How to onboard 300,000 new users in one geographic location

DavidHay said:
To summarize DeepBlue and myself both agree it's possible to setup a class room in Cucuta, educate 300,000 and give them $4 each.

He states this is not financially sustainable and a poor use of funds. What part of crypto right now is financially sustainable? Just like Tesla and tech companies Dash's 4 billion dollar valuation is based on it's future potential. Is the future is banking the unbanked, showing the network can handle volume and figuring out how to on-board non technical users?

The marketing value of this project alone will exceed $2,000,000. Nothing like this has ever been done before and it's a valuable use case for crypto. Like I said previously my youtube channel has 6.5 million views (In the last twelve months), the three videos I published about this topic already have 50,000 views. People expect the situation to get worse in Venezuela and the media coverage has been increasing. As this humanitarian crisis unfolds the crypto community has a chance to be on the front lines providing help directly to the people that need it most.

I've lived in Costa Rica and spent a lot of time in Colombia. Their economies are much more decentralized than the US with small markets, independent businesses and street vendors everywhere.

It's wrong to say the money will immediately flow out of the economy. The goal of every business it to make a profit. A street vendor sells corn. Half of that money is profit the other half goes back to the supplier to buy more corn. The street vendor needs his haircut (local barber) He needs firewood for his stove. If things go well he might need to hire someone. As the free economy develops some money will leave it some money will stay. At the moment these people are excluded from the global economy. Crytpo changes that.

Pros
-We help 300,000 people
-We gain huge attention from the media and show a very legitimate use case that crypto
-Cucuta becomes the first major city in the world with crypto mass adoption.
-We create a classroom, education tools and incentive system and show the world how to on-board non-technical users to crypto
-When an entire community understands and knows how to use crypto we can learn how the free market adopts

Cons
-It cost $2,000,000
-It will take money away from other dash proposals
-It's possible 300,000 people immediately sell their crypto for fiat and never use it again
-It could cause mass migration to the city of Cucuta.

Deepblue also said this was unsustainable which I was going to list as a con. Is the project a failure if we help 300,000 people, gain a huge amount of media attention and find out that most people immediately traded their crypto for food?

In the future Dash will face stronger competition from platforms that have no transaction fees. User adoption in emerging markets will be used as a key indicator of success. Proving it can be used by an entire community as digital cash would give Dash a huge boost.
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David you got my support as long you start off small and show to us that this can actually , risking 2 million on this is not worth for us.

Here's my suggestion , pool some capital like say $10,000 or so show us on ground how things work, then you have lot more credibility than mere words.

I dont agree lot of what Deep blue said , about mass migration to cucuta because of these $4 giveaway thats just not possible.

To be clear people in venezuela have a high standard of living owing to massive subsides , they just dont have money or jobs because of all the crap thats going around.

living in Venezuela and mining crypto can make you lot more than $4 in a day , so rest assured no one will go there just to claim the free dash.
 
George Donnelly said:
No offense intended but I just question the utility of distributing 50 cents via SMS confirmations. Two concerns come to mind:

- I'm not sure what anyone is going to do with 50 cents other than to verify that Dash works as promised, i.e. as a novelty. That is valuable, but what's the next step?
- In the developing world it is very believable that someone is going to get paid off who can intercept SMS verifications to thousands of phone numbers at the cell phone company and rip the Dash distribution system off, potentially in a massive way. If there are manual controls in place to prevent that, that suggests that this is not a sustainable system for airdrops, i.e. it has low throughput.

David has a solid idea here. Does his plan produce more questions than answers? Oh, yes! Should it be framed as a small trial of maybe USD$50,000 first? Of course! Should this plan have been presented as a pre-proposal? No way! I told him so myself privately before he posted it. There is so much more development that needs to be done first. IMHO, jumping the gun has actually set things back.

But his idea actually includes a level of verification that is stronger than getfreedash's, as awesome as getfreedash is. Take that for what it's worth.

David's idea is going to happen one way or another. It is simply too seductive, and we can not wait around for mass adoption to come to us. That's just not how it works.

