squeeze in my opinion.
With the Petro launching in November, I would prefer to focus our energy and efforts supporting internal ongoing projects like Venezuela and DCG--making sure the Dashpay app launch is a success in December--as opposed to external projects with a high risk of failure.
If I look at the prospect through the eyes of a bank manager or venture capitalist, I honestly wouldn’t give KuvaCash a loan as it is simply too risky. I think it would be very ambitious to suggest KuvaCash has even a 50% chance of success. It is good to be optimistic, but in a market downturn we need to be conservative. It’s good risk management. I would rather put funding to work on safer, more understandable projects.
Even if the prospect were attractive, I do not think we should engage treasury funds hoping that the PO succeeds in business and makes lots of money, helping Dash in the process. This is not the kind of proposal treasury money is intended for. We should be getting what we pay for. We pay for a help desk, we get a help desk. We pay for an integration, we get the integration. Things that directly benefit Dash without betting on someone's business savvy.
Quote:
" If I look at the prospect through the eyes of a bank manager or venture capitalist, I honestly wouldn’t give KuvaCash a loan as it is simply too risky. I think it would be very ambitious to suggest KuvaCash has even a 50% chance of success. It is good to be optimistic, but in a market downturn we need to be conservative. It’s good risk management. I would rather put funding to work on safer, more understandable projects. "
With all do respect, you're showing you don't really have allot of experience and understanding, of this subject matter. Because first if you can go to a bank manager instead of a VC, you'll very likely take the bank loan for set interest rate instead of a VC that will demand equality in the company, and businesses really really don't want to give up equity.
In this Case KuvaCash really is in the territory needing to ask for VC funding, bank for the most part only deal with low risk loans. This also will mean that KuvaCash will may have to give up more than that they want, it could be possible that for example they will demand that bitcoin will be part of the KuvaCash app as well.
If you're assuming KuvaCash or any startup for that matter has 50% chance of success you're way off. The General success-ratio is at 10% . This may sound low but it's not.
The basic reasoning is this:
You risk you're investment to gain x amount. IF the chance for success is 10% and you'll need at least 10x minimal return. to make that investment worth the risk.
So now look at KuvaCash:
KuvaCash says it will look at this project initially just one month.
lets round it up to $150.000 investment that the initial risk we have, obviously this will be continued evaluation so if first month looks good we could be looking at 18 months 150.000*18=2,7 mil.
2,7mil is obviously allot of money, but if we are going to see KuvaCash running for that long, we while have run something no other crypto-currency is running this allone will off set that expensive cost somewhat, both in terms of media, prestige, and general outlook against Dash both by people in crypto and outside.
Based on the cable-car study alone we would have about 50k, if you count on the Cable-car becoming successful (read solar big possibility yes) we will be looking at a multiple of that ! That we bring us past bitcoin in terms of transactions, and does are all real world usages. If we manage to get to that stage assuming nobody else has reacted it as well, we be head of the crypto race ! That would very likely mean we be at the same price as bitcoin which is as of writing 86 x times higher ! and than you still need to factor in the fact that, instead of a crypto-gold being number 1 we have a crypto-currrency, which should further increase that price multiple times. At any-rate it would be safe to assume that the dash price could potentially increase 100x more and than some.
So basically we are risking another 150k for 1 month up to 2,7 milion to gain 100x in total marketcap. I would say the risk reward heavily in favor of funding.
Than again even if we assume, that Dash it's price would say just double even than it would be well worth the risk because we are risking 10% budget to increase our budget with 100%. So even if we would keep spending 150k per month we would in fact be gaining 1,35milion budget spending power (at current prices).
I have a question:
Q1
You're comparing
https://bitmari.com/ to KuvaCash app demo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMrvH5nosMo
It sounds like you're saying they are comparable ? Where as I see C-product and A-product. So are you saying there equal ?
Or do you also see a product a on the one-side
Thanks for taking the time to write out a response.
You are correct, this project IF SUCCESSFUL will consume approx 130-150k USD per month for at least 18 months.
Note the <IF SUCCESSFUL>. Very important.
Kuva's mission aligns perfectly with the intention of the DAO. If we are successful, well, we'd be one of the ONLY projects on the DAO to be successful - and we'd be doing this with a historic use case. For now, we just need to get to launch our software - which has been attested to as being beautiful and on-par or even exceeding propositions like Revolut. It may seem strange - but please do check with @solarguy or @krish. Or @babygiraffe or @snogcel who have just seen it as well.
You don't need to be anymore on whether we have 'business savvy' or not. Here is a list of achievements - from the proposal above;
1. ADLA Tier 1 license received from Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe -
2. Kuvacash head offices established in Harare, inspected by RBZ, amendments made, re-inspected and full operational license signed off for ADLA Tier 1 operations.
3. We have the Kuva app and software produced to enterprise standards, have demonstrated (tested fully, demonstrated at Moneyconf and additional functionality to DW), showcased it in a video demo and had two members of the community view it (@solarguy installed on his own handset for the attestation, and @krish was shown over Hangout)
4. We have the required financial services partnerships signed and ready to go - from bank accounts to exchange services to remittance businesses with customer bases. It forms a complete ecosystem and operational stack, and provides for services that are needed in order to facilitate adoption by businesses and users alike.
5. With Kuva, we have a brand and positioning that makes sense and is compelling in particular to users in Zimbabwe (The word itself means, phonetically 'To Have' in Shona).
6. Through professionalism, transparency and record-keeping, communication (which was perhaps overly long at times) and cooperation with Dashwatch, Kuvacash is a project that has set the standard for reporting on the DAO.
7. NDA's executed with two major telecommunications companies in Zimbabwe with a reach of over 4M people
8. Application prepared with the assistance of FSCOM and submitted to the FCA for an MSB license in the UK
9. Feasibility study completed for a ropeway-based transportation infrastructure project where ticketing is paid for through Kuvacash using Dash, and an NDA signed by a major pension fund that approached Kuva to provide investment for the building of the ropeway (a 28-million USD capital outlay - Dashwatch attested). This alone would lead to 40-60k organic transactions PER DAY (multiple scenario analysis produced by the leading firm in cable car studies). Yes, that's more than VZ does in several years.
Add to that we now have closed a deal for provisioning physical and virtual prepay credit-cards which can be charged directly in the app (James just closed the deal).
So yes, business savvy.
Are our incentives aligned? Our initiative leads to a major real-world use-case, essentially the holy grail of crypto - and we're at the cusp of launching this with some very beautiful software.
I know we have our differences @Red, but your arguments above do not make a case - let me also address these quickly.
1. "Even if they process millions of transactions on a national scale, I don’t believe it is even close to generating enough income to sustain their operations." Dude, if we are producing millions of transactions on a national scale per day, WE'VE WON and Dash has won along with us. We would be generating multiple million dollars per month, and will have landed Dash in Zimbabwe as a mainstream money system. So your statement makes no sense at all and most MNO's might say 'what the hell are you talking about Red?'...
2. "...it would be wiser to integrate with a cryptocurrency remittance service like https://bitmari.com/ that’s already established in Zimbabwe with a working mobile app"...Bitmari simply proves there is demand for what we offer, they also don't support Dash at all - not even non-exclusively. We are well ahead with our licensing and operations stack, we are Dash-exclusive. This is a non-argument.
3. ...I appreciate the network have put a lot of time and $1.25+ million into KuvaCash. I am just not sure we have done our due diligence in evaluating the proposition. It is now at this late stage we are at a crossroads and need to ask some serious and sensible questions. Do I accept the loss of a foot now or potentially a whole leg later on? Do we cut our losses now or potentially incur much larger losses later?..." If we are not funded to launch, MNO's would be creating the loss. Presently there is no loss to the network, if anything - Kuva and it's IP, licenses and structure is actually now worth more than the network paid for it. But yes, you could de-fund it and we could go elsewhere, that is true.
4. "...The treasury is expected to pay out a minimum 130-150K USD per month for next 18 months. The network has no equity in KuvaCash and all the risk..." The network funds projects that increase the adoption of the Dash ecosystem. We expand the adoption of the Dash ecosystem. Our incentives are aligned perfectly. This could be said of other projects that provide value to Dash - the difference is that MNO's see that we've created value for ourselves as well. Not that it was necessary but don't forget we are sharing some of that via the VCO, and we are the first to do so.
5. "...I am much more confident in proposals where we pay for a straight up service that is understandable, low-risk, and deliverable within a short time frame...." such as what Red? Your own proposal is a cost centre that gives away Dash and arguably lowers its value. Your proposal is not sustainable, unlike Kuvacash that is designed to be self-sustainable in future. There are no proposals like ours on the network currently, which are designed for self-sustainability. You want to nix the only one? Think about it properly man.
