Proposal description
Renewal of funding – DASH Radio Advertising, 185+ FM and AM stations coast-to-coast in the United States, plus Free-to-Air Satellite over Sub-Saharan Africa and North and Central America + streaming, podcast and MORE!
UPDATE - 2018-06-09 - I had the pleasure of being interviewed on the DASH Force News Three Amigos Podcast yesterday in which we discussed the successful outreach to businesses in New Hampshire as well as this proposal. If you missed it live, you can watch it here on YouTube.
UPDATE 2 - Something else I had created to benefit DASH, with no request for funding: http://cryptotip.org - printable DASH tips, now in public beta - launched yesterday during the podcast linked above.
Hello fellow masternodes! I’m Ian Freeman, one of the hosts of Free Talk Live. Free Talk Live (FTL) is a seven-day-a-week, live, nationally syndicated libertarian, pro-crypto radio program on 185+ AM and FM radio stations across the US. These are real FCC licensed radio stations! You can see where they are on our radio transmitter map. Our show is heard on both conservative AND progressive talk stations - we’re the only national issues-based show that is heard on both formats.
However, our reach is not exclusive to radio stations. We also have more than 15 million downloads on our podcast and others listen to us via live streaming and our international satellite channels (more on that later). We’ve been around the cryptocurrency world since 2011 and FTL is credited by Gavin Andresen and Roger Ver as helping to give Bitcoin the initial boost it needed to get widespread adoption.
"Many of the earliest Bitcoin adopters first learned about it through Free Talk Live...I'm convinced that is one of the sparks that turned a crazy little open source software project into a multi-billion dollar industry." -Gavin Andresen, Original Bitcoin Head Developer
"By broadcasting this message since 2011...FTL has been instrumental in creating the widespread adoption that we have today." -Roger Ver, CEO Bitcoin.com
This is a proposal to continue and expand our year-long relationship with DASH that we started at the beginning of 2017. (Thank you for supporting us!) We don’t need DASH to build us a fancy studio or to help us start doing anything. We already have a studio and we’ve been doing our show since 2002 and have been in national syndication since 2004. We’re established in the industry and are the longest-running show in our daypart (7-10pm Eastern) in national syndication. We’ve outlasted all of our competition. In case you doubt our claims of success, TALKERS Magazine (the premiere industry publication for talk radio) this year named us the #27 most important talk radio show as part of their “Heavy Hundred”! It’s our tenth year on the chart, and we’ve been moving up every year. See it for yourself here.
As early adopters of Bitcoin, we’ve done very well and are comfortable enough to be very choosy about which advertisers we accept. We believe in DASH. As you can see from me and my co-host Mark Edge’s (medgeftl) accounts here, FTL are DASH masternodes. We wouldn’t have asked for DASH’s sponsorship if we weren’t supporters.
It’s part of my mission to spread cryptocurrency as part of my peace advocacy with the Shire Free Church. I run two Crypto Vending Machines (CVMs) in Keene, NH and one CVM in Manchester, NH. Those machines only offer two types of crypto - BTC and DASH. I love that DASH focuses on bringing crypto into the real world and our hosts have been instrumental in making that a reality on-the-ground here in New Hampshire. I spend DASH in real life at merchants around town multiple times each week. I can go shopping in Keene, NH, grab a newspaper and other goodies at Corner News and pay in DASH. I can go across the street and get lunch at Local Burger, with DASH. I can take my car to Wilder Automotive and get it repaired with DASH. I can buy a drink at Thirsty Owl, get a pizza from Little Zoe’s, grab some BBQ at Hot Hogs, and MORE. According to Albert at DiscoverDash.com, Keene is the #3 city for raw numbers of DASH-accepting businesses in the world (after Caracas and Portsmouth). Free Talk Live’s co-hosts made this possible by reaching out to merchants directly and helping them get setup with the killer-app merchant software, Anypay (a company co-founded by FTL alumni Derrick J Freeman). We’re invested in DASH being a success, and that’s not because of the previous sponsorship, it’s because we believe that DASH is superior tech to Bitcoin and prefer to use it over Bitcoin because of the lower fees. DASH rocks and it owns the growing crypto retail world in New Hampshire.