I am really thrilled to have discovered the details behind Dash. I've been active in the libertarian anarchist community since 2008. People mentioned Dash to me but I always came away with the impression that it was generic digital cash. Sorry, that is the branding and the impression I came away with. You can tell me that I should have looked more closely and done more research, but the responsibility of clear communication falls with us, if we want Dash to benefit from wider adoption. Which I do. I am really excited about Dash now.

I see a lot of conservatism in these comments. I like that but I also encourage folks to be open to new ideas and willing to try new things. Saying no is the easiest answer.
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Good point about Telephone operators cheating the system , we have various checks to prevent that , we ask people for their selfie for this reason and also check cookies and ip addresss , now all this can be subverted too :) , so the plan is to stop at million users or so when the authorities really get curious about Getfreedash , i hope this changes your mind about getfreedash.

Alternatively in other counries like say India etc , we can legally sue telecoms if we suspect of fraud ( the telecoms are worth 10s of billlions they dont care of chump change we are giving )
 
George Donnelly said:
But his idea actually includes a level of verification that is stronger than getfreedash's, as awesome as getfreedash is. Take that for what it's worth.
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Exactly. The high level of user verification is what makes @DavidHay's idea worthwhile. It may become the first REAL cryptocurrency economy, and this is a big difference because all the rest cryptocurrency economies are virtual ones.
 
I wait to see how this develops, but for now my interest in this proposal is waning a little. I understand the direct let's-just-do-it approach, but I feel David is so intent on doing things his way, he may not be listening to all that is being said here. This reminds me why he initially overlooked dash, assuming centralization etc, he just wasn't paying enough attention.

The fact is, dash already has some very good initiatives working on Venezuela. I feel David would be wise to listen and learn from their experience. Some people here, for example, are suggesting he start small, yet it seems he's hell bent on going all guns blazing. But anyway, let's see what he comes back with.

The only other thing I take issue with was his statement, "In the future Dash will face stronger competition from platforms that have no transaction fees". I disagree with this. Low fees, yes, but there's no free lunch. Dash, for example, is working on mechanisms where the merchant can pay fees. But I digress.
 
One problem I see is that Dash is a deflationary asset. So ostensibly, that means it will go out of circulation pretty damn fast in an inflationary environment if it's just dropped raw as "helicopter capital".

Money will gravitate from desperate hands to not so desperate hands to comfortable hands (where it will be held). That's just the path of least resistance for deflationary assets (and why the bulk of the world's gold supplies sits in vaults gathering dust).

What's needed is possibly a more sophisticated multi-tiered solution where the crypto is used strategically rather than operationally. That means, say deploying it as a capital base for decentralised local credit unions as the "Proof of Labour" proposal was suggesting a couple of years ago. The difference between such a system and simply "dropping money on people" is that it gives local communities the ability to create their own liquidity. That's really what sustains an economy because it means that as soon as anyone does any work or provides any service, there's MORE liquidity around, not less and that's how they start getting prosperity back.

The Julio Moros proposal made this model work by combining the deflationary properties of crypto with a form of circulating liquidity that was labour/service based, so the issue of liquidity starvation due to hoarding doesn't arise. (i.e. the "circulation" priorities that demanded an inflationary aspect and the "store of value" priorities that demanded a deflationary aspect of the liquidity base were decoupled in a complimentary way).
 
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Hello David! Greetings from Caracas, Venezuela. I like your enthusiasm for helping people in Venezuela's border with Cucuta. Like you said, people and mostly immigrants passing through that specific border are suffering hunger, exclusion and poverty.

However, in my opinion (more guided to the execution of the project and its possibilities of a great success) as a sociologist (I've been in a lot of slums studying the reality of people from Caracas in the poorest zones) is that you have to experience the daily live of the border to really understand what is going on there. I mean, mobile signal and internet mostly don't get there; there is a lot of insecurity (delinquency, violence and corruption); etc, etc...

So, I think you made and excellent research, but I really suggest you to evaluate the possibilities of visiting the zone with someone who is familiar with it and later establish the things you need to accomplish your proposal. I know it's a bit difficult to do, but it'll be a great opportunnity to learn more about the reality of our borders.

In other sense, I have the same concern of Stealth93 about the fact that if you reward people with DASH as they go to a-one-hour class, the possibilities of them exchanging those DASH for Dollars or another currency are very high because they're literally starving and in need.

