Proposal description
Software development proposal
At BitGo, we design hot and cold storage wallets which provide the highest level of security for Bitcoin and the world's most popular cryptocurrencies. Our APIs, online interface, and product features such as policies and webhooks have established our platform as the market's leading enterprise-grade wallet solution. This proposal outlines a path of buildup and integration for Dash support within BitGo's extensive product offering.
BitGo offers a suite of tools for managing wallets of multiple coin types, including the world's five largest cryptocurrencies. Our SDK and APIs are used by exchanges across the world to hold and process the currencies they support. Adding Dash support to BitGo makes it substantially easier for these exchanges and other business which have integrated with BitGo to not only add Dash to their platforms, but store and transact Dash using their wallets enabled with Dash’s InstantSend with unparalleled ease of use and security.We will be providing full support allowing BitGo customers the ability to send and receive InstantSend transactions. We anticipate that this will be well received by our customers, as it opens up possibilities of transacting at the point-of-sale as well as benefiting exchanges through instant liquidity.
Our platform processes over $10 billion in Bitcoin transactions per month, and has processed over $2 billion in Ethereum transactions since adding support late last year. In 2018, we expect volumes in other coins, such as Dash, to cross into the billions as well. Given our proven track record of support for both large transactional volume and secure handling of key material, institutional funds are turning to BitGo as a place to safely store large amounts of digital currency. Adding Dash to BitGo helps these funds to easily store their Dash alongside their other secure holdings, and greatly reduces the operational risk of holding the currency.
Bitstamp, Genesis, CME Group, The Royal Mint are only a few in an extensive list of customers and partners that trust in BitGo to solve today’s most complex business challenges in the digital currency market.
Many individuals also use BitGo to hold their cryptocurrency in wallets where they can have their own private key. Like all BitGo wallets, these wallets require 2 of 3 signatures to spend. The three keys are 1) a key controlled by BitGo unique to that wallet, 2) a user key kept offline or stored encrypted with a passphrase, and 3) a backup key stored offline or with a 3rd party. Together with our policy framework, this approach provides secure, easy access to funds and provides redundancy in the case of a lost or compromised key. Multisig is essential to BitGo's product offering and will be first-class within our Dash product as well.
In addition to the engineering, our solutions team will help onboard new customers and help them integrate Dash into their systems. Our support staff will handle inbound customer questions and help resolve any difficulties while working with Dash.
BitGo intends to use the acquired funds primarily to pay for the man-hours required for full-featured wallet integration. BitGo is a Silicon Valley company with engineers coming from Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Uber, and Tesla, and pays salaries competitive with those companies, which are some of the highest in the country. Having prioritized acquiring and retaining top talent, BitGo is positioned to build a Dash wallet with both unparalleled security and the most extensive feature set on the market.
Dash Core Group will provide escrow services for the project. The compensation is divided into three equal payments, tied to the completion of three major milestones described below.
First payment: Upon completion of Milestone 4. Dash will be implemented into BitGo’s API, provided with all the security features available to other supported currencies.
Second payment: Upon completion of Milestone 7. The Dash wallet will be accessible from the BitGo web application.
Third payment: Upon completion of Milestone 11. Dash will be fully integrated and deployed, including support for sending and receiving Dash InstantSend transactions.
A more detailed breakdown of the roadmap and man-hours required can be found in the Roadmap section of this proposal.
Advanced Security Features
BitGo makes available a set of advanced security features that will be available to Dash wallets, thanks to the highest level security afforded by multi-signature technology.
Multiple users
Multiple people and/or machines can work together to approve a given transaction on the wallet. BitGo’s multi-signature wallets allow enterprises to set up and maintain roles, policies, and rules on the wallet, making digital currencies usable for businesses.
Wallet and Enterprise level policies
When triggered, they perform an action that denies a transaction or generates a pending approval for other users on the wallet.
Velocity limit
A velocity limit policy rule triggers when the amount spent within the specified time window exceeds the specified amount.
Address whitelist
An address whitelist triggers whenever any destination address (non-change) of an outgoing transaction is not in the whitelist.