6. "...With the Petro launching in November, I would prefer to focus our energy and efforts supporting internal ongoing projects like Venezuela and DCG--making sure the Dashpay app launch is a success in December--as opposed to external projects with a high risk of failure...." Kuva and Dash Core Group are both DAO funded organisations. We have different strategic aims - simply releasing Dashpay won't do anything for Dash. You'd be best to look at proposals that are working to drive real-world adoption like Kuva - and although VZ is one approach (grassroots, unleveraged) we have a leverage approach and a lot of business traction so far. Might be worth diversifying your thinking here, because without Kuva in the mix - well what else do you have?
7. ...If I look at the prospect through the eyes of a bank manager or venture capitalist, I honestly wouldn’t give KuvaCash a loan as it is simply too risky. I think it would be very ambitious to suggest KuvaCash has even a 50% chance of success. It is good to be optimistic, but in a market downturn we need to be conservative. It’s good risk management. I would rather put funding to work on safer, more understandable projects...." Actually Kuva has been approached by funders, we have Dashwatch attested to that. All I can say is that your first statement is not correct. It is ambitious and risky yes, but there is zero chance of success if we don't launch, and I'm happy with your assessment of 50% chance of success if we do launch, if that was the case every VC on the planet would invest - I'm not sure you know how VC's assess projects like ours actually. They will fund if the project has less than 10% chance of success. I think you're not particularly informed about this aspect.
8. "...Even if the prospect were attractive, I do not think we should engage treasury funds hoping that the PO succeeds in business and makes lots of money, helping Dash in the process. This is not the kind of proposal treasury money is intended for. We should be getting what we pay for. We pay for a help desk, we get a help desk. We pay for an integration, we get the integration. Things that directly benefit Dash without betting on someone's business savvy..." You are saying that every DAO funded project should simply be a cost-center or integration? Most MNO's with an iota of business sense would disagree. The DAO is there to fund projects that increase Dash adoption in a sustainable way.
I realise we have our differences - and thanks for the opportunity to bring out some questions others are asking and allowing me to address these.
You can, I hope, like the majority of MNO's clearly see that there isn't an argument for not launching Kuva.
Thanks,
Drako
That's all very well and good but you neglected to mention the only achievement that would reflect business savvy in my book: profits leading to sustainable operations.
re: major real-world use case, essentially the holy grail of crypto
I do not believe you've made a sufficient case of this. Where are your metrics?
re: 1. "if we are producing millions of transactions on a national scale per day..."
Are you posing hypothetical, or actual projections? What are your actual projections 18 months out for: number of transactions per day, average transaction size, average profit per transaction? At a minimum, it is incumbent on you to provide these if you want to make a business case.
re: 2. "Bitmari simply proves there is demand for what we offer"
It also proves you don't have the first mover advantage. Users won't care whether the platform supports Dash or some other crypto. Calling it a non-argument contradicts the facts. Bitmari integration may well indeed represent an opportunity for Dash.
re: 3. "you could de-fund it and we could go elsewhere"
Could you elaborate on what you mean by "go elsewhere?"
re: 4. “The difference is that MNO’s see that we’ve created value for ourselves”
I think you're being presumptuous. If that truly was the case your last proposal would have been funded and this proposal would have more support than it currently does. I would argue based on voting results that some of the MNO's that initially supported your first proposals now have strong reservations.
Re: 5. “Your own proposal is a cost centre that gives away Dash…”
I am not a PO. You are bizarrely misinformed about that.
Re: 6. “Simply releasing Dashpay won’t do anything for Dash.”
This comment is both disrespectful to Core and the network. Whether Dashpay and Evolution is a success or not remains to be seen. You do not know what Core has planned for the future. Downplaying Core's efforts and roadmap before release is not being fair or objective. This approach will not prove the viability of KuvaCash business model. The business case should be able to stand on its own merits without having to disparage others.
Re: 7 “Kuva has been approached by funders… They will fund if the project has less than 10% chance of success”
This is fantastic news. This means KuvaCash can proceed without 18 months of ongoing treasury funding.
Re: 8 “You are saying that every DAO funded project should simply be a cost-center or integration?”
Strawman--I am saying the DAO should not fund start-ups. I think my point here was made sufficiently clear the first time.
“MNO’s with an iota of business sense would disagree.”
This is hurtful. Can we not have a respectful dialogue on the issues?
“The DAO is there to fund projects that increase Dash adoption.”
Directly. Not indirectly as a result of your start-up panning out.
Only our views have differences from my perspective. You have actually validated and confirmed my main concerns which has only reassured me that my initial thoughts were indeed factual and correct. Thank you for taking the time to answer.
Because from where I am reading it he certainty is not attacking core, but I also understand that the word "iota" can be seen as hurtful, the video really explains quit well that is not meant in the way our feeling it. Max Yoga has his skill-set, and it does seem to translate very well on a forum (something you'll see and also be said by the people in the video as well).
Not sure you really understood my responses or the business rationale. Let me address again more directly:
1. Not my projection, yours - and yes, if we were making millions of transactions, the network would love us and fund the strategy we have brought to the table to further the expansion of Dash, because it would clearly be working.
- 1a. We don't make money on p2p transactions. For Dash transactions it is network-fee only. We do however make money on several other integrated services;
- Inbound remittances 0.99%
- Outbound remittances 3.99%
- Merchant services 1.2-2.4%
- In-wallet exchange (USD<>Dash) 1.25%
- Foreign Currency outbound payments (1.2%-2.4%)
- Partner integrations direct payments (0.5-2%)
- Card funding charges (0.5-1%) and fees (per-charge cost 0.25c)
We have further revenue sources, but I think I've spelled out that we are a services entity that allows for many kinds of partnerships and revenue. Somewhere it was said that our revenues were '2% net' but that is completely incorrect, as you can see.
2. Ditto - see the above. Bitmari doesn't come close to what we are building. Making assumptions that our business model is Bitmari's is not correct @Red. See 1a. above. It proves that there is a remittance business that can be viable. Also note that Bitmari is at MVP right now, and our app and operations stack is far superior. And it's all Dash.
3. Go elsewhere means that we aim to launch no matter what. And we will take any and all options we have available to us. We will however not let down our supporters.
4. Not sure what you mean, but the IP in Kuvacash is considerable. We have software that was built extremely efficiently and which rivals the likes of an Uphold or Revolut. We have licenses that are extremely difficult to obtain. We have a feasibility study worth a lot more than we paid for it. We even own all the Kuva 4-letter domains. Not presumptuous but actual facts. Best to take another look @Red.
5. May have been misinformed - it is hard to know with everyones anonymity and connections to projects here. My apologies if this is the case and you've never had a proposal.
6. Not at all. I have a good idea of what Dash Core has planned. But they also need partners with viable use cases. We have one of the best applications in the world for crypto - and all the connections in the country to make it happen. And beautiful software. I am also a business person and have a perspective on whether just building technology and releasing it will lead to growth and adoption of that technology.
7. Thanks - it means that we don't need money for the ropeway project and bring in a lot of capital into the ecosystem, rivalling what has been generated by the DAO in total. It doesn't mean that we don't have funding requirements from the DAO to further develop the nerve center of what makes this happen, Kuvacash.
8. If you don't think the DAO should fund startups, that is your opinion and an odd category distinction. I think the DAO should fund ANYTHING that leads to the adoption and use of Dash, because that is what will lead to Dash getting adopted and used. Not whether it was a startup or not. But I'd say your view in this regard is not shared by most other MNO's.
I appreciate you giving me the opportunity to respond to your issues, and hope you understand the model a lot better now.
Thanks,
Drako
@Red but also @everyone - vote with your business brain.
Thanks,
Drako
Although you've stated some well-made points it would seem to be ludicrous to stop funding at this particular round when they are about to deliver the product that we've paid for. I realise it isn't a production rollout but it's a rollout and I want to see it. I want to see it used by these 250 people and I want to see some Dash people make a proper in-situ appraisal of it during that test phase so they can report back to the community.
So in summary, sure - reconsider long term funding by all means, but please allow this particular round to pass because the development work is substantially done. The choice is no longer between Kuvacash or no Kuvacash. It's between Dash's Kuvacash or somebody else's.
What exactly do you require in terms of "better deals" ? When @red states the following....
"When you weigh the high risk of failure against the long-term impact of sidelining future alternative proposals"
... I have to wonder what smorgesbord of "future alternative proposals" he has in mind because I don't see a single one that's remotely equivalent. Nor do i expect one to appear that's as well executed or as productive across the board of regulatory, technical and commercial challenges.
Please feel free to fill me in :-)
Please do read Roger and my responses to @Red. He raised many questions which are in the mind of the no voters, but these were addressed in full - many of his perspectives were naive (not a bad thing, it gives us an opportunity for discourse), and I hope people got to learn more about the project and how we think.