Having said that, I wish you all the best and I hope your proposal gets funded to spread and educate about DASH. Count on me and with my support.

Best regards, Showny.
 
Showny M. Azar Raheb said:
I mean, mobile signal and internet mostly don't get there;
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Thats not a problem. A cryptocurrency can work without constant internet and mobile signal. You just need a few internet hot spots only, where people can gather and syncronize their wallets. You can also broadcast the blockchain from a satellite, and let people synchronize with cheap satelite disks (ask @Gilemon about it)

Showny M. Azar Raheb said:
In other sense, I have the same concern of Stealth93 about the fact that if you reward people with DASH as they go to a-one-hour class, the possibilities of them exchanging those DASH for Dollars or another currency are very high because they're literally starving and in need.
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Thats why it is very important to reach the merchants first, then educate and donate cryptos to the people.
 
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demo said:
Thats not a problem. A cryptocurrency can work without constant internet and mobile signal. You just need a few hot spots only, where people can gather and syncronize their wallets.


Thats why it is very important to reach the merchants first, then educate and donate cryptos to the people.
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Hi, demo!

Yes, sure, I agree with you. I only mentioned it like an example because it's an important fact that must be taken into account, not only in a practical and functional way regarding cryptos, but in a social perspective that helps all of us understand the circumstances of the life in the borders.

Thank you for your clarification, I'm new in the crypto functioning so I'm looking forward to learning a lot more.
 
I think that despite our various reservations, this experiment has to be tried.

Our "theories" are just that right now with not much empirical evidence.

This proposal is about as good as it gets when it comes to attempting a "structured helicopter" type distribution of crypto-assets IMO. That's not to take anything away from the existing Dash Venezuela projects which I think equally deserve continued support for the huge progress they've made and long term "organic" approach they've taken. The projects are distinctive in nature and that might make for a strong, complimentary groundswell of penetration that's difficult to reproduce with only a "single bullet".

Also. the motivation behind this and will to make it work it is a factor that can't be ignored.

Finally, the fact that so much of the budget is targeted for retention rather than conversion (to fiat) means that I will be voting for it if David's team decide to formally table the proposal.
 
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I love the idea of helping Venezuela reboot their economy, and help people in distress.

I like DashMax's methods of distribution and (hopefully) keeping out the fraudsters. I think scaling up the amount, together with getting merchants to accept the now significant amount of Dash is a good formula for success. Can DashMaximalist's methods be used (concentrated) in a specific area to make it worthwhile for merchants in that area?

I very much do not like the idea that if we just throw enough Dash in Cucuta, sufficient merchants with sufficient product will magically show up in sufficient numbers to do 300,000 people any good. To maximize the chances of success, there have to be some merchants ready to go. Perhaps Algo Franelas could line up some highly motivated entrepreneurs?

I am dubious that Cucuta is the best place to do this. I like Algo Franelas recommendations for alternate places to try this, and other very practical suggestions. Let's make 2 or 3 very successful Dash hotspots in Venezuela so people can go back, not get along slightly better in Cucuta.

Also, the initial trial run cannot be for 2 million dollars. This is a non starter. This would cause chaos in the monthly treasury. It has to be staged in reasonable pieces that get bigger with highly defined and specific goals. So, if this goes forward, who does the escrow, how much are the reasonable sized pieces, and what are the very specific milestones?

Also, a classroom that holds 40 people will be totally inadequate to process 300,000 people in a month. Or even two months. Or even 3 months. Do the math. One classroom can process 40 people in one hour. 300,000 / 40 = 7,500 classes of 40 people each. If you run a solid 8 hours every day, it will take 937 days running 7 days per week. That assumes watching a 35 minute video and asking questions for 15 minutes, and 10 minutes to shuffle a new batch of people in and out. It's an overwhelming logistical problem unless you figure out how to onboard people by teaching people to teach other people and giving them online resources and rewards to do it. I haven't heard any details that sound anything like that.
 
Dashmaximalist said:
David you got my support as long you start off small and show to us that this can actually , risking 2 million on this is not worth for us.

Here's my suggestion , pool some capital like say $10,000 or so show us on ground how things work, then you have lot more credibility than mere words.