Webhook policy
A webhook rule issues a callback to the HTTPS endpoint specified in the condition whenever a transaction is sent from the wallet. The rule triggers an action if the HTTPS endpoint returns a non-200 (status) response.
Webhook notifications
Webhooks may be setup up to programmatically receive callbacks from BitGo. These may be attached to wallets (in the case of transfers or pending approvals), or to a user (for block notifications). Webhook notifications are triggered when the specified event occurs, such as an incoming transaction. BitGo servers make a POST HTTP request to the URL defined with a JSON payload, and expect a HTTP 200 OK.
Transfer webhook
Activates when a transaction is seen/confirmed on any receiving address of a wallet.
Pending approval webhook
Activates when a pending approval on the user’s wallet is created, approved, or rejected.
Block webhook
Activates when a new block is seen on the coin network.
BitGo Web Application
The BitGo web application Dashboard will enable quick and easy access for users to store and spend their Dash, along with all the available security features listed above in a single user interface.
BitGo can store the user key encrypted with the user password so that the user can safely send and receive funds entirely in our web application.
When a user receives or sends Dash, we will send email notifications to the user.
Above is a mockup of the user wallet screen if Dash support is added to BitGo
Roadmap
We estimate approximately 30 man-weeks worth of engineering effort for initial support. After support is added we expect several weeks of effort each year will be necessary for maintenance and improvements.
| Milestone | Title / Description | Deliverables | Days |
| 1.0 | Indexer Indexes the Dash Blockchain. Processes transactions from/to addresses owned by BitGo users. | 15 | |
| M1.1 | Mainnet | Multiple Indexer servers for Mainnet (primary and backup). | 9 |
| M1.2 | Testnet | Indexer server for Testnet. | 6 |
| 2.0 | IMS Internal microservice to provide access to the Platform to Blockchain data processed by the Indexer. | 12 | |
| M2.1 | API routes Handle requests for block, tx and wallet data. | IMS API routes. | 12 |
| 3.0 | HSM Hardware security module to sign Dash transactions. | 9 | |
| M3.1 | Signing | HSM configured to support Dash signing. | 9 |
| 4.0 | Platform RESTful API that allows managing multiple digital currencies and wallets through a single, unified interface. | 24 | |
| M4.1 | Dash Transactions | Dash transaction building and signing on Platform API. | 18 |
| M4.3 | Dash Fees | Fee estimates for sending Dash transactions. | 3 |
| M4.4 | Dash Market data | Market data available for Dash transactions. | 3 |
| 5.0 | SDK support Implements client-side wallet features and interfaces with the Platform API. | 12 | |
| M5.1 | SDK Dash Transactions | SDK support for building and signing Dash transactions. | 12 |
| 6.0 | Admin CLI Tool Internal tools for data access for customer support. | 7 | |
| M6.1 | Admin Tool Dash support | Admin tool support for Dash. | 7 |
| 7.0 | Web Application Web interface to manage BitGo wallets for multiple digital currencies. | 22 | |
| M7.1 | Web Application Dash support | Ability to manage Dash wallets, send Dash, view transactions, policies, pending approvals, reports. | 15 |
| M7.2 | Wallet Keycard | Dash wallet Keycard for wallet recovery. | 2 |
| M7.3 | Testnet Dash on web application | Web client support on test.bitgo.com for Dash testnet. | 5 |
| 8.0 | Dash InstantSendDash instant transactions | 20 | |
| M8.1 | InstantSend support on Indexer | Broadcast and process new block data with InstandSend transactions | 4 |
| M8.2 | InstantSend support on Platform | Platform API support for InstantSend transactions. | 11 |
| M8.3 | InstantSend support on Web client | Web client support for InstantSend transactions. | 5 |
| 9.0 | Documentation | 2 | |
| M9.1 | API Documentation | API documentation at bitgo.com/api/v2 with Dash support. | 2 |
| 10.0 | Deployment and Integration Component monitoring and alerting. | 10 | |
| M10.1 | Monitors and alerts | Monitoring and alerting for internal servers, HSM, Indexer, IMS, Transaction send queue. | 5 |
| M10.2 | Fault tolerance | Fault tolerance plan. Ensuring redundant servers and failover succeeds. | 5 |
| 11.0 | Integration testing End-to-end and individual component testing | 17 | |
| M11.1 | Indexer Testing | Indexing and notifications working properly. | 2 |
| M11.2 | IMS Testing | Check Dash-specific data. | 2 |
| M11.3 | Platform Testing | Framework to test signing in isolation. | 4 |
| M11.4 | HSM Testing | Inclusion and auditing of NPM repositories required for Dash signing. | 2 |
| M11.5 | SDK Testing | Half-signs transactions correctly. Client functions working. | 4 |
| M11.6 | Web Application Testing | Dash on bitgo.com works as expected. | 3 |
Workload Estimation
The chart represents the breakdown of the estimated work in hours of the development process.
