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Dash Core Group October 1st Funding Proposals
DCG is submitting 3 funding proposals for the October 1st budget cycle:
1) DCG Compensation part one: 2,663 Dash per month (currently in month 3/3)
2) DCG Business Development: 266 Dash per month (currently in month 1/2)
3) DCG Legal: 266 Dash per month (currently in month 1/2)
 
What is this proposal about?
This proposal funds Dash Core Group’s ongoing business development expenses. The last time funding was requested for the Dash Core Group’s business development budget was in December 2019. We will present a look back at the 4th quarter 2019 and the first half (Q1 and Q2) of 2020 business development activity.

DCG maintained a high level of activity with a total of 44 business development activities during the last three quarters, averaging 15 activities per quarter, including a total of 29 new integrations. We foresee more account management activities continuing to take place as we grow our relationships with larger businesses moving from integrations into ensuring Dash secures prominent placing in partner solutions.

In addition we will conduct activities required to foster and grow Dash adoption such as collaborating with DAO orgs on strategic initiatives, marketing and educational activities, partner relationship management, integration support, etc. 

Dash adoption activities at the merchant level in Latin America were impacted by the COVID-19 quarantines, which slowed discussions and postponed planned launches starting in March. However, these activities have slowly started to return as Venezuela moves from a total quarantine into a “new normal”.
 
Q4 2019 Business Development Activities were as follows:
Venezuela Strategy Pillar: Burger King (Dash Payments), LABitCONF (Business Development @ Event), Church’s Chicken (Black Friday Marketing Campaign)
Trading: Indodax (InstantSend), VCC Exchange (Dash Listing), Gate.io (Marketing AMA), CoinTrade Crypto Exchange (Dash Listing + InstantSend), BBOD (1st Dash Perpetual Future Contract), ABRA (deposits and withdrawals)
Remittances: Argentina (BD on way to LABITCONF), Remezaza support for DashMexico team (Remittance initiative in Mexico)
Other: Cryptoworth (Crypto business Tax and accounting platform)

Our Q1 2020 Business Development Activities were as follows: 
Venezuela: Glufco (Dash added to Debit cards and POS solution), Pro Franquicias (lead generation event with the Largest franchises in the country in preparation for the Megasoft integration), Dash Venezuelan teams on site meeting (strategy alignment & cooperation)
Trading: HitBTC (ChainLocks), Simplex (Dash integration for direct credit card payments), Whitebit (Dash listed + InstantSend+ChainLocks), Coinbene Global (we were included on their Brazil subsidiary on previous years, and have now been listed on the global site), CryptoRatingCouncil (CRC) (Score of 1 for Dash, meaning not a security), Binance US (AMA)
Remittances: Tauros (list Dash on exchange and 14k ATMs across Mexico)
Other: Skrill (Dash added into wallet), ReadyRaider (rapidly growing eSports platform, Dash exclusive form of payment), North American Bitcoin Conference (BD Activity) 

In Q2 2020 our Business Development Activities included:
Venezuela: Teleworker online congress (first activity aimed at the freelancer ecosystem to get paid in Dash), Megasoft (a Cryptobuyer integration with a potential of 20k+ stores, we supported with onboarding and discussions with Megasoft leadership for over a year; as a result there will be opportunities for Dash to lead into some of the large chains as they adopt crypto payments), Localcryptos announcement of Dash on their platform: We have been in touch with them for months and are reviewing how to support launch to make the listing of Dash a success, just like the voting process was.
Trading: Reciprocity Trading (OTC), Huobi Futures (Dash Perpetual Swaps + Margin); OKex (USDT-margined DASH perpetual swap trading), Whitebit (staking + campaign), KuCoin (InstantSend integration), IntotheBlockAnalytics Platform (customized Dash version, embedded into Dash.org), Chainalysis (KYC/AML platform covers Dash) Binance Savings and Staking (Dash added. All of this completed the basis for the FastPass communications campaign we unveiled on September 10th. Trading related  activities also include OKex AMA, Huobi - 2 AMAs
Remittances: LGO (OTC, supply liquidity for remittances)
Other: Luxor Mining, PlusBitPOS, AnkerPay (ATM, PoS), ReadyRaiders (strategic partnership on the egaming opportunity), Legal Opinion (Singapore)