I dont agree lot of what Deep blue said , about mass migration to cucuta because of these $4 giveaway thats just not possible.

To be clear people in venezuela have a high standard of living owing to massive subsides , they just dont have money or jobs because of all the crap thats going around.

living in Venezuela and mining crypto can make you lot more than $4 in a day , so rest assured no one will go there just to claim the free dash.
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Thank you @Dashmaximalist what your saying makes a lot of sense. I'll be in Colombia on Saturday and will have a better idea of the situation on the ground. We are still developing the business plan so nothing is set in stone.

Please understand my side. Committing to Dash would rule out the other platforms. Even with a small test there are going to be large start up costs. This project has many goals but one of the biggest is to see if crypto can reach a tipping point and be adopted as digital cash. If we do a successful small test I agree that proves our technology and we're capable or delivering, that sounds reasonable. If my next proposal isn't approved for any reason I have to start all over again.

I hope there is a way to compromise. I want to be flexible I'm listening to the concerns. We don't need 2 million at the start and a small test can be accomplished with a lot less. Is there a way to setup milestones so once I achieve individual goals I can be sure the project can move on to the next step?
 
Take some time and study the other Dash Venezuela projects. Talk to them, listen to them. They're here on the forums. See how you guys can work together to increase your chances of success. This Dash Venezuela Alliance (DVA) is really coming together and powerful resources are coming into existence.
 
Showny M. Azar Raheb said:
Hello David! Greetings from Caracas, Venezuela. I like your enthusiasm for helping people in Venezuela's border with Cucuta. Like you said, people and mostly immigrants passing through that specific border are suffering hunger, exclusion and poverty.

However, in my opinion (more guided to the execution of the project and its possibilities of a great success) as a sociologist (I've been in a lot of slums studying the reality of people from Caracas in the poorest zones) is that you have to experience the daily live of the border to really understand what is going on there. I mean, mobile signal and internet mostly don't get there; there is a lot of insecurity (delinquency, violence and corruption); etc, etc...

So, I think you made and excellent research, but I really suggest you to evaluate the possibilities of visiting the zone with someone who is familiar with it and later establish the things you need to accomplish your proposal. I know it's a bit difficult to do, but it'll be a great opportunnity to learn more about the reality of our borders.

In other sense, I have the same concern of Stealth93 about the fact that if you reward people with DASH as they go to a-one-hour class, the possibilities of them exchanging those DASH for Dollars or another currency are very high because they're literally starving and in need.

Having said that, I wish you all the best and I hope your proposal gets funded to spread and educate about DASH. Count on me and with my support.

Best regards, Showny.
Click to expand...

Thank you for your support. I'd like to talk to you more and get feedback on a few idea's I'm working on. I'll send you a PM.
 
solarguy said:
I love the idea of helping Venezuela reboot their economy, and help people in distress.

I like DashMax's methods of distribution and (hopefully) keeping out the fraudsters. I think scaling up the amount, together with getting merchants to accept the now significant amount of Dash is a good formula for success. Can DashMaximalist's methods be used (concentrated) in a specific area to make it worthwhile for merchants in that area?

I very much do not like the idea that if we just throw enough Dash in Cucuta, sufficient merchants with sufficient product will magically show up in sufficient numbers to do 300,000 people any good. To maximize the chances of success, there have to be some merchants ready to go. Perhaps Algo Franelas could line up some highly motivated entrepreneurs?

I am dubious that Cucuta is the best place to do this. I like Algo Franelas recommendations for alternate places to try this, and other very practical suggestions. Let's make 2 or 3 very successful Dash hotspots in Venezuela so people can go back, not get along slightly better in Cucuta.

Also, the initial trial run cannot be for 2 million dollars. This is a non starter. This would cause chaos in the monthly treasury. It has to be staged in reasonable pieces that get bigger with highly defined and specific goals. So, if this goes forward, who does the escrow, how much are the reasonable sized pieces, and what are the very specific milestones?