Budget Breakdown
The budget for the project is $525,000, converted to the current DASH value.
The infrastructure required for the implementation, as well as the support and maintenance, are included in the project’s budget. The chart illustrates the breakdown by area.
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Discussion: Should we fund this proposal?
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BitGo Dash Implementation by bitgo-luis
https://dashwatch.org/files/1532769904019.pdf
Just to recap the block distribution:
45% for your mining efforts
45% for your proof of investment and supporting the node infrastructure
10% for your non profit ideas that help the network
Dear BitGo team: as long as you are charging your customers for your Dash implementation there is absolutely no reason why this should be funded by the network. If you feel that the implementation of dash is an investment that is going to add value to your business and benefit to your customers then please go ahead and source capital from somewhere else.
Voting NO
Especially with this price.
Voting no x12.
This is Dash Watch, a treasury funded reporting group for funded proposals. We are unable to find a suitable contact to speak with regarding your proposal. Could you please send us an email at team@Dashwatch.org?
Or, if more convenient for you we are also available as DashWatchTeam on the Dash.org Forum or @DashWatchTeam#5277 on the Dash Nation Discord.
Thank you!
The Dash Watch Report Team
The Dash Watch Report Team
I have observed the negative reaction to the BitGo proposal and would like to weigh in with my thoughts. I do not endorse proposals often, but this proposal is extremely important to the development of our network, and integral to our strategy. It is also a dependency for a number of other integrations which would not happen without BitGo. I know there is a hope that we could get on their roadmap for less cost (either because Dash may be easier to integrate after Evolution, or because they may be willing to integrate for less money). This simply isn't the case and I'll expand on the reasons why. By funding most of the integration (with the exception of legal and regulatory costs, which are not insubstantial) this would greatly accelerate the addition of Dash on the BitGo platform.
First, the argument that this would be easier and less costly after Evolution is launched... While Evolution will make integration easier for retailers and "normal" businesses, the development work surrounding this project would be unaffected. As a custody service offering advanced security features, BitGo would always integrate through full node operation at the protocol level with custom built multi-sig features, and their own hosted InstantSend (rather than through APIs like most other services). This is a complex undertaking that Evolution would not alter.
Second, the argument that BitGo doesn't receive payment for integrations is false. Several other projects there paid for an integration. There are many projects that are currently larger than Dash. As a custody provider, market cap is the main driver for their decision making, but cost offset has the ability to accelerate our adoption on the platform. I have no doubt that BitGo will eventually integrate Dash without an incentive, but there are larger market cap options they could add first. We have been in discussions with BitGo for some time, and until very recently there hasn't been sufficient demand for custody services even with Dash paying for the integration. Recently, there has been enough activity / requests to make it worth being their next integration, but not without the incentive. They do believe in Dash's potential, and between some recent requests to add Dash from existing customers and some integrations that we would bring to them (for which BitGo is a dependency), they are willing to slot Dash in next. Without the incentive there are larger market cap tokens they could integrate next. My guess is that without the incentive we're roughly looking at a spring to summer-2019 integration.
In my opinion, even if we could get BitGo to accept a lesser integration expense by resubmitting next month, there is enough dependencies here for investors, (important) exchanges, and money transmitters that are literally waiting on this integration to move forward that it would be penny wise and pound foolish to attempt to coerce a lower integration cost at the expense of another month or two of negotiations. We have much larger opportunities waiting in the wings that we can capitalize on sooner if we get this one done.
