Welcome!

What are the best projects right now that are looking to receive funding from DIF? Would like to see a list

Debate: this is too much funding to start out. That the start amount would be better much lower

RobbyDash, you make a good point in commenting that many projects potentially worthy of funding are not incorporated and therefore there is no equity that can be held by DIF, and to force project developers to incorporate can be costly and administratively tedious. The solution might be for DIF to acquire its rights in early stage funded projects by way of contract with the project promoter/developer, rather than by way of shares in a company. That form of contract might require incorporation at later stage when the project attains scale/milestones/certain OKRs etc., and only then would DIF hold its interest in the project in the form of shares. There are solutions to this. In my view, DIF should aim to keep its project funding requirements straightforward and lightweight.

How much is it going to cost? What is it going to do? Who is going to decide?
.
If you saw Ryan's interview, you understand that we don't know exactly how this will pan out. We have to trust that the network and the supervisors will make good decisions when the time comes.
.
This is a tool in the Dash Governance Toolbox. It will allow us to do things we can't do now. It's valuable. Sometimes you have to take a chance on a good idea that is unproven. If you hold Dash, you should understand that.

I can understand your reasoning about "taking a chance".
But "not exactly knowing how this will pan out" will later just exonerate those responsible for it, after it will be clear that almost nothing beneficial is being accomplished for the thousands of Dash it will burn guaranteed.

The idea of the network being able to own a portion of the equity in some projects is a nice idea - on paper.
Unfortunately, there are some inherent real-world problems that it will face and likely not overcome:

a) legally owning a stake in a DAO-funded project, will require that *every* such DAO-funded project will provide some kind of incorporation and legal establishment of such a project. Depending on the country, this includes legal filings with the registry of commerce, the competent county/district court and/or the chamber of commerce, according to the given jurisdiction.
b) Please note, for all other projects which refuse to incorporate, it will *not* be possible for DIF to legally own a stake in them
(nor can DIF have a legal claim to a portion of their generated income, unless incorporated)
c) I think it is safe to assume, that the majority of those DAO-funded projects, willing to provide equity and also willing to legally incorporate, will not be established in the Caymans but rather in countries all over the world.
What this means, is, that our DIF manager will have to travel a lot and take airplane flights to all those countries were DAO-funded projects willing to provide equity, are being incorporated. This service and all its expenses will likely cost extra, and a lot.
d) Legally owning equity or a stake in an incorporated startup, in at least 99% of jurisdictions *requires* a notary act, a step (prescribed by law) by which legal possession of the % stake in such an incorporated company is taken.
There is no other way to legally own equity or to have a rightful legal claim to a portion of the income generated.
Everyone who claims that a notary act will not be necessary for the DIF to take legal ownership of some equity in a company, is blatantly lying. There is no other way to legally own a stake in a company.
(except by bearer-shares, but which are outlawed by now in almost all countries, where such proposal owners likely reside)
e) We can expect lots of legal litigations with proposal owners, who first promised and made a committment to provide some equity, but are later refusing to do so, or just ignoring the DIF, refusing to incorporate or refusing to share income, etc.

From the above-mentioned reasons and real-world difficulties we can suspect, that owning equity is *not* the primary intention or primary motivation why the DIF is being created. So what it is really about?
Likely it is about the planned Investment Funding, that will channel budget funds on a large scale whoknowswhere.
The planned Investment Funding will eat up thousands of Dash, all while they will claim to invest it somehow in the economy. Those Dash will just be gone, likely without trace.

I believe i have expressed some of the fundamental flaws of the DIF concept and why it may be doomed to fail, no matter how many thousand Dash we throw at it. A crystal ball is not needed to foresee that likely outcome.

I don't like it, lawsuits, lawyers, state...My vote is no.

I voted no 13 times because of the following:

1. This is centralization which is fundamentally against the principles of cryptocurrency.
2. It takes away power from the masternodes which is dangerous. MNOs have skin in the game these people do NOT.
3. The core group is associated with this and they still censor the main subreddit which is unacceptable. It only makes it double ominous that the proposal is yet another centralization attempt.
4. The costs are insane in legal fees and the Dash eco system gains nothing from investing in the casino called global finance NOR from burning Dash. This Dash should go to devs and promoters etc..