I hope you reconsider - Kuva is a real chance for Dash to make history in Africa, and I'd like everyone to be a part of that making of history!
Thanks,
Drako
I think you mean 'YES' voters have answered all concerns in full - and in some detail. Thank you for helping with that,
Thanks,
Drako
In regards to Kuvacash:
https://youtu.be/AeW5sDGLcMk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AeW5sDGLcMk&feature=youtu.be&t=1675
Will take a few mins, and worth your while.
Thanks,
Drako
https://youtu.be/AeW5sDGLcMk?t=1675
I just want explained why is the cost for Software development so high at this stage? What is left to be done? Why is the cost for executive team so high and why is the travel expenses so high? Why are the ground operations costs so high? How many people will that involve and what is their individual salary? What about the legal and advisory fee? why is that so high? I thought you had all the agreements already in place?
What about the cable car service? what is that?
Its an fantastic product that you have, but I am not happy with:
* The costs
* The rate of launch, i.e. number of initial users etc is to low.
* The calculated ROI for dash (all other proposals should also have this though..)
Voting NO for now, but I might change to YES if I can get justification for the costs and so forth and a better/planned trajectory for number of users for the coming year
Thanks for the support on the project in the past. Let me answer a few questions - many have been addressed in the proposal but I’ll aggregate a few here.
The executive team is responsible for partnerships, legal, finance, and product design/delivery - it is not just a business delivering software, but an entire ecosystem with 8+ partners, regulatory licensing in Zimbabwe and the UK, and ongoing business development.
Regarding the software, please watch the demo - this is currently the most sophisticated system ever built with DAO funds outside of Dash Core. I am happy to give you a demo anytime as well just PM me.
We were extremely efficient in the delivery of the software and integrations - consider its not just an app but a full suite of integrations with our partners for the in-and-outbound remittances, exchange to USD, Kuva wallet itself, Agent application, back-office and reporting/security/performance monitoring/compliance...
We are ensuring through the pre-pilot that our full operations stack, our partners, our software is as good as it can be, we’ll need to concierge users through this process as they are our launch platform. We cannot simply launch to 500-1000 people, it would fall over. So we stage our launch approach, and the first target we have is to get to the point that ‘users will love our service’. This is a best practice approach. We are a leveraged approach - regarding ROI - ie our initiatives are with partners that have 50k-4M customers. We will have data on our projected margins and usage following the pilot.
The cable car feasibility study is an infrastructure project that we are leading in Harare. We are not paying for its build, but the exclusive payments system is Kuvacash/Dash. The demand model is 40-60k transactions per day. Solarguy has attested to the report here, please do read it -
https://medium.com/@solarguy2003/kuvacash-cable-car-pie-in-the-sky-deal-breaker-or-leverage-with-the-government-and-new-use-case-bf7bafa52753
Two major institutional investors have approached us to fund the cable car - this is attested by Dashwatch who we showed that the approach was from the investors and that we are now in negotiations.
Let me know if you have any other questions meantime, and hope you can help us get to launch!
Thanks,
Drako
Very much appreciated, and I appreciate you taking the time to watch the interview.
Thanks,
Drako
This was almost a predictable outcome when this proposal was made towards the middle of the month requesting ALL the remaining budget. Since the last proposal kuva made, the budget is tighter, drako has bad talked more other projects and he is requested more of the budget. Not very conducive for a passing proposal.
There is very little chance that kuvacash is passing this month, or any month when Drako goes around bad mouthing other projects. It's just not the way to get this through. I wonder though if Drako new this, and the possible rejection of this proposal will be a way to justify another goal.
My biggest fear is that in a few months when we release Evolution and all the new goodies that come with it, well that a lot of our community will have just have destroyed each other.
I might vote yes to a Kuvacash proposal in the future, but for right now I know that if this passes, there might be 0 budget for anything else for the next few months, and then another massive fight in 3 months when kuvacash comes back with a successful 250 users. I already know that detractors will argue that the users were just bought off, and it will further divide us.
In the end I really want Kuvacash, but not like this, and therefore not now. What I really want is for people to realize that we aren't each others enemy and unite as a community foremost. We have a lot of fish to fry and divided we will not succeed.
Score each proposal and make a list. Start picking from the top and fill our budget. Do you get any proposals that are above the Kuvacash one? If yes which ones and why do you believe they score higher than Kuva? If not then why bother about something that is not directly in our control (limited budget) ?
"In the end I really want Kuvacash, but not like this, and therefore not now. "
The business relations that Kuvacash has already developed cannot just sit idle for when we feel comfortable funding Kuva. The people that work for Kuva are not able to put a pause on their life and wait for us as well.
You don't want Kuva like this but that doesn't guarantee that you'll have the chance to get it in some other way.
Therefore if not now then when? and more importantly how different from the one we have at the moment?
I understand the second part that they just can't wait. But there are certain realities to face that aren't always peachy. If he had tried to form a "survival" business plan that would have worked with other projects instead of against them then I most likely would have voted yes.
I completely agree on the "survival" business plan. I would also have liked to see that from Kuva. I also tried to start that discussion, but they don't move and inch and just demand that others be defunded.
D-A-CH is discussing everything transparently, asks for advise on what they want the network to scale down etc. @essras job itself is on the table. They adapt and cooperate and just want to do their job, while I have to now act as a kind of unpaid Vice-Ambassador for the Embassy because all the great moderation rules in the Nation apparently are not enough to prevent what damage this behavior is doing.
Thanks for stepping up to this.
Please read JW Weatherman’s report on DACH, and enough of shilling it endlessly please on other proposals in the face of the evidence it’s not actually delivering value.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1gcF1kncFDgX0YHtAV2H-Y0fatnoVAcXesIDqig6jTpg
Thanks,
Drako
Keen to hear which proposals you prefer, if you are willing to share.
I will always, as an MNO, discuss openly which ones I feel don’t deliver value to Dash. My apologies if this has upset you, but I’m an experienced entrepreneur and can make valid assessments about other proposals that I wish to share with the community.
If people get upset because they feel their proposals are threatened and vote with that in mind, I suggest that it is not voting with Dash in mind - it’s voting with your feelings, which is not good business.
Thanks,
Drako
I am not sure everybody sees your evaluation that 5K EUR per month as a budget for a presence in Austria, Germany and Switzerland is sufficient or your qualification of various other proposals as driven by "Hopium" as particulary valid business assessments.
I have been put into a camp through your activities as a combineds MNO-Sub-MNO-Delegator-PO, roles you switch so swiftly, that you even post a MNO post from a Kuvateam account.
I actually really have better things to do than to waste my time on Discord, because you have to attack other proposals, while yours is crashing, something I and other have predicted month ago would happen, if you keep your modus operandi.
You brilliantly unleashed a wave of scrutiny, scepticism or even downright hostility towards other proposals, you openly attack or even threaten Core Group members, and at the same time you are telling the MNO how happy we all should be to have you on board and to be less emotional?
Really?
Have you read JW Weatherman’s report on Kuva?
Did you also read his assessment on DACH?
I understand that as a German speaker you may be in full support of DACH, but I feel that this is deeply clouding your judgement.
Read JW’s report and let me know what you think. Do you agree with its conclusions to defund DACH?
Happy to discuss further, but perhaps move to Dash Nation as this is a discussion on the Kuva proposal.
For reference, the two reports are here:
DACH:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1gcF1kncFDgX0YHtAV2H-Y0fatnoVAcXesIDqig6jTpg
Kuva:
https://docs.google.com/document/u/1/d/1BOhFbGgKub1NQHa5uJ6tnyk-4jRqAW5BtLlrOdnSUhU/
Thanks,
Drako
First of all, thumps up for the presentation. If it were just for the presentation this proposal screams for a big yes.
I like the general idea and the business case of Kuva, the things that have been achieved and to get a foothold in Zimbabwe as a market and its use-cases.
But at the moment we have 194 no votes and 10 abstain.
Why is that many of you ask? Stupid biased MNO?
Here a simple reason:
All of you who say, let me quote Tao for this: „feelings for the proposal owner should be put aside“, are wrong in my opinion.
Lets base this wild assumption on a book with years of empirical evidence.
- Fred Kiel „RETURN ON CHARACTER“ .
To be really simple we can all agree that business boils down to TRUST. And Draco lost his due to his attitude and rhetoric with a majority of the MNO a while ago.
I remember giving him feedback and predicted that he will fail. But still no change has been made on his side. Not then not now as far as I can tell at the moment.
He is not able to reflect and understand that toughness might be a strength in convincing African politicians or other tough entrepreneurs, but in contrary this skill is a big weakness if you want the support and trust of a DAO that consists of different people and cultures.
And that is why he will probably fail again this cycle.
To give you some toughness back Draco, it is not clever at all to handle a problem or situation where you didn‘t succeed the same way again and again.