Lastly, the argument that BitGo's traffic is down and they therefore "need Dash" is also a false narrative. BitGo has been moving away from retail investors for a while now, and with their acquisition of Kingdom Trust they made absolutely clear that they are planning to serve the B2B market. That is the reason their website traffic is dropping, not because their business is somehow in trouble.
There is incredible value pent up with integration dependencies that far exceeds the entire cost of this proposal. I implore the MNOs to vote for this one, despite the fact that we might be able to get a better deal with tough tactics. As everyone knows, I cannot name the dependencies, but I hope there is enough trust that we have credible reasons for wanting to endorse this one. In many senses, this is another BlockCypher... while it is not a retail service that many of you may know or recognize, BitGo is one of the few backbones of a huge portion of the cryptocurrency ecosystem which is critical for us to onboard. Other businesses are watching this vote and how it goes for BitGo, and I surmise that whether this goes well or painfully for BitGo will have repercussions for other potential integrations. We need it to go well far more than we need it to go cheaply.
It is expensive... fully recognize that. But when you get into the details of the work required and the resources that BitGo uses, it indeed is expensive for them to implement. As a custody service they do not outsource, and their team consists of high skilled engineers located in Silicon Valley. This makes their resources several times more expensive than typical companies. But given the value of the crypto they manage, it is difficult to argue that is a bad business decision for them to hire the very best local talent that they can regardless of cost. Believe it or not, this isn't even the full cost of the integration, which also requires legal, compliance, and analytics tools to support. We did attempt to negotiate this lower (for months) and BitGo was steadfast that Dash needed to cover the technical costs and even then were not sure what timing they were willing to commit to. Some recent demand to add Dash from some of their customers has "put them over the edge" to do this sooner rather than later.
I do not take endorsements lightly, and I watched this proposal closely last night after it was submitted. It appeared to be off to a great start, so I wasn't sure publicly announcing our support would be needed. If it was unnecessary, I would have preferred to not have to exercise my own endorsement. As the voting progressed overnight, and I saw comments and reasons for voting "no" that are inaccurate or made on the basis of incomplete information, I made the decision to comment. The price is not fantastic. Yes, I feel that we could play much tougher with BitGo and potentially shave off some cost. But that's not a good enough reason in my opinion. When it comes to decisions between good strategy and some cost savings, good strategy should win.
It would be nice if they could sweeten the pot a bit with something, anything to make us feel like we are not totally getting hosed.
solarguy
Okay no need to read further, we help pay the bill if you deem this is true
Ben Swann has nothing to do with Core. Nothing at all.
Commenting on that proposal would just lead to unnecessary centralization. Let the MNOs decide.
The size of the proposal really is neither here nor there...
I do want to make sure you are aware that BitGo canceled their acquisition of Kingdom Trust, so if this changes future integration plans please let us know.
Also can you give an example of how bitgo integration will help us.
Also,
“(important) exchanges, and money transmitters that are literally waiting on this integration to move forward”
— quoted from babygiraffe above
I am not sure what more you are looking for in terms of this proposal helping Dash. These types of integrations could be major.
If you are looking for specifics on the integrations, well... I am sure you know that Core doesn’t give out such details until after an integration is officially announced. Just the way these types of business deals work.
Quoting yourself: "that it would be penny wise and pound foolish".
"The budget for the project is $525,000, converted to the current DASH value."
Submitting large proposals late in the budget cycle echoes shady tactics of government.
While this proposal was submitted by bitgo, you have been in communication with them, and should have advised them not to submit such a critical and large proposal late in the cycle.
I understand the importance of this proposal. However, I will vote no on principal until you learn to submit these proposals early in the cycle.
It is rude to the MNOs and the other proposal owners to drop budget bombs late in the cycle. This should not be difficult to understand at your level.
Be more considerate. Drop your proposals early in the cycle. The first day would be best. Clearly we have enough staff to plan ahead and coordinate this. This is not complicated.
In general, future budget planning IS being done by Glenn.