It sounds like you need to watch the most recent podcast with Ryan Taylor where he thoroughly addresses several of these claims.

1. No, this is just one of many entities servicing the network. The fact that an organization has a formal, legal structure in order to complete its goals does not inherently entail decentralization. If the organization is successful, it directly benefits everyone who holds Dash, not just MNOs. This claim is patently false.
2.. This is directly overseen by the MNOs...do you not understand how this system works? If at any point we don't like the direction this is going, we can instruct the Supervisors--which we're voting to elect--to effectively dissolve the entire organization. There is no aspect of this in which the MNOs do not maintain oversight, often direct oversight.
3. "The Core Group" doesn't censor the subreddit, several moderators from different groups within the community moderate the subreddit. If you're going to blame people, make sure your blame is leveled at the right people.
4. These costs cover two years of operation for the basic nuts and bolts of administering the organization and associated costs and in that light are quite reasonable. You can make the assertion that Dash has no business pursuing these fields. You cannot make the assertion that the expenditures to this end are in some way exorbitant for what they're accomplishing.

I see you voted for DashCrypto, which not only completely centralized, its owners/controllers are anonymous, and its operations are a black box. In the interest of full disclosure, can you tell us if you're one of the owners of DashCrypto, LLC?

Link?

It sounds like a lot of the opposition to this proposal stems from ignorance and laziness like much of the opposition to many other proposals. MNOs not doing their due diligence before casting votes or forming and expressing opinions is half the reason progress has languished in the aspects of the DAO that relate to the Treasury. If you don't know what you're voting about, then educate yourself or stay out of it. It's that simple. You don't benefit anyone--including your own assets--if you engage in these activities half-cocked and half-baked. If you are not availing yourself of the information required to make an informed decision on these topics, if you are not plugged in to active communit(y/ies) working day and night to advance the cause of the DAO--even passively as a lurker, you don't have to actually talk to anyone--then you are not a positive force in the DAO and are a danger and a risk to our collective and your own individual wealth.

Whatever your opinion or stance is about this or that, at the very least please start doing your due diligence before you comment or vote. There is tons of information out there and I know some people are busy or don't have a lot of free time, but that's no excuse to take regressive action. If you don't have the time to positively contribute and thoroughly do your duties, then delegate your voting keys to someone who does and will. It's that simple.

And everyone who doesn't share your opinion is an idiot who doesn't know how to vote, right?
Seriously kid, maybe you are the one who should delegate your votes to a sensible, grown-up person.
There are honest and sincere concerns, that this is very likely going to become a constant resource burner, way beyond of what you genius might expect.
Directors, a manager, lawyers, accountants and whatnot gonna suck the treasury dry, and unfortunately it looks like it was intentionally and purposefully setup for this very reason. That means much less available funds for other useful proposals.
While it would be great for the DAO being able to own equity in some of the projects, it has to be done the right way, without putting the DAO under such enormous financial strain and pressure continuously.
And if Core is unable or unwilling to setup an extremely low running cost solution for this simple purpose (which would be in our best interest), like maybe $5k/year max. for this legal ability, then maybe they should look for somebody who can.

No, I said quite the opposite in fact. Notice the part where I said "whatever your opinion or stance is..." This covers arguments for and against that are based on a lack of understanding or inaccurate information. Disagreements *or* agreements on these bases are not beneficial, whether they happen to agree with me or not. We need informed participation. It is evident in this thread that much of the opposition is rooted in participation that is not informed.

Honesty and sincerity are important qualities, but they are not sufficient unto themselves, particularly where business decisions are concerned. Accurate information and understanding are essential. Without the latter, honest and sincere opinions can be especially problematic. Comments like "it looks like it was intentionally and purposefully setup for this very reason" are conspiracy theories without basis or merit and can just as easily be dismissed as such and furthermore they needlessly demonize and accuse people of hostile intent that are by all evidence helpful contributors to our ecosystem.

