Welcome!

You did a good job with the stupid DeFi hype and continuing to roll out evolution. So I will vote yes this month.

I still don't approve of the censorship of the main subreddit.

@glennaustin I may as well mention it here as I think it comes under your remit. Are you aware that DOJ cryptocurrency enforcement framework in the US has classified DASH as a AEC (Anonymity enhanced cryptocurrency or privacy coin. They incorrectly categorized DASH as a high risk coin that is likely to be used for money laundering along with Monero, Zcash?

https://www.justice.gov/ag/page/file/1326061/download

The members of the committee that created this report include cyber digital taskforce contributions includes:

1. SCC
2. IRS
3. FINCEN
4. FBI
5. US Criminal investigations legal department
6. OFAC
7. OCC
8. CFCT
9. FATF
10 Department of justice

Quote from the report: "The Department consider the use of AECs to be high-risk activity that is indicative of possible criminal conduct"

Are you, or someone else from DCG going to address this issue to get DASH correctly categorised with the DOJ?

I learned about this from a presentation given buy Coin Bureau who created an informative video which you can see here - and he mentions DASH several times in his video. The presenter seems to be very well informed, he got all the facts right about DASH.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-ksQLS6uQM

@DeepBlue,
Yes, we are aware and I have been reaching out to relevant parties to educate them on Dash. We've already presented clarifying information to a number of people in some of the organizations you mention but it appears that the message has not filtered through to people responsible for the contents of the framework.

@DeepBlue,
Yes, we are aware and I have been reaching out to relevant parties to educate them on Dash. We've already presented clarifying information to a number of people in some of the organizations you mention but it appears that the message has not filtered through to people responsible for the contents of the framework.

For DASH to be classed and known as a "trustless" project we need to see full financial accountability with an independent audit on DCG quarterly budget reports. So far we have to trust DCG themselves on the accounting. All reputable organizations have a 3rd party financial audit on the accounts. Look at it another way. My view is that independent financial audits would give external investors more confidence in the Dash project being fully transparent and accountable. My view is greater trust in a project leads to greater confidence and greater chance for investment. The usual arguments from DCG are it is too expensive or too time consuming. Well I would say we are paying for Glenn Austin as a full time financial aid to the Dash project. He needs to find the time to work with auditors. What else is Glenn doing when he is not doing the books?

I feel there could be financial inefficiencies within the DCG e.g. their office space which I have raised comments on numerous times in their proposals. I recommended that DCG hire by the day when they need the office space. This can easily be done with convenience now reservation Apps enable them to do this.

A trusted person from the DASH community have made multiple visits to the DCG offices and found them empty on every visit. That is empty office space we are paying for. That is wasted money. We should only be paying for what we need. Waste like this, in this area suggest to me there could be waste in other areas of DCG. We won't know until we have private independent audits. Financial audits happen on every other DAO project. DCG should not be an exception, especially being the fact that DCG is the largest $ funded project we have.

Most reputable firms agree to independent financial audits to give investors confidence e.g. Kraken, BullionVault and https://vaultoro.com to name a few. Confidence is what is required for institutional investors to feel confident in investing in a project.

DCG is spending like they are a multinational company when they should be spending like they are a start up. I want to see full financial audits of all DCG accounts going forward. Until that happens I will always have doubts about DCG spending.

Hello @DeepBlue,

The proposal has passed, however, I would like to address your concerns.
1. Office space.
I am a long time user of Regus (as a company) and I can assure you that this option is much more expensive than what we are paying for the office at ASU. With Regus, you can rent office space on request, but this is not cheap - an hour of the meeting room costs (in my location) usually between 150 USD and 300 USD. And this is only one room. With ASU, we are having a dedicated office space, our own room + access to all their services, and conference rooms with a fixed price.
This office is sometimes empty indeed because we usually work in non-standard office hours, however, it is being used frequently by those, who live in AZ, and also to meet partners or organize events (like an open house, quarterly calls, management meetings).
We were renting Regus (and other office spaces) for European development meetings in the past and it wasn't a cheap option.
We did basic calculations of our office cost and the option "on-demand" was not cost-efficient.

2. Accounting audit.
Glenn shares financial information every quarter, during our calls - I find it pretty transparent. Company finance is being discussed on monthly basis during the board calls too. We have also implemented an internal audit process, where I check the books on a monthly basis (account balances, expenses, salaries, etc), and present a report, then Ryan does his independent check too.
Hiring an external auditor during the times, when we are doing all possible cost savings and cuts, this is an extremely expensive activity. We are unwilling to create this significant expense at this moment.
If you see the need, please organize an audit - we are more than happy to provide all the necessary access to our books.

PS. I really don't appreciate indirect suggestions that Glenn does his work improperly.

Hi @DeepBlue,

Great to hear from you again. An independent audit of our financials can be performed. This would require a funded proposal to hire an audit firm to ensure that our books are in order. To be clear, an accounting firm (most likely) wouldn't opine on whether the spend we have engaged in has been spent "wastefully" (as you appear to suggest). They will most likely opine that the funds we received and spent are accounted for accurately and appropriately and are in line with how DCG stated the funds would be spent in the proposals to the network.

So a potential path here would be for you to put together a proposal to fund an independent audit of DCG books. Personally, I don't believe this type of activity is a priority given the many needs the network currently faces, but that's the beauty of our governance system - the masternodes can decide! If auditors are funded and the network agrees that a financial audit should be performed, I'll be more than happy to make time to work with auditors. I give you that commitment.

