Hello: I'm Darren Tapp (汤德润) a DIF Supervisor.

Status
Not open for further replies.
We actually drafted a mission last week, but decided to sit on it a week. The idea is there, we just want the language to be the best it can be.

I'm still working on Q4 2020. I just finished the balance sheet yesterday. You didn't miss it, it's not released. I ask all supervisors to approve it before I release it. The unofficial numbers are:

$51.9k -in the bank (and)
~400 Dash ($40.4k end of year value)
$49.3k -near term liability (This is the whole 2021 fixed operational costs, and remaining of last year's legal expenses)

That leaves us with
~$2.6k in the bank.

The reason our liquid numbers are so low is we made three $100k investments. We also expect ~$60k of illiquid equity to come in from ReadyRaider. Thanks to the DAO, we should have 1000 dash hitting our address this coming week. That means that we'll be prepared if an opportunity comes our way. We are still working hard to establish an ongoing process that manages reserves in a risk appropriate way. Personally, I wasn't too concerned about it last quarter since we found opportunities that depleted our reserves. However, we are trying to get all the paperwork/accounts setup so that we can have a balancing strategy over several real asset classes.

Today I'm going to work on the income statement. It's really strange how to organize our data. With the balance sheet I put the Dash value and the USD value of whatever asset. With the income statement, I'm going to report two things

* Inflows and outflows of DASH
* Inflows and outflows of USD

So there will be a trading line where DASH was negative and USD was positive. We directly invested USD into our partners as it was easier for them then accepting Dash directly.

My target is to have a video Q4 report by Feb 15th. As you know we fell short of the video production in Q3 and we released a text report.
 
Last edited:
To also give you an idea, we were planing to spend everything on two $100k investments. That meant we were pulling assets into USD. Gold was one of these assets. The Dash volatility made me worried that we would not be able to do both. However, with patient selling we were able to actually make three $100k investments. Again, we are intending to have a balancing strategy over several real assets classes, gold/medal could be one of those classes. We just want to set it up in a more formal way.

We sold the dash at an average of $103.35. Dash was only above that price for a third of the time that we were selling Dash. This patient selling was one of the reasons we had enough reserves for the third investment.
 
The DIF should look into market making some DEXes that carry Dash across pairs that are charted, I use Waves DEX
and they have decent liquidity against BTC & ETH last I checked, have not looked for a USDT pair.
 
The DIF is researching DeFi markets. Rodrigo was nice enough to invite an expert to our meeting to answer questions.

What we need before taking the plunge into DEX's.

1. I would want to understand the crypto enough to be assured there is no counterparty risk.
2. Understand fees, and confidence on our approximation of their cost.
3. Our directors would need to approve these activities. Specifically, we won't expose the DIF to legal/AML risk.

We are investigating this activity.
 
Darren said:
The DIF is researching DeFi markets. Rodrigo was nice enough to invite an expert to our meeting to answer questions.

What we need before taking the plunge into DEX's.

1. I would want to understand the crypto enough to be assured there is no counterparty risk.
2. Understand fees, and confidence on our approximation of their cost.
3. Our directors would need to approve these activities. Specifically, we won't expose the DIF to legal/AML risk.

We are investigating this activity.
Click to expand...

I made this suggestion in light of FinCEN guidelines that are beginning to drive more traders to DEXes, counterparty
risk is negligible as you hold the keys and are swapping directly with other keyholders, biggest issue is the availability
of multi-sig options.
 
And it doesn't take much Dash to market make a DEX at the moment, as the tech has not taken hold yet,
the spreads are wider as well, offering opportunity as well. ERC-20 DEXes are much more complicated to
make markets in as you have to wrap Dash before using them, Waves offers direct Dash pairings with LTC,
WAVES, ZEC, XMR as well. Being a liquidity provider for those pairs can be fruitful, even on low volume on
account of the spreads.
 
3 Investments? I thought it was only 2 Craypay and the yet to be announced one. So there is even more to wait on :)

I have to say it's really great to have you on the DIF Darren great Results and Communication.

Have you thought about compensation for the DIF Supervisors? Wouldn't want to lose you for not getting paid anything :)
 
TheSingleton said:
3 Investments? I thought it was only 2 Craypay and the yet to be announced one. So there is even more to wait on :)

I have to say it's really great to have you on the DIF Darren great Results and Communication.