My advice:
Kuva (Draco) needs to regain back trust to convince those who doubt the whole project at the moment.
But how can this be achieved?
1. This is a simple one: A sincere apology could be a start.
2. Let me quote Macno: „Get stuff done, but let others talk, if your Ego is able to do so.“ The friction in being an active MNO and a PO (proposal owner) will result in the failure of the latter, if you are not really, really careful and aware how you communicate.
3. I have another one. A big one that would turn the tide for Kuva. But I guess everyone really listening to the “emotional” No-voters will figure that out easily.
For my part I will be watching from the sidelines for now.
Dear Dash network and fellow MNO: Stay Dashy!
In fact they have done rather well so far IMO and maybe those achievements (and current objectives) are where your attentions might be more appropriately directed. Please see my post further up addressing this.
as example (not meant to attack anyone, but to put things in perspective):
- We have had an aggressive main mod for the Dash Reddit channel for years, currently bad as a mod for DFN Discord channel
- We have a founder of DFN, live on air from his room with stuff like guns in the back
-Anypay (do likely not getting funded again) Talking to much about coins such as XRP
-We have had Ben Swanson work for us only to go the competing coin for 1/6 of the Budget
- We have ALT36 which also didn't show enough update, and there latest software demo was up to specs, certainly if compared it to KuvaCash it's demo video.
- DCG communication was terrible at times, and even recently, Ryan Taylor said (on the 3 amigo's) 12.4 will be out by the end of Q3 2018 or early Q4 2018, and dash evolution by the end of the year, only to state later on he was actually talking about testnet versions, and even does seem to be missing his time frame.
If people will be holding out for prefect leaders, than Dash will have it 1 mb situation as well. I would like ask the no-voters how many of you have actually had held a or know a some in a similar position as Max Yoga is holding ? Personally I have attempt my fair share starting a business from scratch, and I seen myself and other walk against all sort of problems, because no of them are perfect. Even when looking at the biggest company's and there CEO's, no of them are prefect.
Even Steven Jobs sold a large portion of stocks of Apple just as he was going to take the leadership role in Apple once again for waaaay to cheap !.
I don't think you understand, how difficult it is to apologize for something Max Yoga also been proven right for.
But lets for a second say:
Max Yoga say's sorry
Does the other side also say sorry ?
Personally I have dealt with both sides.
I'll take hard hitting but straight to the point (aka Max Yoga) any day of being personally attacked by the other side.
Just to be clear yes I felt insulted as well by Max Yoga, but he answered all my questions correctly, and yes I have been insulted by the other-side to the point they all gang up on me, with DFN mods even joining in on me !, which no proper answer given.
I am not asking for you to like me, troll me and slander me all you want if that gets you by, so go ahead and down-vote this post, I am spending my time and energy on as well. But understand that Dash is not winning a the popularity contest, and right now we aren't the friendly accepting community we were as well. All we really got is our DAO and our ability to bring to market products and service nobody else can bring to market.
KuvaCash is such product !
Do If it succeeds is a second question do, but fortune favors the bold !
Any honestly other than Masternode owners, and proposal owners how has dealt with Max Yoga in such negative way ? I have not heard one single mention of outsiders saying, Nah I have kuvacash because I hate Max Yoga ! or any negative reporting. Come to think of it it would read embarrassing "Dash will not fund KuvaCash because they dislike the CEO Max Yoga".
Personally I gladly accept a bit of harsh langue, if it will make me rich and help the most needy people in the World to survive.
But to get back to your answer. I am actually not downvoting you. Actually the contrary.
And I would like to see the vision of Kuva succeed, and of course I am not demanding that Max Yoga becomes a person similar to Steve Jobs.
Actually I am interested how you come to the conclusion that Steve Jobs was a good leader, but anyway, not important right now.
The thing is that you don’t have to be perfect. But you should be able to reflect yourself and you should learn when guidance/ help is offered.
It‘s not just me who gave him feedback and input about his behavior and its ramifications. Others did it as well.
Max Yoga isn‘t capable of doing so, that is why he fails to get enough votes for funding.
Let me quote Confucius:
„There are 3 methods how we learn: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest.“
Well it looks like Max Yoga is always aiming for the last option.
I still can‘t wrap my head around, how someone thinks that a positive reaction on your proposal will be created by attacking and badmouthing others.
Kuva made so many achievements, this baby would have been promoted itself on its own.
And without any emotion, lets count the facts! What do we have today?
The list what Max Yoga has achieved is quite astonishing, I must admit.
Although the important question today is, at what cost? You have all his achievements and on the other side a divided community, several attacks of other community members, 2 Discords, etc.
And well yes, if you attack someone the other party might fight back.
But do his achievements have any implications today on the market, the price, txn? Unfortunately not, they might in the future though, which I am pretty sure, but definitely not today,
On the other hand we have huge implications of his negative traits today, like stated above.
How do you balance that? A probable future use-case against a current more toxic community climate.
Well in my opinion the needle doesn’t turn in favor for him at the moment.
To Max Yoga: If you want to save your baby Kuva, there is still a chance.
If you choose to listen, to understand and to reflect this time, take this crash course in leadership: Go to youtube and look for SIMON SINEK 2018 – HOW TO FIND YOURSELF AND FIND YOUR WHY!
It will be 45 min of your time, but hopefully you will understand, how the deep social construct we live with works and why your current approach is destined for failure in a DAO.
Lets start to heal this mess and evolve. Evolution is coming!
Stay Dashy!
While I agree with you that there is room for improvement, I disagree with you that he could be able to do it with 45min video.
Have done my far share of communications, and watching people around including first year student to late year students and passing with flying colors.
Even do that true the basic personality remain, visible in them all. It's almost as if it's part of the laws of physics. I don't think it far to ask someone that I believe is working very hard to also counterbalance this personality, it will make his job that much harder to t he point that most people completely burn out. In fact this one of major reasons why people burn out, because there jobs demand of them to be a different person than that they are.
But In the end, I can respect that you explained yourself in such detail, not everybody can understand this aspect, because as it requires a well above average EQ (yes I mean E as in Emotional intelligence). My EQ, is probably relatively higher than my IQ. In many ways EQ is a problem all by itself well at least in the individuallistc world we live in today.
I agree with you. Change doesn‘t come very fast. And 45 min are definitely not enough. My intentions are to inspire and I hope that the other party begins to understand, because ironically I can literally see how Kuva can be saved. I might be wrong, nobody is perfect. But I was right the last time before the Kuva-proposal failed.
Well considering the answer from Max Yoga below, my efforts had little to no consequence. Change and understanding is slow. I give you that.
I really value your feedback. Maybe one day we can have a deeper discussion about management, leadership and philosophy, while having a well aged single-malt in our hands.
By saying that I want to challenge your last statement. We all change. Maybe basic personality traits remain.
And I am convinced that even after a change, those traits can come forth again. Especially when we are tired or stressed. But if impulsive behavior is your basic personal trait, I would actually think, or better I am convinced, that you have an easier life by winning over this flaw of your personal nature.
And we should consider it as a real sad story, if we have not the possibility to evolve.
Change should not be viewed in an absolute term, being the completely opposite to the person you are now. Change can be already made, when you add a new feature to your personality. It is called learning.
Let me get back to our current problem.
Max Yoga does not have to give up his personality and become a different person.
What he needs to do is to add another skill to his broad entrepreneur experience.
For example: my problem, and that of many others, is his behavior and his language, attitude towards others.
Personally I am not hostile or easily vexed like others, who have been attacked or insulted by him.
But if you want to heal a conflict you solve nothing by pointing fingers. A start is to apologize. Usually a child learns that at a very young age. Some might have not had the possibility and skipped that phase. But it is never to late imo.
To have my votes I have an easy request. A true and sincere apology. He doesn’t have to humiliate himself by doing that or destroy his ego!
I want him to acknowledge that his passion for his own project and his rough behavior caused anger, frustration + it divided the community.
I want him to understand and to acknowledge that this is bad. Really bad.
A sincere apology or I am staying out. That is the least I can give you without this little gesture.
We are at war! At war with the traditional financial system, at war with other competing projects, and haters that attack us at any circumstance possible.
We don’t need division, created by our own. We need unity in a groundwork of a challenging but respectful environment, or we might not survive. That is one of the underlying social constructs of a DAO, or grassroots-movement and similar endeavors. Everybody who does not understand that, should not be a part of it, even if that person promises the moon.
Think about it. Which side do you really want to fight with?
Furthermore, like I have said in a private conversation to Max Yoga before: a decision should be made. He is in conflict with 2 roles. He cannot be a MNO and a PO at the same time, especially during those market conditions. Few of us can. I doubt that I could do it.
Your passion and feelings for your own project will carry you away.
It is really understandable where he and his followers like Triptolemoose are coming from and why they act in that childish aggressive manner.