We know what the costs are, they are clearly explicated. You say "it has to be done the right way." We've already spent quite a bit of funding determining what that way is, and this is it. If you have a better idea which magically saves us tons of money based on your own extensive legal and economic research, by all means share it, but again, on what basis do you make this objection and on what basis do you reasonably believe that such a thing is even possible? It would make sense if you were some sort of experienced expert in this field and knew of a particular way to pull this off, but I suspect that you are not and do not. Those who are experienced (as they can be, this is an unprecedented situation) and are professionals arrived at this arrangement. These things need to move forward under the best possible directions, and the research we funded yielded this as the best possibility to satisfy all the needs and requirements the network has. We've already done what you described, and this is the result.

If you objected to the entire operation and its goals, then the time to protest was several iterations and steps ago in the project's development.

Should we have protested on the censored subreddit perhaps?

I really wouldn’t consider $5k per month an “enormous financial strain” on a treasury that can currently support up to $1m of of funding requests each month.

Walter

@RobbyDash I agree that Arthyron didn't come off the right way, especially belittling MNOs who disagree. It's a counterproductive tone.

Having said that, the cost is actually quite reasonable and it seems really high because it's upfront payment for the next 2 years. This is actually a very low cost solution.

A longer term perspective is needed to really see the value in the DIF. I would rather take a chance on this project than our other adoption efforts, which have mostly not turned out well.

Walter, cedbrown
Appreciated your comments.
Unfortunately, we have no idea whatsoever, how much this whole operation is gonna cost us in those two years.
With the presumably little income generated through the equity it will accumulate in various funded proposals over time, it could well take half a decade, before DIF will be able to run self-sufficiently, if ever.
Also keep in mind, the 1028 asked are only the Operational Funding for the first two years.
It does *not* comprise the salary of the future to-be-appointed manager, nor does it comprise any initial Investment Funding, and likely there will be much more funds required for many unforeseen expenses, whether blatantly invented or not.
3d1409ae did not lie, when he made the assertion that this entity in such a setup, will end up wielding tremendous centralized power among people without skin in the game, while at the same time taking power away from the masternode network.

It is not unreasonable to being sincerely worried, that this entity in such a setup, could easily cost us thousands of Dash with very little actual benefits in relation to its burn rate. Even if slightly off-topic:
Rather than wasting thousands in this, we could instead save about 4000 over the next 24months (or 170/month) placing it in a saving pot and locking it, for the purpose and mandate to sell it at the previous all-time-high price, if or whenever the price recovers to that ATH level again.
That would provide us with sufficient funding to pay for a 30sec TV ad spot in an upcoming, future Superbowl finale, and it would probably get broadcast at least two, if not three, times on national television and even internationally, reaching at the very least 250million+ people.
Such an expenditure could easily make Dash gain 5, if not 10, market-cap ranks within a very short time, once that time arrives.

We are one of the lucky few cryptocurrencies, having a working DAO, and can be grateful for it.
But we should be prudent of how we spend our limited resources, for maximum price impact.
Having said that, i trust that every MNO (including those who hold a different opinion) is voting with the best interest of Dash in their heart and according to their conscience.

What legal entity would hold this 4000 Dash pot? What would the tax implications be? How would custody be handled? Why would they have a fiduciary duty to carry out certain tasks? The answer is probably something almost identical to what we spent all that legal funding creating in the DIF, and the creation of yet another legal identity to ostensibly meet your goals would likely incur similar costs and have the same capabilities and risks.

This was only an example, how we could likely achieve a 1000fold impact, if we really want to blow a couple thousand Dash over the next 24months. There are better use-cases we could spent it on than this entity, because the noticeable benefits will turn out to be slim to none. (my prediction)
Please correct me if i'm wrong, but if DCG was able to spend Dash in the past, on behalf and for the benefit of Dash on various occasions, and according to MNO-approved mandates (like for example on legal, marketing, development, and in many other areas), so why would this be a problem in this particular example which i made?
I'm not even sure, if the DAO itself and its treasury funds, not being an individual nor judicial(legal) person, can even be subject to income or capital gains taxation. As far as i know, only individuals, cooperatives or incorporated companies are obligated to file tax returns. The DAO is neither.
But i'm not a tax advisor.