Have you thought about compensation for the DIF Supervisors? Wouldn't want to lose you for not getting paid anything :)
Click to expand...


Darren is the titz, I hope he runs again, he had my vote last cycle, just trying to get him to look at non ERC-20 DEXes,
no wrapping required, markets to be made there, I hold like 10 waves for trading fess, Dash has some nice pairs there,
haven't looked at KMD's Atomic DEX Pro yet, been busy with other stuff, but FinCEN regs are likely to make DEX options
shine in 2021, look at what Shapeshift is doing, we should have the DIF look into that as well. Darren has some mighty fine
taste in Bourbon as well, Joe'l introduced me to it when I took a tour of New Hampshire.
 
Last edited:
Can the DIF legally hold external funds? We've got 5 million Dash held as MN collateral, it the DIF is in a position to use external funds to help stabilise markets then a significant number may choose to reallocate their collateral for that purpose, especially if they can get a similar return for doing so.
Thanks.
 
Thanks @AgnewPickens the DIF will seek out information on your suggestion.

TheSingleton said:
3 Investments? I thought it was only 2 Craypay and the yet to be announced one. So there is even more to wait on :)

I have to say it's really great to have you on the DIF Darren great Results and Communication.

Have you thought about compensation for the DIF Supervisors? Wouldn't want to lose you for not getting paid anything :)
Click to expand...

@TheSingleton Yes there is a third investment. We have passed that to the "PR department" for launch announcement. Thank you for the kind words.

Regarding compensation for supervisors. It doesn't seem to be the right time for that. I would also feel better if work was offloaded from the Board of Supervisors onto employees. I'm hoping that in a couple of years that supervisors won't really do much work, and they just supervise employees (and the directors).

It's my expectation that all current supervisors will serve their term (which is up in August). Before then, I expect to internally discuss who plans to continue with the DIF and advertise open seats to the community so we can seek out needed skills for those seats. Note currently there is one open seat as the original BoS had six members. It's work to fill seats and we consciously decided not to fill the last seat for 2020/2021.
 
stan.distortion said:
Can the DIF legally hold external funds? We've got 5 million Dash held as MN collateral, it the DIF is in a position to use external funds to help stabilize markets then a significant number may choose to reallocate their collateral for that purpose, especially if they can get a similar return for doing so.
Thanks.
Click to expand...

I think it would be legal. However, you might want to have contracts in place before money changes hands. Also, the DIF may not want to take on long term liabilities.

I think this can be done profitably without the DIF.
 
@stan.distortion ways to make money that aren't running a masternode.

1. Hire System9 to make markets for you (fees go down the more capital you allocate).
2. Run your own humming bot instance (that's what the DIF is doing)
3. Write your own bot or use mine. (at your own risk)

2 and 3 should pull in more than a masternode. One downside is you might not get the full exposure to DASH that a masternode has.
I would expect 1 to pull in 12% a year if working with >= $1M.

My company uses 3 to help manage risk. When I know that my company will need some USD for operations. Instead of selling right away I'll use the bot. The results will be either:

1. The bot hangs and doesn't really do much.
2. The bot "blows out" and I have USD in my account. I make sure the settings are set so this only happens above the market price when I set up the bot.
3. The bot buys more Dash than it sells and my company has more Dash.

I'm happy with any of these outcomes.

My bot might be classified as volatility harvesting. Technically, it's not a market making bot.
 
Darren said:
I think it would be legal. However, you might want to have contracts in place before money changes hands. Also, the DIF may not want to take on long term liabilities.

I think this can be done profitably without the DIF.
Click to expand...

That raises an interesting question, is the DIF obliged to act in the networks best interests even if it doesn't want to take on a responsibility? Thousands of people are using Dash as money, stability is extremely important to them and the DIF is our most powerful tool for stabilising markets. The DIF can choose it's own actions, it's under no obligation to take on extra responsibilities? (I'm thinking corporate law here, where corporations are obliged to make profits).

Interesting you mentioned the bot, I'm playing around with something similar at the mo. Again, it's in the interests of stability rather than profits, something I'm surprised more non-custodial wallets don't integrate. Works on percentages rather than a reference unit (ie, usd). Hold, say, 50% dash, 50% btc, market moves and now you've got 40% dash, 60% btc, exchange 5% to restore the balance. Came about from months of head scratching to try and figure out how you'd know if you made a profit when you're dealing with 2 things you value equally, tie it to multiple pairings and nothing can move without effecting everything else.
 