The first part of this proposal is to renew the DASH three (3) :30 second recorded radio ads and one (1) live promotion per show. We have about a dozen ads that we created that were approved by the Core team, they all have the same scripts, but a bunch of different voices. This, we feel, helps function as a sort of “Word of Mouth” campaign. Listeners hear the same message repeated by many different people.
As insurance against a major rise in the cost of DASH, we are offering to throw in up to four additional weeks of the same ad package, if the cost of DASH supports it; and we won’t ask for additional funding during the timeframe of this proposal if the price goes down. We’re not cashing out. We’re spending DASH in real life and holding the rest and are in this for the long run.
We also have produced another half dozen or so ads that point out the strengths of DASH: transaction times, transaction fees, the robust community, etc. We use the live promotions as opportunities to talk about new developments in DASH. Dashforcenews.com has been invaluable for this. Even though our DASH sponsorship expired at the end of 2017, we still have a banner on our studio cam page at and speak positively about DASH when the opportunity arises on air. (It took us this long to get another proposal together - we’re loaded with things that keep us busy!)
In addition to the advertisements, this time around, we also want to do some on-air and online giveaways of DASH. We want to give away 1 DASH per week. Most weeks we will do several small giveaways spread across broadcast and the internet. At least one week we will do one big give away where one lucky person will take home a whole DASH.
At Free Talk Live, our standard is that we have to believe in the product to do a live promotion, and we regularly use and promote DASH. We can easily defend against the DASH haters. (Our phones are open every night, so we have been challenged on-air.) I hope you will vote to renew these ads and any comments you have are welcome. We are putting this in for 3 months of funding, but I must advise you that branding advertising is a long term endeavor. We will continue to support DASH, whatever your vote, but this will give us the opportunity to continue to discuss it seven-nights-per-week and for our 300,000+ weekly listeners all around the world, mostly in the US.
Since we have had such success with this campaign in the past, we also are bringing in affiliate shows to this proposal. These shows will allow us to get more reach for DASH, without a separate campaign for each:
Henry Raines, of the Henry Raines Show, does a weekly crypto-oriented show in the Tampa Bay Area (Tampa is the 19th largest market in the US and also covers the Sarasota/Bradenton Metro, the 71st market in the US. The total area has a population of 3.5 million.) There are very few over-the-air crypto shows on the radio. Henry’s been on-air in the market since 2003 and last year rebranded his show to focus on cryptocurrency. Henry also releases his show as a podcast. He is requesting 1 DASH a month and .1 a week to give away. Henry helped us by producing and co-hosting with us at the North American Bitcoin Conference in Miami. He does a good show and we would like to see DASH sponsoring crypto shows across the world.
I mentioned earlier that Free Talk Live is heard on international satellite channels. It’s called Free-to-Air satellite broadcasting and it’s popular globally, especially in poorer countries, which is exactly where DASH needs to be heard and adopted. Poor people can’t afford to pay for satellite channels, so Free-to-Air is not encrypted, which means the channels cost nothing to receive. We’ve been on satellite since 2010 over North and Central America (Galaxy 19) and over Sub-Saharan Africa (SES-5) since 2012. We know we’re reaching people, as we’ve heard from listeners in African nations like Cameroon, Sierra Leone, Kenya, and Nigeria. Here's a video (from our previous satellite fundraiser on patreon) that explains what we’re doing in more detail and introduces you to our listener Ako in Cameroon:
The satellite channel we’re on is LRN.FM - The Liberty Radio Network. It’s an 24/7 internet-based streaming audio network that’s been in existence since 2009 and I am its program director. LRN.FM already features multiple DASH-friendly shows with which you are probably familiar, including:
-“The Crypto Show” - Danny’s a good friend and his show has long been sponsored by DASH.