Fact of the matter is, that this entity with its two directors and a future to-be-appointed manager looks already quite bloated from the very beginning.
We have been largely kept in the dark, about the salary of the future manager, which is not comprised in the 1028 asked, about the ways and principles of operation and in which fields this entity wants to engage in, and we don't have the slightest idea how much initial (and subsequent) Investment Funding this entity plans to demand in future.
Just don't make the mistake to believe, that it will be set for the next two years with only those 1028 asked right now.
And the more funds we approve, the more we will be compelled to also approve all future funding requests, as to not waste the already approved funds before.

Could someone please point me to the web page/s at DashCentral where the polling vote proposals were posted to give the MNOs an opportunity to vote to decide if the following two legal structure should be set up:

1. Irrevocable trust set up managed by trust protectors.
2. "Dash investment Foundation".

For no.2 above were the estimated running costs for this foundation presented at any time before this funding proposal? If so where were the running cost estimates given?

thank you.

I like the idea and am currently/planning to vote for it however, I think it's lower priority than other proposals, but if it can fit into the budget this cycle it's good. Last cycle we didn't even use all the funds.

This is a quick introduction to the first directors of Dash Investment Foundation (Glenn and Casey). Allow us to give you our thoughts on DIF and to address some of the comments made on the concept and the funding proposal.

By way of background, we are both fiduciary professionals who have worked in governance mainly with investment (hedge) funds for the past 15+ years. We were approached by DCG which was looking to set up DIF and appoint professional, capable managers with oversight from the network’s elected supervisors, so that it can operate professionally and independently of DCG with best governance practices. The core concept of DIF is to allow the network to benefit from investments made in ecosystem software projects by holding equity in these projects, rather than giving no-strings-attached funding grants which can create a lot of value for the recipient project’s owners, but have no direct benefit to the network. DIF will act like an investment fund to hold participation interests in Dash ecosystem companies, with the beneficiaries of successful investments being the network itself. We believe this is a compelling concept. We’ve worked closely (and for free) with DCG for nearly 6 months now to see DIF move from concept stage to reality, and we’re eager to see it launch and prosper.

A few of the comments made thus far are somewhat off the mark, for starters, we do not serve on boards of hundreds of companies and the normal fees for the kind of work we do are not a fraction of the fees set out in the proposal (our proposed fees are in fact discounted). Also, while the funding proposal is for 2 years in order to give DIF maximum runway and chances for success, our fees are not paid two years in advance, and our services are always subject to termination at any time by decision of the network-elected board of supervisors.

If you have any questions or comments, please post and we’ll do our best to address them.

Thank you for the quick introduction.

After listening to the Dash Podcast, where Ryan Taylor answerred many questions about the Dash Investment Foundation and answerred questions about other topics as well (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GeH0qvxWKVo&feature=youtu.be), i decided to support this budget proposal. So you will have my yes votes.

Really looking forward to this, hope it passes!!

I'm sure this proposal is all well-meant and with good intentions.
However, there could be made a lot of good arguments, why Dash should not turn into a traditional investment fund (not even partially), except of course for the legal ability to own some equity or stake for some proposals that the treasury funds, but that's about it. And that should be the only and exclusive reason for it to exist.
The huge risk i see in this operation, is that it will tend to grow, perhaps overgrow, and divert a lot of treasury funds away from many other proposals.

Not voting against, because the MN operators (and neither Dash Watch) will probaby never see scanned invoices of the compliance registration and documentation, legal fees, bookkeeping and accounting and the banking and custody invoices, or if and how the reserve funds were ever used.

Price is low at this point in time, and maybe we should stop squandering treasury funds by hiring a myriad of additional people, as long as the price doesn't recover significantly.

Something else MN operators will find deceitful and misleading is, that this is only the Operational Funding.
This basically means, if this is being approved, we will almost by necessity have to authorize all the subsequent Investment Funding that will be asked for this project, no matter how huge those asks will be.
This proposal does not mention how high the future Investment Funding will be, and does not roughly describe the ways, strategies and principles such subsequent Investment Funding will be subject to.
We should be given a clearer picture of what exactly DIF intents to do, and how it is going to operate, before asking us to vote on an essential closed bag.
Sorry, voting no for this reason.

We need much more information.