To be clear, we currently do work with an accounting firm to perform our taxes and this accounting firm confirms balances in our bank accounts and Dash vs. what we report. Additionally, as part of an internal financial audit function, Robert Wiecko and Ryan Taylor both review our books (I will mention this during our quarterly call as well).

We spend funding exactly as we state we would in our proposals. I don't understand what you mean when you state that you "... will always have doubts about DCG spending".

@glennaustin, in my post above I explained what I mean about "I will always have doubts about DCG spending" .

The doubts I have about DCG inefficient use of funds come from the example I have provided evidence on. That is the hiring of your office space. As you know I've been vocal against the way DCG is paid 55k for office rental when it has been proven DCG are not using that office space every day. There are days we are paying when the space is just empty. This is waste of our financial resources.

Since wastage has proven to happen with office space by extension it suggests there may also be waste happening in other areas of DCG that we cannot see.

You have avoided responding to the issue on DCG empty office space that I've raised multiple times . Several investigative spot visits were made to your office and nobody from DCG was actually in the office. This has been validated by a trusted member of the DASH community who has visited your office multiple times and every time on their visit your office space was completely empty, nobody there. And this was before the coronavirus. Empty space that the DAO is paying for not being used = waste. This is one example of what I mean by waste, and that is one example of why I have doubts on the efficacy of DCG spending of the DAO funds in other areas. If there is waste with office space, then there is more than likely financial waste in other areas of DCG spending.

I suggested previously that DCG consider hiring office space as you need it, using an App from companies such as Regus - who have office facilities in your area. You can even hire (and pay for) just a few hours if necessary e.g. for just a meeting. It takes a few minutes to book your space and you can hire when you need and pay only for when you need to use the office. That is what I used to do and it was very convenient and economical. In addition when you hire with Regus (or similar company) you can hire your office space anywhere in the world. Think about that for a moment. Can you hire office space with your ASU current office supplier? Regus have offices around the world and you can just hire the space in the town or location you need if you have a conference and want a place for private and professional meetings. Or if you just want to do work in a comfortable environment with quality internet connectivity not some cramped hotel room with crappy internet, and tiny desk.

Regarding your suggestion of me raising a proposal for DCG auditing. I would only consider raising a DAO proposal if I felt certain to be able to deliver a project to a high quality. Running my own business I do not have enough free time to be certain I could do that.

What I can do is raise awareness both to DCG and to the DAO of what I feel is necessary to have considerably more confidence that the approx 250k / month on DCG is actually being spent frugally and wisely - like a startup would spend money.

This is not just about the money Glenn. It is about trust, or rather the ability for an investor to not have to trust individuals they don't know. When the DAO see that DCG is transparent, using our funds frugally and wisely then there is more trust in the entire Dash project. The more transparency and evidence funds are being used wisely - the more credible the Dash project is to investors and the more likely that are willing to invest their funds in the project.

Sometimes some of the best marketing is actually showing independent 3rd party proof we are doing what we say we are doing. One factor for more Investment comes from increase trust. If DCG want more investment we need more trust. But trust that is based on demonstrable evidence to the point that an investor does not need to trust DCG but they can trust our systems that ensures DCG and other projects are doing what they say they are doing with the investor's funds.

I feel one of the best "ads" for DASH is that we actively strive to be a project that does not need to rely on trust of people that we don't know in order for the DAO to be successful. Investors can make decisions based on 3rd party validated evidence and complete radical transparency and there are systems we put in place to ensure that Dash cannot be corrupted either now or in the future.

I believe designing our procedures, systems, software, projects, accounting, messaging, marketing should all focus around the consistent steps we are making to make Dash the most reliable and trustworth digital cash in the world. Dash works to be completely transparent so that trusting individuals is not required. I believe this to be a core value of DASH and for cryptocurrency in general. Radical transparency. The project does not just say it. We do it. We cherish it and we strive to reach it as an ideal in everything we do. Anyone raising a project to take funds from the DAO really should be completely transparent on how those funds are spent and be 3rd party validated by an independent body.

You mentioned that you have an independent accounting firm that looks over your books. Could they also provide an audit that could be publicly published on their website? This would go a long way to validating the accounts that are published from DCG in your quarterly calls.

Good points, thx @DeepBlue for raising and elaborating on them. I'll summarize what I understood:

1. You've noticed inefficiencies
* The cost for the use of office space appears inefficient
* Suggest using office space-as-needed service (e.g. Regus)
* There may be other inefficiencies
2. You want more transparency
* One of the best "ads" for DASH is transparency
* Systems should be designed to be more trustworthy
* Trust systems over individuals
* Independent 3rd party validation is needed
* More transparency leads to more confidence
* More confidence leads to more investment

LMK if I missed/misrepresented sth important.

@henrygeorgist a perfect summary!

I messaged @glennaustin
Hi Glenn, like many others I am concerned that DCG may not have put aside much funding 'for the rainy day' that is "Evo specific marketing" as some of the larger fragments of Dash Platform come online for mainstream consumer interaction. Why not have more than enough "money in the bank" for this? ....kind regards from Australia.

Hi Criticalinput, DCG limits its ask to 60% of the budget. This is self-imposed, but we firmly believe that it is critical that other teams develop in the Dash community. If anything, we would like to reduce that percentage in the future. For quite a while, that 60% has barely covered our compensation expenses, so we've limited our other proposals to things we could not avoid and have focused on building a small reserve for compensation.

We do, however, recognize that we need more marketing. This is true not just for Dashpay and Platform, but for our current offering. In the last few months, Mark Mason and I have discussed options, and we should be able to start presenting some to the network soon. These would not be DCG proposals, but marketing proposals prepared/executed by the Newsroom + DCG.