Also, a classroom that holds 40 people will be totally inadequate to process 300,000 people in a month. Or even two months. Or even 3 months. Do the math. One classroom can process 40 people in one hour. 300,000 / 40 = 7,500 classes of 40 people each. If you run a solid 8 hours every day, it will take 937 days running 7 days per week. That assumes watching a 35 minute video and asking questions for 15 minutes, and 10 minutes to shuffle a new batch of people in and out. It's an overwhelming logistical problem unless you figure out how to onboard people by teaching people to teach other people and giving them online resources and rewards to do it. I haven't heard any details that sound anything like that.
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We did a breakdown of the numbers in our business plan
http://www.davidhay.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Crypto-Cucuta-Business-Plan-3.pdf

Each office at capacity can on-board 1000 people per day. The process is broken down into three steps and the math is provided. Let me know if you see any mistakes. The videos will cover most of the content, staff and volunteers will be there to answer and questions and help people.

This proposal is a work in progress as it develops I can provide more accurate numbers.
 
GrandMasterDash said:
I wait to see how this develops, but for now my interest in this proposal is waning a little. I understand the direct let's-just-do-it approach, but I feel David is so intent on doing things his way, he may not be listening to all that is being said here. This reminds me why he initially overlooked dash, assuming centralization etc, he just wasn't paying enough attention.

The fact is, dash already has some very good initiatives working on Venezuela. I feel David would be wise to listen and learn from their experience. Some people here, for example, are suggesting he start small, yet it seems he's hell bent on going all guns blazing. But anyway, let's see what he comes back with.

The only other thing I take issue with was his statement, "In the future Dash will face stronger competition from platforms that have no transaction fees". I disagree with this. Low fees, yes, but there's no free lunch. Dash, for example, is working on mechanisms where the merchant can pay fees. But I digress.
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Well said, I'll keep developing this proposal and working with the community. I'm not arrogant but I am determine. I'm willing to put in the work, donate my time and build this concept so it has real value to the crypto community.

I'm sorry there was no offence meant by "In the future Dash will face stronger competition". I'm obviously passionate about crypto and believe it's our future. Fee's on dash are very low I think early adoption is key.
 
toknormal said:
One problem I see is that Dash is a deflationary asset. So ostensibly, that means it will go out of circulation pretty damn fast in an inflationary environment if it's just dropped raw as "helicopter capital".

Money will gravitate from desperate hands to not so desperate hands to comfortable hands (where it will be held). That's just the path of least resistance for deflationary assets (and why the bulk of the world's gold supplies sits in vaults gathering dust).

What's needed is possibly a more sophisticated multi-tiered solution where the crypto is used strategically rather than operationally. That means, say deploying it as a capital base for decentralised local credit unions as the "Proof of Labour" proposal was suggesting a couple of years ago. The difference between such a system and simply "dropping money on people" is that it gives local communities the ability to create their own liquidity. That's really what sustains an economy because it means that as soon as anyone does any work or provides any service, there's MORE liquidity around, not less and that's how they start getting prosperity back.

The Julio Moros proposal made this model work by combining the deflationary properties of crypto with a form of circulating liquidity that was labour/service based, so the issue of liquidity starvation due to hoarding doesn't arise. (i.e. the "circulation" priorities that demanded an inflationary aspect and the "store of value" priorities that demanded a deflationary aspect of the liquidity base were decoupled in a complimentary way).
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I agree in every society money flows from desperate hands into not so desperate hands. Rich people buy their time poor people sell it. A more elaborate system like this would extremely expensive. I believe in a free economy and a tipping point. If you provide the right tools entrepreneurs will quickly adapt.
 
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Dashmaximalist said:
David you got my support as long you start off small and show to us that this can actually , risking 2 million on this is not worth for us...pool some capital like say $10,000
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I'd just give him the whole $2 million and let him get on with it.

This doesn't sound like a "dip your toe in the water" kind of project, more of an all or nothing job. It's already got a lot of momentum and publicity. $2 million is actually not very much in the context of trying to save a national economy and it's a distribution exercise, not a spending one so there's a far bigger "safety" factor IMO. As long as the Dash actually gets into ordinary people's hands it's not going to be wasted (net of costs needed to run the project of course).
 
They literally can't pass the money out that fast. And 2 million would put a big dent in the treasury, possibly bumping other worthy projects.

I see no disadvantage to doing it over 3 treasury cycles.
 
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