Since you must have missed it here is the link with the budget plan for the next few months: https://www.dash.org/forum/threads/dcg-budget-planning-update.37884/#post-186854
Please come back next month and ask for half costs.
$500,000+ is too much. Uphold, who get way more traffic than BitGo, integrated Dash to their platform free of charge.
BitGo seem to be losing a lot of traffic in recent months, so probably need Dash about as much as we need them.
https://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/bitgo.com
We understand your desire to keep costs to a minimum. We do everything we can to accomplish this. Pricing takes many weeks of engineering time into the consideration with a team of in-house engineers based in the Silicon Valley - one of the most expensive markets in the world.
What we have quoted covers the cost of the development of the wallet. We also will be taking on the costs of supporting the Dash wallets in perpetuity. We hope that you agree that the cost will be worth it in the end.
Thanks for your reply and welcome to the Dash community.
I have faith in the judgement of the Dash Core staff, so voting Yes
Voting Yes
"BitGo is one of the few backbones of a huge portion of the cryptocurrency ecosystem which is critical for us to onboard."
Also I see the integration of 'instant send' within the proposal:
We will be providing full support allowing BitGo customers the ability to send and receive InstantSend transactions.
Base on complementary informations on the big picture of this propsal provide by babygiraffe.
An effort is ask on price for next months.
Its a yes for this month.
Good luck with your proposal.
Regards.
We will soon be paying for being integrated with any platform and will be deliberately left out if we dont. Bingo charges 0.25% for every txn and they have raised venture capital as well. Integration should be part of their business model, we should not be paying to support them.
None of the other major coins paid and we are being targeted for having a treasury.
500k with Dash at $330 will leave the treasury hamstrung for months, denying funding to vital projects.
There are currently several other projects waiting to be integrated with BitGo. We choose to give priority to the ones that will benefit most of our customers.
Certainly, Dash is one of the most important currencies, and we are confident that it will be very well received by our individual customers, and enterprises that in turn will make it available to their customers.
We have quoted the cost of building the solution. We will continue to maintain it, and provide customer support without any other costs involved.
solarguy
Stop worrying about what other coins are doing. So what if we pave the road that they also end up using. We paved that road because we can. We can compete and stand up to any other project out there. If you were so worried about competition, you should have invested in a closed source project to begin with. We've got the funds, we've got the governance, we've got the legal standing, we've got the stellar team working day and night to bring great products to bear. What are you worried about? Do you want a gold star for making sure every team is treated fairly? That's not how the world works. We either want this--and want it for the set terms--or we don't. It's that simple. Swallow your pride and indignation and make the smartest business decisions you can.
If we don't pay for the integration, it seems likely that BitGo will want to integrate Dash anyway because it's good for their business. If that's true, then having Dash pay for the integration is just a waste of funds.
https://www.bitgo.com/info/resources#multi-currency
Seriously what you added, while you did NOT add Dash frankly it's embarrassing, Dash has been around for ages, and it features private send and in your case instant sent, are killer features for you, yet you have not added us. In fact you should have added us even before bitcoin got full blocks. You would have giving yourself and Dash such massive boost ! It's seem like you lack considerable vision fort he future, or even understand tech of block-chains (well at least at management levels).
The only way this deal could work if you start promoting us to your clients as the preferred choose when it comes to Point of sales transactions. Other than that I don't think I will vote for this right now.
BitGo plans to support Dash with its constantly evolving set of product features, aimed to secure and provide an easy-to-use solution to individuals and enterprises.
A few questions:
1) To clarify, is BitGo proposing to fully integrate Dash or only integrate Dash for enterprise clients?
2) $~500k is a hefty price for integration, and it seems that BitGo should already be interested in integrating Dash based on customer demand and BitGo's business model. Did BitGo receive similar payments from Bitcoin Gold, Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin, Ethereum, or any of the 15+ ERC20 tokens? If not, what advantages does Dash get for this large payment?
3) Will BitGo provide any services related to Dash Masternodes? Large Dash holders are BitGo's target customer, afterall.
BitGo has millions of wallets for 6 different coins and over 15 ERC tokens.