Nonetheless this path and corresponding attitude is destined for failure.
Which role is more important? Which role adds more benefit to the network?
To wrap it up. I really would like the vision of Kuva to succeed. But not at the current cost. What I want more is to heal the conflict and get everyone back to the table on respectful terms.
Can you see this as a solution, A_node_to_a_master? Or maybe you have another approach I can’t think of at the moment. I am also living in my bubble, which has broaden though, through time, different languages and lots of travels, but nonetheless is, and always will be a bubble.
I really appreciate your feedback or from any other fellow Dasher :)
Stay Dashy!
"
I really value your feedback. Maybe one day we can have a deeper discussion about management, leadership and philosophy, while having a well aged single-malt in our hands.
"
Similar thoughts have crossed my mind
When I look at the video with Tao, I do see someone who is allot more humble and respectful. I do see that as sort of apologize but I also see a better explanation of the person Max Yoga is.
Dashracer in the video said it best (something like this): People need to understand Max Yoga is very analytic and that does come across very well via the forums. The terms that he uses can come across as harsh but at the same time the explain things very well. When for example he explains that people are "ignorant" to a certain subject matter he is in fact right. I too (dashracer talking about himself) was ignorant, about certain subject matters, but after I got the explanation I understood why I was ignorant.
I hope that enough of apologize you.
Thank you firstly for taking time to engage here and give your opinion, I mean that. I also understand that you mean well, having had a conversation with you on earlier occasions.
I will say this - and I hope you have read my Medium article “Kuva, Dash and the Hopium Trade” - I have something I do which has done me very well in business over the years. It is as you say just as important as listening, but it is not as practiced generally, because it always has consequences, especially if you are trying to transform something that needs to change from the status quo holding it back.
It is called standing by your convictions, no matter what.
I’m very pleased, along with many others, that the toxic and overly noisy part of the community has decided to form its own ‘DFN’ group. On this group it posts up endless memes, allows people to lie, attack and pointlessly doxx (mostly our proposal and myself) any way and where it’s many ‘kooky’ members bounce around their own good opinions. I have no reason to engage with this new group, I could not care less what goes on in there. From the outside it just appears to me and many others like a child’s birthday party in a bedroom, with ketchup on the ceiling and Cheetos being flung about. Not a single serious business conversation.
If you have been following Dash Nation, you’ll note that the tone of the discussions there has allowed for more serious critique and response of my own and other proposals, so me and many other MNO’s think this is a good step forward for Dash.
Do you agree?
If so, you can say a ‘thank you’ for that, but don’t forget the numerous MNO’s who came out and called out the poisonous individuals. I also respect Tao for taking difficult action and standing by by his own convictions in the face of harsh critique and impact to his own proposal.
It pays to reflect that so far everything I have said so far in this community has for the most part come true. I mean - I also make mistakes, but not often at all. When I derail or try to derail a proposal, I’m not doing it for fun or for the benefit of my own proposal, I know it costs me votes.
It will always be for very rigorous business reasons. It doesn’t bother me one bit if people feel upset because it’s a favourite of theirs, or that they voted yes on it earlier. Or that they might be the majority. Ben Swann had over 1000 yes votes when we took him down. But nearly all MNO’s will agree now that this was the right thing to do. Well that cost me a ton of votes, but you are welcome. Same goes for the logo - we’re not under the banner of pink unicorn horseshoes because I brought it up. And you might want to have a deeper look at the low value that DACH is bringing to the network, read JW Weatherman’s report, and note that Triptole brought this up first with his research and was actually banned from DN mainly for this.
Anyway, thank you for the video link, I took a look - our philosophies on leadership widely differ, consider the this is why Kuva is a robust organisation delivering on what I said we’d deliver, in full, with the intent of making sure we land Kuva in Zimbabwe and greater Africa no matter what. And we will.
The majority, our supporters, can see this very clearly, and from what you wrote I am sure you will one day also.
Thanks,
Drako
thank you for your statement.
Standing for your convictions usually is a strong trait. I give you that. Nobody likes someone who changes its opinion and values like underwear. But it comes with a problem. What if your convictions are wrong? Maybe they are right for a specific scenario, but wrong in another situation.
“No matter what”, you say. How foolish! That is how wars are started. Because of this trait, we have so much pain in the world.
You should always be able to change and adapt. Because guess what, the world and the environment is changing as well.
But lets assume your convictions are not wrong.
Why can’t you stand for them in a fair and respectful manner? I know times are hard, and emotional impulses are driving us during those times.
But why you are so eager to call out other proposals and manage to threaten your own through this behavior, is a big riddle to me.
For me the negative implications are logical and so obvious. Not being able to see that is the reason you failed once and chances are high that you will fail again!
It really saddens me, because the Kuva vision is great and what has been accomplished.
But unfortunately it is not enough.
What might have worked in the past or at a specific circumstance is definitely not working today in this complete different environment.
If your convictions anger and frustrate people + divide the community your convictions are quite useless in my opinion. Worse they are a real threat to the organization.
If you are not able to adapt in a changing environment guess what happens.
And it is funny how I come to you and hold a mirror to present a part of yourself for improvement and your reaction is pointing the finger to others.
That is hilarious, if it would not be so sad otherwise.
If you change your mind and you want a different opinion or need some guidance you know where to find me!
To get back to your question about Dash Nation. Unfortunately I cannot thank you at all. The contrary actually. But that is not all your fault.
I don’t like what DashNation has become. Tao is a darling, but his competences in managing such a big community have been reached a while ago, I am afraid.
Lots of credit what has been built under his supervision.
But now his work is turning more and more into a centralized platform of censorship.
I don’t like it very much when my speech is deleted. Guess what will happen to those systems?
Don’t get me started on the million masternode channels. Sad development.
It might feel in your bubble that the situation has improved. Now you don’t have to listen to the critical voices.
It is understandable that it feels better to live in a bubble where you only get approving feedback from fans and supporters. But you make less progress than in an environment where everyone can speak its mind.
And it wont help your cause, by convincing only half of the masternodes.
I personally don’t spend much time at Taos discord anymore.
If you ask me, Tao, as the father of Dash nation, should let it go, like every father has to. Give up power and decentralize it with simple rules. For example: Always be respectful with each other!
I will make another prediction. If Tao doesn’t follow in Evans footsteps, his Discord-Dash-Nation-channel will be less and less important in the near future.
Lets see and watch.
Thank you for taking the time to give your thoughts again, indeed you share your own convictions which is also good to see.
I'm sorry to hear you feel Dash Nation has changed in a way you don't appreciate - I am very thankful for the split in the community, it means that over the last week or so I've been able to share a lot more and have real business discussions for once. I don't know about the rest of the politics regarding Tao, but all I see is that the toxic elements have gone elsewhere to have the conversations they want to have, and we're getting some proper dialogue going in DN without being derailed. But let's talk Kuva here.
There are long-standing community members who used their position and back-channels to try and derail what is objectively one the most transparent projects (if not the most) on the DAO, delivering all that was to be delivered and with a real-world use-case that is meaningful. This is what Dash needs - not more Hopium.
So vote using your business brain. Because one way or another we will get this landed. That's also a conviction and mission of not just me but my entire team, and why we get things done.
Thanks,
Drako
There are established proposal owners and its disciples who used and are using their position and back-channels to try and derail other projects in order to receive funding during tough market times and a tight budget.
Please look in the mirror your highness. Unfortunately you have no clothes on!
The result: a divided community, which you propagate because it fits you.
Till now we have no understanding how bad this is or even an apology for this destructive behavior.
Your phrase "..the toxic and overly noisy part of the community..." where you discredit your critics again, refers also to you.
I have seen it with my own eyes how you behave. You have been warned. Not once. Not twice. Several times.
Those practices you have showed us here are not worthy of our trust as a decentralized community. They don't belong in a respectful DAO.
I personally don't want to live in Draco kingdom, where his critics are forced out on another discord. I apologize if that might have offended your royal ego, your Highness.
The second failure to receive funding is totally on you.
So we part again, and I also I failed in convincing and showing you a solution how the Kuva-vision and project could be saved.
At least I tried.
Good luck to you. I hope one day you stop destroying and focus only on the building part of your controversial character.
Thanks again for posting up your comments.
Just quickly - you’ll note that I sign off every single post with ‘Drako’, which is me being transparent, all the time. You know who I am because I also post up my LinkedIn profile, and indeed that of the entire executive team. Perhaps I could see your LinkedIn profile? That might help me understand more where you are coming from...
I have no issue apologising for when something happens that is my fault, and the outcome was not intended by me.
Presently, there will be no apology.
I am very pleased at the outcome of the split. If one wants an entertaining place to post memes and talk endless conspiracies, swear and libel people they don’t like, there is Dash Talk.
If one wants to speak business, in a respectful way there is Dash Nation.