-DASH Force News’ “Three Amigos Podcast” - Hosted by Joël Valenzuela, Mark Mason, and Brian Freeman
-“Neocash Radio” with hosts Dr. Darren Tapp and FTL alumni JJ Schlessinger.
In addition to the excellent broadcast radio exposure described above, this proposal also includes sponsorship of LRN.FM. We’ll make DASH our network’s exclusive “Satellite Sponsor”. We’ll run :30 ads for DASH around-the-clock, at least once an hour during our live and encore shows (the supermajority of our broadcast day - you can see our program guide here.)
In addition to the dozens of podcasts we have on the network, we also have original live programs that are excited to come onboard to help promote DASH to their audiences as live sponsors during their shows:
“The Call to Freedom” is a three hour per weekday afternoon drive show airing on LRN.FM which features its middle 5pm (Eastern) hour, ‘The Crypto Hour’ - it’s the only radio show with a solid hour a day where the hosts dive deep into crypto with news and guests from across the world of cryptocurrency. Each week they choose a crypto and review it, alerting their audience to scams and questionable currencies, as well as to those with promise and solid track records. It’s informative and entertaining with main host Will Coley and his various co-hosts throughout the week. Will also lives here in Keene and is an active user of DASH around town. Sponsoring the Call to Freedom means at least one live promotion every hour for DASH, plus on-site promotions as the show travels to and broadcasts from various events, including real-life products like t-shirts and stickers. Also, DASH will be added to the show intros and DASH has full access to the show. If DASH’s spokesperson wants to come on-air to talk about the latest upgrade or get out in front of FUD? Call to Freedom is there.
“Questioning Authority” is a two hour weekly show on Saturday nights on LRN.FM with host and independent journalist Vincent Freeman. He’s the news editor for his college newspaper at Keene State College and his stream-of-consciousness style and youth makes him a great nighttime host appealing to younger listeners.
For about one half of one percent of the DASH monthly budget, DASH will receive continuous radio, streaming, podcast, and international satellite audio promotions by hosts who are regular DASH users. This is important branding reaching people in their cars, homes, and on their headphones. Thank you for reading this far and for your vote.
Break down of costs:
FTL Major Sponsorship Package
7 live promotions per week @ $125 each = $875 per week
21 :30 second radio ads per week @ $20 each = $420 per week
7 :30 second podcast ads per week @ $20 each = $140 per week
125x100 banner on every page.
Large Banner on a major page of FreeTalkLive.com. https://www.freetalklive.com/studio
Periodic Facebook posts and a recorded interview for the podcast.
13 week sub-total = $18,655 = approx 60 DASH (at $310 per DASH - the price at noon Eastern on June 5th)
FTL weekly DASH giveaway = 13 week sub-total = 13 DASH
Henry Raines Show sponsorship = 13 week sub-total = 3.25 DASH
Henry Raines Show weekly DASH give-away = 13 week sub-total = 1.3 DASH
LRN.FM Satellite Sponsorship = $2,500 for 13 weeks = 8 DASH
Call to Freedom Sponsorship = $2,500 for 13 weeks = 8 DASH
Questioning Authority Sponsorship = $310 for 13 weeks = 1 DASH
Proposal reimbursement = 5 DASH
Requesting a total of 99 DASH (33 per month)
UPDATE - 2018-06-09 - I had the pleasure of being interviewed on the DASH Force News Three Amigos Podcast yesterday in which we discussed the successful outreach to businesses in New Hampshire as well as this proposal. If you missed it live, you can watch it here on YouTube.
UPDATE 2 - Something else I had created to benefit DASH, with no request for funding: http://cryptotip.org - printable DASH tips, now in public beta - launched yesterday during the podcast linked above.
Hello fellow masternodes! I’m Ian Freeman, one of the hosts of Free Talk Live. Free Talk Live (FTL) is a seven-day-a-week, live, nationally syndicated libertarian, pro-crypto radio program on 185+ AM and FM radio stations across the US. These are real FCC licensed radio stations! You can see where they are on our radio transmitter map. Our show is heard on both conservative AND progressive talk stations - we’re the only national issues-based show that is heard on both formats.