We have attempted to provide as much detail as possible in our partnership descriptions. Unfortunately, many items, such as partner level costs are commercial in confidence. Disclosing exact dollar amounts would hinder our ability to negotiate future partnerships and complicate existing ones as the commercial terms would be made public and visible for everyone to directly compare. Generally speaking, the integration deals we directly fund are low-cost as evidenced by the large number of integrations and promotion activities funded by the previous proposal. Larger requests (above $20k) are always directed to the DAO for funding decisions under separate proposals. We also created a policy in Q3 2019, that restricts the maximum amount DCG can spend on any single partner per rolling quarter.  However, as a guideline, our expenses have been and will likely continue to be below this policy cap.
 
Additional detail on how we spend business development funds:

• On average, 60% to 80% of these costs are for the direct benefit of the Dash user and to drive transactions via discounts, waived fees, or a small amount of Dash.
  
• In such cases, the partner also has “skin in the game”. This can consist of matching discount levels or fee waivers, absorbing incremental costs, permanent fee reductions, dedicated developer resources, partner supplied PR and marketing channels, etc.
  

Total onboarding costs generally consist of direct integration costs, joint marketing and promotional activities, and on occasion other miscellaneous costs such as legal costs. 

What will the funds be used for? 
DCG is currently prioritizing our Hyperinflation, Remittances, and Trading strategies as these are the strategic pillars where we have seen real, measurable results in a number of integrations. These are also categories that tend to exhibit synergies as the broader ecosystem grows. However, we pragmatically consider excellent opportunities in other industries that could potentially have a positive impact for the Dash network and our partners. These opportunities vary by industry. ReadyRaider is a great example of an exciting opportunity in eSports that we have been assisting. The budget requested in this proposal is to cover a number of initiatives including:
 
Venezuela: Promotional and integration activities
We are in discussions with a number of high level integrations in Venezuela and working to increase access to Dash for Venezuelans. These integrations include the Megasoft network, which spans over 1,000 of the largest retailer stores in Venezuela with chains of supermarkets, pharmacies, large stores, and hardware stores. We are in constant contact with both Megasoft and Cryptobuyer in order to create synergies and make sure Dash is well positioned to capture the largest share of usage.

We are also developing opportunities to enable receiving Dash from abroad, as putting Dash in the hands of people solves cash scarcity, enables instant payments and solves the need to hold something different than Bolivars, as hyperinflation erodes the local currency value.

Exchange Strategy: We have been implementing a multi pronged strategy to provide fiat pairs and a full trading ecosystem to support our growing global community. We will continue to focus on forming long-term relationships with major platforms in the trading ecosystem, integrating Dash, InstantSend and/or ChainLocks into large, transparent and trusted exchanges, adding Dash derivatives and other services within the trading ecosystem, and educational initiatives. Funding would be for additional integrations, promotions and educational initiatives, and corresponding regulatory activities outside of Japan (including legal opinions). 

Remittances: We have completed a detailed review of the key players and components required to launch Dash remittances in two target markets. These are: 
US to Mexico corridor: A 25 Billion US/Yr, competitor intense, where we work with new players to integrate Dash as part of their solution; as well as working with mid sized established players, in order to enable Dash use as a savings tool in their processes.
Americas to Venezuela corridor: 4 Billion US/Yr, corridor in early stages of development, with the opportunity of being a Crypto ecosystem on the receiving end; which creates synergies with the Venezuelan growth strategy and is a perfect use case for Dash.

If you have any questions, please direct them to Ernesto Contreras in this post to ensure we are notified of your request.

Requested funding is as follows for the October 1st budget cycle:
· 263.5 Dash for legal expenses ($20,500 USD @ $78 per Dash)
·     2.5 Dash proposal reimbursement
Total: 266 Dash

The exact same funding request applies to the November 1st budget cycle.

Note: Should any funding remain, we will apply it toward future compensation expenses and related taxes.