Not all splits are bad, and I urge you to read and meditate on what Roger has been trying to communicate to you.
If I were to apologise for the current state of the community - the split, it would not be sincere. I would be sucking up and saying things I don’t believe in, in an attempt to appease MNO’s with a point of view I don’t consider correct.
People who know me know that’s never going to
happen. Call it ego, but I call it being straight with people.
Call it a flaw but there are three things I do that have served me well but lead to all sorts of trouble, and which I won’t change. I can change my mind in the face of new information, you know exactly what I think at all times and I stand by the convictions of me and my team.
That’s not ever going to change, I hope you can see that. If you don’t feel like voting because of this, then don’t vote.
I am genuinely sorry that people felt upset by the split. I would have preferred that things resolved in a less drastic way, but here we are and all I’d like to do is continue the good work we’re doing.
Assess matters with your business brain, because that is what will make Dash succeed.
Being absorbed in the tiny blip of a community polarisation that will be forgotten in due course anyway is not as satisfying as watching two years worth of hard work that you can be proud of launch and bring Dash to Africa.
I hope you understand, and thanks again for your feedback.
Thanks,
Drako
thank you for explaining yourself in such openness and detail. I feel that we are making progress.
I understand what you mean and why you feel this split is better for you.
The mistake is that you project this feeling onto the rest of us, thinking it has a similar benefit.
Let me challenge your view with this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1MG1aR71uFg
(Or google aantonop – keeping communities weird, if you don’t trust the link.)
What do you think how the future will look like? At the moment I wd put all my REP (Augur-Tokens) on the new Alternative. I know you wd do the contrary, but let me remind you of our last conversation and how the odds are not in your favor. That doesn't mean that I (or points Andreas made) will be right this time, of course.
I like the weirdness and I love gifs. And I still can have a serious conversation there.
We have to learn to work together with every participant of our DAO, Especially the business part should get that. Even if it’s challenging and even if we don’t like some part of the other party, their ideas and because they can also hurt us back.
I wouldn’t be writing to you otherwise.
Everybody should have a voice and a seat at the table.
If we work together, we are strong, If we fight each other and split we might lose everything we have.
That’s the reason why it is so important to me for you to understand. You are the key at the moment. And of course you also made mistakes. Understandable mistakes yes, as far as how my empathy goes but still mistakes.
Tell me please to what I am referring to?
Please look at this source/ opinion in addition:
source: Strategy & business – "there’s no such thing as difficult people."
I promise that I will watch your video this evening.
Stay dashy!
Just to address your points, I watched the presentation as well a while back but made a contrasting interpretation to yours in the sense that I don't see the same conflict that you appear to with what the Kuvacash project is attempting.
@aantonopolis is addressing the priorities of communities and ordinary people. He cites cryptocurrency as a mechanism by which power and influence can be "wrested" from the hands of the elite in a passive way which is "censorship resistant, borderless and free". This is a view which all of us share.
However it isn't only going to happen in coffee shops which may form the inspiration but not the engine of said changes. The "weirdness" of Dash needs vehicles with which to infect the broader industrial realm. Listen to that presentation again: what did @aantonopolis say about the instructions that were given to him when he made presentations to corporate clients ?
"Don't say bitcoin, say "blockchain".
Contrast that scenario with what Kuvacash is doing. They make no apology whatsoever for prioritising Dash as the backbone of their entire initiative. It is proudly promoted, not hidden - just as Andreas proudly announces "I won't say 'blockchain', I will say 'Bitcoin' because Bitcoin is the future". So the objectives of both are consistent in that important respect.
Another respect in which they are consistent is "freedom". Kuvacash has been unique amongst many adoption projects in bending over backwards to liberate merchant's monetary options by giving them distinct choices for TRADING currency and STORE OF VALUE currency while making each interchangeable and concurrent. Be assured it's no easy technical feat to decouple these two in a way that allows consumers to optimise their trading performance in a user-friendly way without recourse to cumbersome wallets, technical skills, counterparties and - worst of all - time. The fact that they have applied for and secured regulatory money transfer license attests to the attention to detail in this respect IMO.
If I might be so bold, it's your own argument which is not necessarily doing justice to Andreas's principles because Kuvacash is taking the "weirdness" to a far more challenging and industrial frontier than Dash (or Bitcoin !) has ventured into hitherto and this challenge needs to be supported by us, the community IMO.
Dash is a non-return valve which will not be co-opted because it's is a bearer token. (Can't be be "owned" without being "possessed"). This gives the rest of us protection and also addresses the third of @aantonopolis's priorities of "borderless" existence. Those of Kuvacash's customer's who chose to operate in crypto will be able to avail themselves of these advantages. Even though it's true that the off-chain dimension to the project could be "controlled within borders" that's also true with any crypto-fiat gateway anywhere. It's true if you buy a sack of grain with Dash but it doesn't do anything to mitigate the progress of adoption because the blockchain and fiat are always decoupled, even if there may exist contractural relationships between off-chain entities.
In my humble opinion, Kuvacash is not the "elite" infiltrating the crypto scene but rather crypto decentralising and firewalling the banking scene. @aantonopolis vision of decentralised, empowered communities will not happen without an escape route for stakeholders in the "fiat" system into crypto. Kuvacash is just such an escape route and I urge you once again to allow its development to continue.
If you agree why are you downvoting it? But well that's another topic and maybe my perception is wrong.
Anyway I value everyone in this amazing community, all with their strengths and flaws. Thank you for your opinions and that you were engaging and challenging me in a respective way.
I just wanted to help, 'cause Kuva isn't get funded again.
Thanks Drako for the apology. It is a small start of reconciliation. Consider doing a video where you address that to everybody. Talk about your mistakes that led others to lose trust in yourself and in kuva. Take the first step by approaching the other side. Their reaction will have consequences, that can only be positive for Kuva. Maybe not now directly, but definitely in the near future. If you decide to stick with us.
I have seen your video and you can convey a much better image through that medium.
And I will say it again: stop talking about other proposals. Especially DACH. Call back others like Trip, cause they are hurting Kuva with that.
See the shoutout that was made recently here? I don't know if it's a random guy or someone from your party? A thought came up immediately that trip is involved. I am not alone with this.
And I have also considered that it might be even someone from the other side.
Sad part is, that chances are high it comes from your party, cause you have operated that way. And chances are high that you are still operating that way.
Well I give you the benefit of the doubt.
But what it achieves is, that it manifests all the negativity that has been built up the last weeks. For everybody involved. Look at the votes.
Your social media strategy is failing. Again! Well I give up for now and be sad for the rest of the weekend. Have a nice one!
Thanks for the ongoing engagement - am aware of Antonopoulos' perspective. Mine is different again - different life experiences etc.
Note that although Antonopoulos has a few points, he is not a someone who does business - he is a successful public speaker, not a successful businessman, so I'd take his advice with a grain of salt.
I have run tech startups for over 20 years, and brought an elite team together of all the people I have worked with and respect to deliver Kuva as a unicorn for Dash.
I appreciate the weirdness of our community - this is why we are here. If you are watching the 2020 interview with James, Tao and Scott, then please also read my Medium article "Kuva, Dash and the Hopium Trade". Is that written by a normie :)
Anyway, I've enjoyed our exchange so far. I'm challenging some holy cows in the community, and that has had some consequences, I realise that.
What I will apologise for is this, I'm sorry people feel that I was aggressive in putting through my convictions, but there was, and continues to be a lot of aggression coming the other way, and I'll choose to respond to that at times. I'd have preferred for there not to have been a community split, but we at Kuva have a view of how business should be done, and are walking the walk.
Let's see how all this pans out!
Thanks,
Drako
You would do well to acknowledge your own reflection. You are no successful businessman and so it goes your own advice should be treated with same such grain of salt.
Walter
Some guys on discord did an analysis of the votes and found that 82 No votes came from a single MNO.
Around ~60 individual MNOs voted YES for Kuva and only ~30 MNOs voted NO.
According to the numbers, Drako and the Kuva team have a large majority of MNOs onside.
I can imagine what those 82 votes would look like if the single whale flipped them to the YES side.
It is going to be very interesting to see how this plays out over the next 7 days.
Fingers and toes crossed for Team Kuva!
Kuvacash is a new kind of wallet designed for the African market that combines the Dash platform as store of value together with necessary services to make it easy for users to receive remittances abroad from ex-pats and relatives who have bank accounts, and cash out in USD locally.
We are launching the beach-head in Zimbabwe, then rolling out to other countries in Africa.
Please do watch the demo video in the description, it does explain the model in more detail, and shows the software we have produced. Let me know if you do have any further questions ok!
Thanks,
Drako
Thank you for watching the demo. We are taking on Ecocash, correct. But we are a more secure storage of value, provide a way to get cash out that is easier and more cost effective than Ecocash, and our user experience is far superior as well.