The network-elected DIF supervisors will have the greatest influence over the operation of DIF. For that reason, it is difficult to say exactly how it will function before the election is complete, or whether the approach it takes to serving the network will change over time in response to its successes or failures. This is by design, to ensure the network has the final say in the role DIF plays within the ecosystem and that the function of DIF can adjust over time.

If the network elected supervisors decide that DIF should not become a traditional investment fund and should instead only make equity investments in a subset of proposals from the treasury, then that is exactly what will happen. If they decided that the only funding mechanism should be through direct approvals of the MNOs, then they could send every decision to the network for approval or initial funding. It is therefore in the interest of the network to install supervisors that supports the desired function of DIF.

I don't share your view that this is squandering funds. In contrast, I think it is a powerful tool in the network's toolkit to avoid granting money to startups without recourse and without sharing sufficiently in the benefits of the successful enterprises we've helped support in the past. Just one example... we funded Bitcart's development and shortly after they stopped supporting Dash with no recourse for the broken promises. We simply have an unacceptable level of ongoing waste that DIF can help address by taking ownership positions in the profitable businesses we help start.

Unfortunately we cannot be sure, that supervisors will care and won't act maliciously, without a requirement for them personally to have a certain exposure to the performance of DASH
After the 1028dash requested in this proposal, we have absolutely no idea how much additional money it will cost to hire the manager, nor do we know how much initial asset allocation will be asked. But i predict it will not just be peanuts.
And we do not even know, what the future manager is going to do for the money we pay him. Probably not much at all.
This thing can easily morph into a honeyspot for embezzlement and probably will.
Thousands and thousands of Dash will go down the drain over the course of the next 24 months over this, with likely little positive results.
The sadest part of it all is, that it will divert a lot of treasury funds away from much better use cases, like the marketing we need.

Then you should vote for supervisors that are MNOs :)
You are being extremely negative here, there is no reason to think that the supervisors we elect won't do a good job and will instead embezzle the network. I think you might need to take a step back and look at the bigger picture. We constantly invest in projects that make promises and then don't deliver or use the resources to grow their own business and then leave Dash. The DIF will help mitigate this.

But it does more. Satoshi's original vision about the post mining era is flawed. He basically wrote that in the post mining era, rewards would come from transaction fees. In Dash we have the possibility to have rewards come from dividends of projects we invest in.

Deceitful and misleading? Everything is there clear as crystal. MNOs are not too stupid to comprehend the above proposal. Now that Kuva and DashCrypto have been defunded as a result of their own failings, we should have no problem funding this.

Too greedy, dear friends. Voting NO.

-

There's no greed here, this is what things cost. The Dash investment fund will allow us to own projects that we invest in. It's a very powerful step forward for a DAO to own assets and intellectual property. Up until now all that has been happening is that we've been investing in things that we perceive will improve the Dash platform. Now we can potentially invest in businesses that will give a return to your masternode holdings.

The task should have been to create a very low running cost solution for the DAO to own equity in the funding of some proposals, whenever PO offer the DAO such a share in return for funding.
It should have never been the goal to create a resource hungry beast, wasting endless amounts of Dash until we all finally wake up, but only after 1,000s of Dash have been wasted over time, and stop funding this nonsense right now.
We can stop this now, and demand a very low running cost solution that enables the DAO to own equity in some of its funded proposals. Everything beyond that really makes no sense.
This kind of waste gotta stop, for the benefit of Dash

$130,000 to operate for two years comes out to ~$5,400 per month. That is not an excessive cost to enable this capability. If anyone can establish a legal entity that:
1) Can be controlled by the network for the benefit of the network
2) Cannot be owned by anyone in particular (e.g., cannot be liquidated and all funds claimed by its members or owners)
3) Can legally invest in private businesses and engage in business (e.g., open exchange, custody, and bank accounts)
4) Is tax efficient
5) Enables active investment activities
6) Is located in a well-respected jurisdiction that will enable it to engage worldwide
AND
7) Is lower cost to operate than DIF

... I would certainly welcome such a solution. As things stand, I'm pretty proud of the solution we've established and welcome any specific ideas to improve it.