However, our reach is not exclusive to radio stations. We also have more than 15 million downloads on our podcast and others listen to us via live streaming and our international satellite channels (more on that later). We’ve been around the cryptocurrency world since 2011 and FTL is credited by Gavin Andresen and Roger Ver as helping to give Bitcoin the initial boost it needed to get widespread adoption.
"Many of the earliest Bitcoin adopters first learned about it through Free Talk Live...I'm convinced that is one of the sparks that turned a crazy little open source software project into a multi-billion dollar industry." -Gavin Andresen, Original Bitcoin Head Developer
"By broadcasting this message since 2011...FTL has been instrumental in creating the widespread adoption that we have today." -Roger Ver, CEO Bitcoin.com
This is a proposal to continue and expand our year-long relationship with DASH that we started at the beginning of 2017. (Thank you for supporting us!) We don’t need DASH to build us a fancy studio or to help us start doing anything. We already have a studio and we’ve been doing our show since 2002 and have been in national syndication since 2004. We’re established in the industry and are the longest-running show in our daypart (7-10pm Eastern) in national syndication. We’ve outlasted all of our competition. In case you doubt our claims of success, TALKERS Magazine (the premiere industry publication for talk radio) this year named us the #27 most important talk radio show as part of their “Heavy Hundred”! It’s our tenth year on the chart, and we’ve been moving up every year. See it for yourself here.
As early adopters of Bitcoin, we’ve done very well and are comfortable enough to be very choosy about which advertisers we accept. We believe in DASH. As you can see from me and my co-host Mark Edge’s (medgeftl) accounts here, FTL are DASH masternodes. We wouldn’t have asked for DASH’s sponsorship if we weren’t supporters.
It’s part of my mission to spread cryptocurrency as part of my peace advocacy with the Shire Free Church. I run two Crypto Vending Machines (CVMs) in Keene, NH and one CVM in Manchester, NH. Those machines only offer two types of crypto - BTC and DASH. I love that DASH focuses on bringing crypto into the real world and our hosts have been instrumental in making that a reality on-the-ground here in New Hampshire. I spend DASH in real life at merchants around town multiple times each week. I can go shopping in Keene, NH, grab a newspaper and other goodies at Corner News and pay in DASH. I can go across the street and get lunch at Local Burger, with DASH. I can take my car to Wilder Automotive and get it repaired with DASH. I can buy a drink at Thirsty Owl, get a pizza from Little Zoe’s, grab some BBQ at Hot Hogs, and MORE. According to Albert at DiscoverDash.com, Keene is the #3 city for raw numbers of DASH-accepting businesses in the world (after Caracas and Portsmouth). Free Talk Live’s co-hosts made this possible by reaching out to merchants directly and helping them get setup with the killer-app merchant software, Anypay (a company co-founded by FTL alumni Derrick J Freeman). We’re invested in DASH being a success, and that’s not because of the previous sponsorship, it’s because we believe that DASH is superior tech to Bitcoin and prefer to use it over Bitcoin because of the lower fees. DASH rocks and it owns the growing crypto retail world in New Hampshire.
The first part of this proposal is to renew the DASH three (3) :30 second recorded radio ads and one (1) live promotion per show. We have about a dozen ads that we created that were approved by the Core team, they all have the same scripts, but a bunch of different voices. This, we feel, helps function as a sort of “Word of Mouth” campaign. Listeners hear the same message repeated by many different people.
As insurance against a major rise in the cost of DASH, we are offering to throw in up to four additional weeks of the same ad package, if the cost of DASH supports it; and we won’t ask for additional funding during the timeframe of this proposal if the price goes down. We’re not cashing out. We’re spending DASH in real life and holding the rest and are in this for the long run.