We are very well positioned to disrupt and take market share from Ecocash, who have c.8M customers.
Thanks,
Drako
Crypto currency+Western Union/Money aka a business model that be profitable for decades, which now will get an upgrade from VHS to DVD.
The remittances and agent cash-out is our starting proposition that we are launching now with this proposal, so you could say that is a part of it, yes.
We also have full P2P payments via Dash and merchant services (Dash-USD) in-wallet via Paycode/Contact, including cross-border (outbound) multi-currency payment services.
The services we put on top of the Dash platform make it useful and simple for people to use in their real lives as a way to pay and get paid.
It's more like VHS -> Netflix.
Thanks,
Drako
Notice how Core invited Kuva to come with them to Money 20/20? They are trying to indicate to you people how important this project is for Dashs future.
Take notice and act accordingly.
MNOs shot themselves in the foot? It had nothing to do with the poor character display by the leader of the project?
I really wanted this project to succeed just as much as anyone. But we have to excise this toxic character from the DAO. We're purposely being divided and manipulated along the way.
This is all because he lobbied against proposals linked to DFN and now they have a vendetta against him.
For the record, when/if Evolution comes out, and if it is what we expect it to be then we intend Kuva to be a showcase for the Evolution platform and to migrate everything into it.
Like many MNO’s I’m just frustrated by the delays, lack of clarity as to what it is exactly and by many community members believing it to be what will ‘save’ Dash. Is that fair enough?
Real-world use cases for Dash will be what makes it succeed. The Evolution platform may indeed assist with moving this along, but we need to see it hit the tarmac, and soon.
Thanks,
Drako
Drako and James have been invited by Dash Core Group to be at the Money2020 conference in Las Vegas starting tomorrow.
Please drop by the main Dash exhibit to meet us and have a chat and if you would like to see it, get an in-person demonstration of the Kuvacash app and software.
Thanks,
James and Drako
******
-A "pre-pilot" misleadingly labelled "launch" where actually nothing was ever planned to be launched, just "tested" "EMOTIONAL MNO!!"
-Lies about "winding down operations" on not being funded when there were still more than enough funds to run "EMOTIONAL MNO!!"
-No planned equity for the DAO and no committments to provide equity as soon as DashVentures makes it possible "EMOTIONAL MNO!!"
-No ROI for the forseeable future "EMOTIONAL MNO!!"
-Continued requirement for (MASSIVE) monthly funding even after project completion, still without any equity, not even suggested, let alone promised "EMOTIONAL MNO!!"
-The arrogant speculation sold as fact that Zimbabwe is suddenly going to explode in cryptocurrency usage ("Once in a lifetime opportunity") under the delusional assumption that a centralized entity like Kuva is going to make a massive splash "just because", when there's already comparable services active in that region "EMOTIONAL MNO!!"
-A selfish and greedy Treasury ask intentionally and maliciously designed to bump out other proposals "EMOTIONAL MNO!!"
Simple question: How many merchants in Zimbabwe adopted Dash because of Kuva's efforts? Answer: "EMOTIONAL MNO!!"
Deeply emotional good opinion (M)NO
Hoping that 1 million a year is going to gove dash attraction when clearly dach is lining their own pockets.
No reason dash should be wasting funds to run embassys, btc and others have been doing it without dao funding.
This can also be directed at Evolution. Truth is that good software solutions take time to develop.
-A "pre-pilot" misleadingly labelled "launch" where actually nothing was ever planned to be launched, just "tested" "EMOTIONAL MNO!!"
This proposal handles the pre-pilot and pilot. In both these phases the product will be live and one aspect of these phases is indeed testing and debugging.
Both vital for launch. If you are bothered by a title then say so but cranking it up to "misleading" is disingenuous. It isn't a public launch but it IS a launch of the actual product.
-Lies about "winding down operations" on not being funded when there were still more than enough funds to run "EMOTIONAL MNO!!"
The reserves that Kuva had were always public information. Enough to last for 2 months (based on basic monthly rate). The new proposal came at the same time of these 2 months passing.
Kuva was clear about needing more funding to continue with pre-pilot and pilot phases and that it couldn't be done on their reserves.
Since there was no pre-pilot and pilot executed there was no lie about winding down. Launch operations were stopped when Kuva didn't get funding. There is no lie here.
-No planned equity for the DAO and no committments to provide equity as soon as DashVentures makes it possible "EMOTIONAL MNO!!"
No one else has done this. Dash Ventures is still not complete. Is this a concern about enriching Drako and James by using DAO funds?
That cannot happen because Kuvacash is held in trust (attested by DW). The only way for anyone to profit from Kuvacash is by it being successul so Dash appreciates in price and the VCO tokens are profitable.
In that scenario everyone that holds Dash profits and MNOs also have the benefit of the VCO tokens.
So what exactly is the issue here?
-No ROI for the forseeable future "EMOTIONAL MNO!!"
What's the ROI on the rest of the proposals? At least with the launch, data will be gathered to provide such a metric.
-Continued requirement for (MASSIVE) monthly funding even after project completion, still without any equity, not even suggested, let alone promised "EMOTIONAL MNO!!"
Again the issue here is? The DAO is for funding Dash projects. Massive funding is required for massive projects. DGC, Evo, DACH also require massive monthly funding.
-The arrogant speculation sold as fact that Zimbabwe is suddenly going to explode in cryptocurrency usage ("Once in a lifetime opportunity") under the delusional assumption that a centralized entity like Kuva is going to make a massive splash "just because", when there's already comparable services active in that region "EMOTIONAL MNO!!"
There is some speculation but there is also solid feedback on the demand and viability of such a service. The fact that comparable services already exist and being used not only lowers the barrier to entry but shows that there is indeed interest for such services. Zim citizens need ways to do "banking".
These comparable services have been analysed by Kuvacash in order to build the Kuvawallet which will offer similar functionality with better rates. There is also the recent taxing of 2% of e-money that doesn't affect Kuvacash. Another competitive advantage for Kuvacash to note.
Plus the cable car study attracted institutional investors (attested by DW). In case it gets a green light only Dash can be used for it.
Why do you believe that the team that managed to get this far until now won't be able to manage to aquire a respectable piece of the digital money pie in Zim?
-A selfish and greedy Treasury ask intentionally and maliciously designed to bump out other proposals "EMOTIONAL MNO!!"
Can you back up your statement? Where exactly was the budget inflated so that it could be big enough to bump out other proposals? How it was desinged that way?
Selfish and greedy? This isn't a rational statement.
Simple question: How many merchants in Zimbabwe adopted Dash because of Kuva's efforts? Answer: "EMOTIONAL MNO!!"
At the moment 0.
Simple question, honest answer: Are you 100% positive that defunding Kuvacash is the best option going forward for Dash?
You're supposed to be a professional, ending a sentence wit all caps "EMOTIONAL MNO!!"
Clear is not that. Calling people liarers with out backing it up isn't far either and it's called slander.
-A project that runs on "Hopium" and has to offer no publicly available product whatsoever despite ages of development "EMOTIONAL MNO!!"
> There is a demo+Dashwatch has down there audits
Question are you saying Dashwatch is doing something ?
- A "pre-pilot" misleadingly labelled "launch" where actually nothing was ever planned to be launched, just "tested" "EMOTIONAL MNO!!"
> Yes you must be emotion because I was quit clear to me that it was a pre-pilot
-Lies about "winding down operations" on not being funded when there were still more than enough funds to run "EMOTIONAL MNO!!"
Question: What lies are you referring 2 ? From what I know the launch date of KuvaCash was going to be sooner, so doesn't that proof that KuvaCah was winding down ?
-No planned equity for the DAO and no committments to provide equity as soon as DashVentures makes it possible "EMOTIONAL MNO!!"
> Almost all proposals offer no equity, and you have keeping up, it's still not very easy to set it up.
Question: You only want to blame KuvaCash for this and let all others of the hook ?
-Continued requirement for (MASSIVE) monthly funding even after project completion, still without any equity, not even suggested, let alone promised "EMOTIONAL MNO!!"
> The word Massive is very relative, if Dash it's budget would have been at 10milion this would be peanuts, or if only the feasibility study, which could at 60k transaction per day on the actually dash blockchain, allone would be worth it
-No ROI for the forseeable future "EMOTIONAL MNO!!"
> This was clear from there initial proposal, would you rather have they actually Lie ? If look at what predictions have been done by proposal owners in the past and all other crypto's for that matter, most have missed the mark by a mile and then some.
-The arrogant speculation sold as fact that Zimbabwe is suddenly going to explode in cryptocurrency usage ("Once in a lifetime opportunity") under the delusional assumption that a centralized entity like Kuva is going to make a massive splash "just because", when there's already comparable services active in that region "EMOTIONAL MNO!!"