Yes, it is indeed expensive for the presumably very little work that will be done by these DIF people.
3) and 5) rise some serious concerns, if this entity is planning to spend, invest and acquire outside from proprosals which were first approved and funded by the DAO. We will hand them considerable Investment Funding over, and will have to blindly trust them (three people we don't really know!), how they really spend it and whether their decisions make even sense for Dash. This puts DIF in a very powerful position with little oversight.
The supervisors may not be a guarantee of making good decisions on behalf of Dash, or to limit the powers of the directors and the manager, in a meaningful way, even more so persons who aren't themselves heavily invested in Dash and therefore face no negative repercussions and won't be negatively affected by their own inaction, negligence or even complicity.
If the supervisors themselves are not heavily invested in Dash, the interests may not be properly aligned in this scenario and they could care less about their actions and decisions.
4) it may be tax efficient, but over the long-term this setup is certainly not gonna be cost efficient.
Long-term it could easily cost us many times more, than it actually adds value.
For each dollar it adds in value to Dash, we will probably going to spend 5 dollars.

I think some MNOs don't want the DIF, because then they won't know who to shit on -- DCG or DIF.

Maybe the above comment was unkind. What I want to say is that the amazing team at DCG has come up with this innovation, and they've done a lot of work to actually bring it into existence. All we need to do as MNOs is say yes. If RT thinks this is what we should do, I'm going to say yes.

Voting yes. This is the direction Dash should go to provide actual backing to the Dash currency.

You've gotta be kidding, dude

I am not kidding. I like Ryan's vision with this. This is a much larger vision than Evolution ever was and its also a more viable approach for the future.

Who has elected "directors" Glenn Kennedy and Casey McDonald?
Or who has appointed them for which specific tasks and for how long?
I'm asking because i'm sure the overwhelming majority of MNO has never heard of them before.

The voting link https://difvote.dash.org/ was or still is hard to find anywhere.
As if some large MNO want to clandestinely dominate the election process through the absence of all other MNO.

Furthermore, costs, fees and salaries look pretty damn high for just a legal entity shell and the likely little work done in future.
Can we know, why DCG cannot directly own this Cayman-based entity, and delegate the little work to some DCG employees, at least in the first couple of years, in order to keep costs down in this bear market?

Over 1,000 Dash for this adventure sounds like an overstretch.

Directors are required under the law under which DIF was formed. You literally cannot have DIF without them.

Directors carry out the directions of the supervisors, including performing day-to-day management of the investment entity in accordance with its mandate to the network. This includes hiring employees and / or contractors (such as law firms, accountants, or investment managers), negotiating and signing contracts, ensuring all legal filings are completed, conducting financial activities (e.g., paying bills, transferring funds), and approving larger investments. Basically, they run the fund.

Because we needed directors to launch DIF, we had to select the initial directors to start. Once the supervisors are installed after the supervisor election, they could in theory replace the directors. Glenn Kennedy and Casey McDonald are now well-educated on Dash and familiar with our goals, so I doubt the supervisors would have an interest in replacing them before attempting to work with them.

Also, I'd like to clarify... Dash Investment Foundation is NOT a shell entity. Shell companies involve filing a few forms each year. DIF is intended to be an active investment fund with activities every month, including writing legal contracts, evaluating investments, accounting work, filings with the government, meetings with supervisors to approve actions.

There are many reasons why DCG should not own DIF. They include 1) very different skill set requirements for software development vs investing... one entity would be hard-pressed to be good at both, 2) we would still be required to have local directors in Cayman, so there is little cost advantage, 3) securities status is dependent on diverse independent contributors to the network.

The two year cost of this entity excluding reserve for contingencies is about $130,000. That's about $5,500 per month to operate. That is about 33 Dash / month at current prices. And for that cost, we can make the proposal system itself more efficient by addressing the shortcomings of a grant-only proposal system. I believe that to be a bargain.

+1 im also confused how and why now?

ok sorry found it in the Blog post from Ryan Taylor https://blog.dash.org/introducing-the-dash-investment-foundation-370cafcc48ee

I do wonder why we need 2 directors at this point and what their exact role will be....

We need this entity. DCG cannot be burdened with investment activity. DCG has to focus on writing software and maintaining a nice, sober website.