We also have produced another half dozen or so ads that point out the strengths of DASH: transaction times, transaction fees, the robust community, etc. We use the live promotions as opportunities to talk about new developments in DASH. Dashforcenews.com has been invaluable for this. Even though our DASH sponsorship expired at the end of 2017, we still have a banner on our studio cam page at and speak positively about DASH when the opportunity arises on air. (It took us this long to get another proposal together - we’re loaded with things that keep us busy!)
In addition to the advertisements, this time around, we also want to do some on-air and online giveaways of DASH. We want to give away 1 DASH per week. Most weeks we will do several small giveaways spread across broadcast and the internet. At least one week we will do one big give away where one lucky person will take home a whole DASH.
At Free Talk Live, our standard is that we have to believe in the product to do a live promotion, and we regularly use and promote DASH. We can easily defend against the DASH haters. (Our phones are open every night, so we have been challenged on-air.) I hope you will vote to renew these ads and any comments you have are welcome. We are putting this in for 3 months of funding, but I must advise you that branding advertising is a long term endeavor. We will continue to support DASH, whatever your vote, but this will give us the opportunity to continue to discuss it seven-nights-per-week and for our 300,000+ weekly listeners all around the world, mostly in the US.
Since we have had such success with this campaign in the past, we also are bringing in affiliate shows to this proposal. These shows will allow us to get more reach for DASH, without a separate campaign for each:
Henry Raines, of the Henry Raines Show, does a weekly crypto-oriented show in the Tampa Bay Area (Tampa is the 19th largest market in the US and also covers the Sarasota/Bradenton Metro, the 71st market in the US. The total area has a population of 3.5 million.) There are very few over-the-air crypto shows on the radio. Henry’s been on-air in the market since 2003 and last year rebranded his show to focus on cryptocurrency. Henry also releases his show as a podcast. He is requesting 1 DASH a month and .1 a week to give away. Henry helped us by producing and co-hosting with us at the North American Bitcoin Conference in Miami. He does a good show and we would like to see DASH sponsoring crypto shows across the world.
I mentioned earlier that Free Talk Live is heard on international satellite channels. It’s called Free-to-Air satellite broadcasting and it’s popular globally, especially in poorer countries, which is exactly where DASH needs to be heard and adopted. Poor people can’t afford to pay for satellite channels, so Free-to-Air is not encrypted, which means the channels cost nothing to receive. We’ve been on satellite since 2010 over North and Central America (Galaxy 19) and over Sub-Saharan Africa (SES-5) since 2012. We know we’re reaching people, as we’ve heard from listeners in African nations like Cameroon, Sierra Leone, Kenya, and Nigeria. Here's a video (from our previous satellite fundraiser on patreon) that explains what we’re doing in more detail and introduces you to our listener Ako in Cameroon:
The satellite channel we’re on is LRN.FM - The Liberty Radio Network. It’s an 24/7 internet-based streaming audio network that’s been in existence since 2009 and I am its program director. LRN.FM already features multiple DASH-friendly shows with which you are probably familiar, including:
-“The Crypto Show” - Danny’s a good friend and his show has long been sponsored by DASH.
-DASH Force News’ “Three Amigos Podcast” - Hosted by Joël Valenzuela, Mark Mason, and Brian Freeman
-“Neocash Radio” with hosts Dr. Darren Tapp and FTL alumni JJ Schlessinger.
In addition to the excellent broadcast radio exposure described above, this proposal also includes sponsorship of LRN.FM. We’ll make DASH our network’s exclusive “Satellite Sponsor”. We’ll run :30 ads for DASH around-the-clock, at least once an hour during our live and encore shows (the supermajority of our broadcast day - you can see our program guide here.)