It's really important for the DIF to focus. We're going to limit the sphere of our operation. By limiting our sphere of operation we intend to do a few things well instead of many things poorly. Our vision is:


==VISION==
The DIF will
  • Facilitate the solicitation, negotiation, and due diligence of investments of potential interest to the Dash DAO
  • Guide entrepreneurs seeking funding from the DIF by educating them on the process and best practices to improve the chances for a successful investment
  • Manage reserves for the network in a manner that balances the needs to grow the reserves, and to limit risks
  • Seed the liquidity and growth of emerging Dash financial markets or products
  • Conduct all activities with a high degree of transparency - while providing a bridge to the needs of potential partners desiring to protect non-public information
==END VISION==

Making markets is to support the third and fourth item of our vision. We do not intend to stabilize markets, although making markets will help and we consider that a good thing. Friday we intend to start marking a new DASH/USD market. If community members joined us and after a month or two the market was liquid without the DIF then perhaps the DIF would ask to open up a DASH/EUR market.

Rinse repeat.

Supervisors have a responsibility to the DIF and the DIF has a responsibility to the network. That means that everything the DIF does should support the network in some way. It will never be possible that the DIF will be able to carry out every action that is considered to be positive for the network.
 
Darren said:
I think it would be legal. However, you might want to have contracts in place before money changes hands. Also, the DIF may not want to take on long term liabilities.

I think this can be done profitably without the DIF.
Click to expand...


Indeed it can be done profitably wihtout the DIF, I do it, if I can do it with a pile of cracker jack, can be done with larger sums,
but you are in charge of your own keys, nothing to negotiate with any company, that is how DEXes work.
 
Darren,

In your original post you mentioned wanting to have some kind of metric for measuring the DIF's success. While at this point it's probably not super critical, I think the relationship between the network and Dash Watch is critical. As one of the big proposals, I'd suggest that the dif is an important part of that relationship.

So how can we take advantage of the opportunity to build up that relationship? I'll reach out to them as a member of the dash town hall to see what kind of metrics we can build for the project and how we might set ourselves up for success...idk if it's appropriate for the dif, but I'd be interested in hearing what you think about it.
 
Last edited:
Thanks @p5yc071c !

Dash Watch did contact me a while ago. I answered their questions as best as I could and put them in touch with ReadyRaider. I assume the fact that I haven't heard from them is good, but I'm open to more email and am willing to schedule a call if it is helpful. Perhaps they might have some input. Our Q4 report is still on schedule for mid Feb. I'm fixing our income statement (not released) as I had a line that belongs on a cashflow statement and not the income statement. It's not fun trying to be an amateur accountant.

I consider the best case scenario is that our public reports are so good that Dash Watch doesn't have any follow up questions. However, my inbox remains open.

In other news, we did approve a mission:

The Dash Investment Foundation will invest in ecosystem partners on behalf of the Dash DAO to grow Dash's footprint and deliver greater value with the resources available.

Lot of time for one sentence. However, we have been operational during that time and that was our priority.
 
I was surprised to hear that you considered USDt to be riskier than actual USD. What are the relevant risks? The risk of USDt is that is that the peg breaks. The risk of USD is that whatever financial institution is holding them can't or won't give them to you. USDt has been around a long time in crypto terms and it's used on many exchanges. I suppose it's a judgment call.

In a way, USD and USDt are both deck chairs on the same ship -- the Titanic.
 
Last edited:
So the financials I prepared were not approved by the board. We had questions and are seeking out an accountant to help us prepare a balance sheet, income statement, cash flow statement, and dash flow statement.

The board did approve slides for our quarterly report. I am happy to share those with you.


@p5yc071c the unofficial numbers I gave you above included some January expenses. It turns out that my asking around for accounting help suggests that I shouldn't do that. These slides have that corrected.

I hope to have a video report out soon. Other supervisors are preparing a report on the first three quarters. I feel like we're late, but then again, we're just five volunteers.

Thanks again network for funding us in this new year. The more funding we get the more we can accomplish.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top