> So are you calling the teams in Venezuela arrogant as well? Plenty of bold statements from them as well. (Just to be clear I am calling, neither one arrogant)
-A selfish and greedy Treasury ask intentionally and maliciously designed to bump out other proposals "EMOTIONAL MNO!!"
> That a whole different question Dash does not have any formal or informal rules how to deal with it.
Maybe we should have some votes on it or something instead of claiming that it not allowed. From my point of view. Leaving that at the side for now ( I am not pretending to be the judge what is and is not allowed by MNO and PO). What I can say about it some of it has been proven right. Because nobody can't deny that for example Ben Swanson, got his studio paid by Dash, and then when on to ask for another big budget, which was to larg, yet he was able to do it for "smartcash" for 1/6 of the price the asked for Dash.
Question:
To you're point about demanding equity, where is Dash it's equity in Ben Swanson studio ?
You’re asking us how many merchants we have in Zim before we have even launched?
I realise you are deeply distressed after being kicked off Dash Nation for posting inaccurate information and then insulting the owner of the forum. I recognise that you are also a member of the DACH team and certainly don’t like my views on them, as I don’t feel they deliver value to the network.
If you step back you will realise, like many other MNO’s here, that Kuvacash is organised, transparent and professional, and has gotten tremendous publicity for Dash. See the demo video for the quality of what we have produced. It is a real use case, and a real opportunity.
If you remain triggered and posting endless libel, all you do is discredit yourself to other MNO’s.
That’s all I have to say on the matter - MNO’s can read our proposal and decide for themselves.
Thanks,
Drako
Further projects such as the Cable Car tickets for Harare....? big hmm. Yes, a running model of Dash payments but a very high risk project in regards to general feasibility.
Thanks for the support, and yes we're only seeking funding the remittances and Kuva wallet pre-launch and pilot.
The cable-car is a longer term project, but the cable car study has led us to major funders approaching us, because it is actually a very thorough feasibility study and demand analysis. A lot of funds are now targeting frontier markets, as that is where the growth is. Dashwatch will attest to this shortly (today I hope).
In short, the rest of the funds for the cable car project (c. 28M usd) are to be sourced from institutional investment or other sources - while Kuvacash and Dash would be the exclusive way to pay for it. Please read @solarguy's attestation and analysis of the report here -
https://medium.com/@solarguy2003/kuvacash-cable-car-pie-in-the-sky-deal-breaker-or-leverage-with-the-government-and-new-use-case-bf7bafa52753
Thanks,
Drako
Yes we will launch first wave of main launch after the pilot. This should take us to 500-1000 users, but will depend on how quickly we can manage ramp-up.
We estimate that it will be approximately the same cost for the Wave 1 full launch, but If indeed we are doing well (as the data would indicate) and require funding for this we may ask for a separate ‘boost’ proposal, as the network may want us to accelerate activities if our strategy is indeed successful (in comparison to other approaches currently being taken).
We also have ancillaries that may come up as we develop the business - for example the credit card integration which we have recently closed (a difficult process, if you know anything about this sort of thing). We assume the network would be ok backing that kind of initiative and for large-cost items we may put in a separate proposal.
The Kuva credit card integration is unique and may actually make it useful to a few Dash hodlers who want to spend their Dash easily.
Thanks,
Drako
Hope you understand that the pre-pilot and pilot is to ensure that the software is perfected and we ensure our operations are shape to scale out.
It is not appropriate to put a cost-per-user metric/KPI on any pilot, because that is actually, well, not a valid metric. I mean, if we have 10 users for our pre-pilot and it cost us 1.25 million to get to that point, does that mean a per-user cost of $125,000 each?
A pilot is a necessary stage of launching any product, and the KPI’s for our pilot are actually in the successful debugging of our operations stack and services and getting the software in shape for scale out.
By the end of the pilot we want users to love our service and recommend it to other users, that is our ultimate aim.
Thanks,
Drako
At least the next 3 months to let us launch, at the same rate and hopefully we demonstrate our proposition strategy is working, we can achieve our margins and we are clear to grow.
That is the purpose of these next months, to give us some real data on our achievable margins.
If Kuva’s approach is successful we will of course be posting further proposals to grow as fast as we can, because in that case I expect the network would like to back us as much as it possibly can -
Kuva growth is Dash adoption in a real set of mainstream use cases, and this approach would be unique in the world. I believe it would have real, material impact on Dash price breaking away from other crypto’s as well.
Thanks,
Drako
I would suggest that the point of telling the network honestly how long we thought we’d be funded for, and the minimum amount (if we are a successful approach), was precisely because we were not hiding anything. This is how you know these numbers - they are from our projections and I shared them.
We would be asking for ongoing funding <if and only if> our approach is successful. In which case we feel that the network would support us to get Kuva pushed out as far and wide as possible.
Thanks,
Drako
If the network were to be funding Kuva a year from now, it would be because it became a massive success, is leading to mainstream Dash adoption and the network want it rolled out as fast as possible to other regions.
Thanks,
Drako
I know on first look it seem unusual - but this is real strategy here at work.
Solarguy has read the study and attested to it in the following article:
https://medium.com/@solarguy2003/kuvacash-cable-car-pie-in-the-sky-deal-breaker-or-leverage-with-the-government-and-new-use-case-bf7bafa52753
It was an ambitious but successful study. We will shortly attest (with Dashwatch) that it led to an institutional fund approaching Kuva to invest in the 28 M USD required. Note that all payments are contractually bound to use Kuvacash/Dash, and demand estimates show 60k transactions per day - more than all Dash transactions made for real-world use cases combined.
Thanks,
Drako
If you have traveled in most any big city, traffic can be horrendous. In my experience, a big city in Africa takes bad traffic to the next level of terrible. LaPaz has used cable cars very very successfully to reduce congestion. It could do the same in Harare. I looked very hard at the methods and the numbers, and conservative estimates put ridership somewhere between 40,000 and 60,000 per DAY. And the only way you get on, it through the use of Dash.
Sure Dash paid 100k Euro for the feasibility study. But we don't pay a penny to build the thing. Private investors are ready and willing to plunk down 28 Million dollars to build it. And the only you get to ride it, is with Dash.
solarguy
2. Do you have any concrete examples of the negative effects for Dash produced by the traits that you believe Drako has?
2. Yes
1. No.
2. Yes
Gets currently 9 up-votes !
Yet no answer given by KuvaCash is detailed enough, and also at the same time KuvaCash gets to hear to hear answers are to long.
Definitely loose cannon here. Loose cannon that gets stuff done, and you need that when you're talking hard business. I invite you to spend a single day with my team to see exactly what dynamic we have here, why our software looks amazing and why we have licenses and partnerships in place ready to go.
Thanks,
Drako
As the loose cannon you are defending likes to put it: "I call out bullshit when I see it".
Want to spend a day with my team? You’d learn a lot about how we get difficult stuff done and I guarantee it would change your tune.
The offer stands.
Thanks,
Drako
why don't you just address my criticism? Is your team even allowed to speak? Where are they? With all the lies you've told, I don't even remember what the story was, weren't they supposed to be MNO among them? Or did you just smuggle them into mno-only when you were banned, because you are a manipulative control freak? I can't remember. But they actually did a much better job than you are doing.
Can you be specific about your criticism instead of using more insults and libel? It does appear reactive and emotional, and I cannot answer to disparaging and strange statements like ‘all the lies’ and ‘smuggling’ without detail.
Clearly some of my team members are at least part-mno owners. Not all of them can be in MNO-only.
They are not here for mainly two reasons; 1. because we launch next month, and this requires a lot of attention to do (Spiro is away a week, there is a lot of pressure on presently)
and;
2. Because of the absorption required to respond to outright trolling.
They are professionals and we have important work to do, please re-write your comment and bring out the specific critique that has not been addressed, without libellous claims or ad hominem attacks and I’ll be happy to address them here.
Thanks,
Drako
Between this and DCG very little else could be funded.
Voting no.
Once KuvaCash launches there could be some good press for Dash again.
Ask yourself what would would be new investors be interested in funding ?
Thanks,
Drako
Easy Yes
Much appreciate the support, we have a lot of progress this month - will be updating the network shortly.
Thanks,
Drako
For me the answer is yes, and this this project still has my votes.
Much appreciated. Looking forward to the interview next week with you and Scott!
Thanks,
Drako
Much appreciate the support, it will be amazing when get this on the ground -
Thanks,
Drako
In short In case for KuvaCash it only seems to be come a stronger yes vote as long as you can accept some other projects don't get funded., just looking at how Venezuela it opening up to Dash, Zimbabwe is to be in a similar situation, when it comes probabilistic local/national fiat currency, and Zimbabwe is only the beginning, KuvaCash could be rolled out to multiple country's over time.
Super keen to get this landed, and thanks for the support over the year!
Thanks,
Drako