In addition to the dozens of podcasts we have on the network, we also have original live programs that are excited to come onboard to help promote DASH to their audiences as live sponsors during their shows:
“The Call to Freedom” is a three hour per weekday afternoon drive show airing on LRN.FM which features its middle 5pm (Eastern) hour, ‘The Crypto Hour’ - it’s the only radio show with a solid hour a day where the hosts dive deep into crypto with news and guests from across the world of cryptocurrency. Each week they choose a crypto and review it, alerting their audience to scams and questionable currencies, as well as to those with promise and solid track records. It’s informative and entertaining with main host Will Coley and his various co-hosts throughout the week. Will also lives here in Keene and is an active user of DASH around town. Sponsoring the Call to Freedom means at least one live promotion every hour for DASH, plus on-site promotions as the show travels to and broadcasts from various events, including real-life products like t-shirts and stickers. Also, DASH will be added to the show intros and DASH has full access to the show. If DASH’s spokesperson wants to come on-air to talk about the latest upgrade or get out in front of FUD? Call to Freedom is there.
“Questioning Authority” is a two hour weekly show on Saturday nights on LRN.FM with host and independent journalist Vincent Freeman. He’s the news editor for his college newspaper at Keene State College and his stream-of-consciousness style and youth makes him a great nighttime host appealing to younger listeners.
For about one half of one percent of the DASH monthly budget, DASH will receive continuous radio, streaming, podcast, and international satellite audio promotions by hosts who are regular DASH users. This is important branding reaching people in their cars, homes, and on their headphones. Thank you for reading this far and for your vote.
Break down of costs:
FTL Major Sponsorship Package
7 live promotions per week @ $125 each = $875 per week
21 :30 second radio ads per week @ $20 each = $420 per week
7 :30 second podcast ads per week @ $20 each = $140 per week
125x100 banner on every page.
Large Banner on a major page of FreeTalkLive.com. https://www.freetalklive.com/studio
Periodic Facebook posts and a recorded interview for the podcast.
13 week sub-total = $18,655 = approx 60 DASH (at $310 per DASH - the price at noon Eastern on June 5th)
FTL weekly DASH giveaway = 13 week sub-total = 13 DASH
Henry Raines Show sponsorship = 13 week sub-total = 3.25 DASH
Henry Raines Show weekly DASH give-away = 13 week sub-total = 1.3 DASH
LRN.FM Satellite Sponsorship = $2,500 for 13 weeks = 8 DASH
Call to Freedom Sponsorship = $2,500 for 13 weeks = 8 DASH
Questioning Authority Sponsorship = $310 for 13 weeks = 1 DASH
Proposal reimbursement = 5 DASH
Requesting a total of 99 DASH (33 per month)
Show full description ...
Discussion: Should we fund this proposal?
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It would be great see to that same spirit shared by some of these large proposal owners to make a little room for other very important projects like this one.
If you want to have more people hear about DASH on the radio, please vote for ours and Danny's proposal.
So we knew since last month there would be very large proposals by Core this month, and most of their proposals pass, so since there were many multi-month proposals carrying over from previous cycles as well, there wasn't likely to be much extra Dash in the available budget. Before any other proposals besides Core's proposals showed up, Core's proposals--assuming they pass--have already maxed out the budget. The reason that "half" the budget or thereabouts doesn't seem to be allocated is because Core's proposals have not yet reached the "passing" threshold and so it doesn't yet report that those funds will be allocated, but it's highly likely that they will. Core's PR proposal is the only one remotely in question at this point.
Now, since then, some MNOs have taken votes away from some proposals carrying over from last month that were relatively close to the edge, which has theoretically freed up a little more in the budget, perhaps making room for your project if those remain unfunded, but they're still only a few votes away from being funded again, which puts them way ahead of yours currently. So if they remain unfunded, you might have a chance, but if they are funded again, it's highly unlikely that there will be room for anything else but Core's proposals.
Good luck Ian keep up the great work!
Most of the money has been given to core, core sponsored proposals like bitgo, kuvacash and fanduel sponsorship. This concentration of budget in a few hands is killing the treasury system and making dash no different from any other corporation with vested interests.
Is sponsoring fanduel really giving 20 times the roi of this project?
They are one of our best projects and I’d rather defund fluffy marketing proposals than these kinds of core integration proposals.
We should not turn our backs on decentralization at this juncture.