Over 15% of all Bitcoin on-chain transactions use BitGo wallets. In addition, BitGo was selected by The Royal Mint and CME Group to develop Royal Mint Gold - A token tied to physical cold in The Royal Mint's vaults.
As Dash will be paying to integrate with your service, and therefore there is no cost on your part, would you be willing to make Dash wallets exempt from the 0.25% fee per outgoing transaction for the first two years and make any business Dash wallets also exempt from any fees during this time?
And would you be willing to highlight on your site that the Dash network has partnered with Bitgo to make this possible?
If an incentive like this is not possible, I do not see why Dash should again have to pay for integration just because it can while other projects get a free pass.
Other currencies do pay for wallet development.
BitGo has a large list of customers that will benefit from being able to transact and hold their Dash in BitGo wallets, particularly exchanges that will make available Dash to their customers through BitGo.
It is not possible to modify the fee model for individual accounts.
BitGo will indicate on its website, marketing materials, and presentations that they do offer support for Dash wallets.
Please provide evidence for that, because I don't believe it for a second. How would that work anyway? Other currencies don't have a Treasury. Who did you approach? How was the payment organized? How did they make sure you'd deliver?
I am change my opinion on this vote if you can provide proper info on this matter.
If any work needs to be redone after Evolution is released, would this proposal cover those associated costs as well or does Bitgo plan on submitting another proposal for any maintenance work required?
And if you do plan on submitting additional funding requests for maintenance work, what happens if those are voted down? Would Dash be removed from your platform?
I'm just trying to determine if this is a one time cost or if it will be an ongoing expense for years.
I used BitGo in early 2015 and when I moved my coins in 2017 I was charged a "surprise" (to me) fee that would be worth about $4000 in today's prices. This apparently was due to a policy change in 2016 to start charging fees to customers, which if I had known about I would not have stored any coins on BitGo and would have instead used only hardware wallets.
I was not happy about the newly implemented fee and I guess that was a lesson for letting a 3rd party manage keys for me - they could charge new fees at any time. It seems I am not the target customer of BitGo though (but institutions?), so my experience would likely not be repeated.
I'd like to echo slavei's comment - if you're being paid to implement it from the Dash network, then would you also exempt transaction fees? That might make this "subsidy" worth it.
Otherwise, if it is so expensive ($525k) to implement, why not wait until Evolution and DAPI are released which is supposed to make implementation of InstantSend practically trivial.
BitGo charges 0.25% per outgoing transaction for individual accounts.
The pricing model can be found at https://www.bitgo.com/info/resources#pricing
Can't be too careful about these things!
https://www.dash.org/forum/threads/welcome-omar-hamwi-regional-business-development-manager-us-canada.29049/
I know that the DCG does not like to influence 3rd party proposals but as it appears from yours and Omar's comment that you have been in communication prior to this proposal with Bitgo, I have a couple additional questions.
1. Did Bitgo reach out to DCG or was it the other way around?
1a. If DCG reached out to Bitgo, can we assume integration with Bitgo is a prerequisite to another partnership in the works?
2. If you can't answer those questions, can you answer this? What is the benefit to integration now rather than waiting until Evolution is released?
3. Considering the estimated man hours to integrate now, what is DCG's best guess on how many fewer hours will be required if we waited until after Evolution?
Thanks for recognising the sensitivity, however to briefly answer your questions:
1/1a) Bitgo is an important player in this space. We've been speaking for some time as we feel it's a partnership that would be mutually beneficial. For us to integrate with some of the larger institutional investors, exchanges, brokers and other major blockchain business that utilise Bitgo, we need to first be integrated with Bitgo. Without it, we're unable to develop those opportunities further.
2) Bitgo offers a world class custody solution for global enterprise clients. Integrating with Bitgo provides Dash exposure to Bitgo's users, and provides Bitgo's users a custody service for holding Dash. Custody services are key to the growth of the ecosystem and confidence in the industry.
3) We look at the value of the integration differently. Rather than the time in hours, we're looking at for the relationship we look to build with Bitgo and with their existing customers and partners. We feel that the earlier the integration, the better position we'll be in.
I hope this is helpful.