[pre-proposal] Exchange Listing Incentive Program

[DashDude]

Problem Statement: DASH is more difficult to buy than Bitcoin or Ethereum due to being listed on fewer exchanges and with fewer fiat on/off ramps. This program provides incentives to exchanges to help close this gap.

Proposal Description and Goal: The purpose of this program is to make DASH more widely available around the world by increasing the number of exchanges where it is offered. This infrastructure program will help lay the groundwork for Evolution.

Proposal Owner: Allow me to introduce myself. I've been into crypto about 2 years and am a reformed Bitcoin maximalist. I got bitten by the DASH bug recently because of all it's great features and all of the governance problems I see with Bitcoin. I bought my first DASH last month and wish to jump right into the community by submitting my first funding request!

I'm writing under a new handle DashDude, but for full transparency my name is Steve Dussault. I'm an experienced professional working as a Sr. Product Manager in heavy industry with many years of blue chip company experience. I have extensive experience introducing new products worldwide and working with programs to increase market share.

My LinkedIn profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/steve-dussault-10630a18/
Email: [email protected]

Program Scope: New DASH/Fiat pair exchange listings in key Asian, American and European regions and currencies including the USD, CNY, KRW, EUR and JPY.

Eligible exchanges were selected by volume share and regional & fiat currency coverage. Incentives are designed to be competitive in nature. The earlier claimants for each region receive payouts that are larger than later claimants as indicated below.

USA: DASH/USD

Coinbase, GDAX, Gemini

1,000 DASH for first exchange listing and 500 DASH for second and third exchange listing

China: DASH/CNY

OKCoin, Yunbi, Huobi

1,000 DASH for first exchange listing and 500 DASH for second and third exchange listing

Korea: DASH/KRW

Coinone, Korbit

1,000 DASH for first exchange listing and 500 DASH for second exchange listing

Europe: DASH/EUR

Bitstamp - 500 DASH for exchange listing

Japan: DASH/JPY

Bitflyer - 500 DASH for exchange listing

Global: Uphold

500 DASH for adding DASH as a supported currency

Rules for claiming incentive: Exchange agrees to make a good faith effort to promote the new listing and keep it active for at least a three year period to allow exchange volume to grow. Listing must be active to all exchange users and not in beta/test mode. DASH listing must be working properly at time of claim review. Exchanges may also add DASH/crypto pairs, but adding the respective fiat pairs is required to qualify for the incentive. 75% of the listing incentive will be payable within 30 days of verification of initial claim. The remaining 25% will be paid 6 months later if the listing is still active. DASH reserves the right to modify the program at any time without notice. In the event of a dispute regarding the incentive program DASH will make the final determination of the outcome.

I will work closely with the DASH business development team to coordinate efforts. When new exchanges are added I will also coordinate PR or provide content to Dash Force News or others as appropriate.

Duration of Incentive Program: The program will end when the exchanges claim their incentive payouts. Exchanges have until March 31, 2018 to activate their listings to qualify for the 75% portion of the incentive. The remaining 25% payout will take place 6 months later as noted above.

Project Benefits: This program seeks to greatly expand the availability of DASH/fiat on/off ramps to bring DASH to as many users worldwide as possible. This helps to stimulate a "virtuous cycle" where some users switch to Dash because of improved availability. This increased volume leads to more interest in DASH which leads to more adoption and industry partner interest.

Some may argue that the exchanges should fund their own integration since they will earn trading revenues from the new pairs. While it is true that the exchanges will see increased revenues, the expected revenue at this early stage of adoption may not make a compelling business case for an added DASH listing. In addition, many other coins are competing for attention from exchanges. This proposal helps to tilt the business case in favor of DASH to speed listing and adoption.

This program is similar to and expands upon the incentive that was offered to Kraken earlier this year. Developing a standardized program for multiple exchanges reduces the time required of our business development team to cover each exchange individually.

Finally, it should be noted that it is very possible that the price of DASH may increase following improved exchange listings. Such an increase in the DASH market cap could more than offset the cost of this proposal.

Program Risks: While the objective is to receive wide listing, it is not likely that all eligible exchanges will choose to participate in the incentive program.

Program Funding Request:
Listing Incentives - 5,500 DASH (to be paid to exchanges)
Program promotional material development, communications and program management - 90 DASH
Proposal fee reimbursement - 5 DASH
Total Request: 5,595 DASH

Treasury Payment Schedule (into escrow):
Month 1: 1,400 DASH
Month 2: 1,400 DASH
Month 3: 1,400 DASH
Month 4: 1,395 DASH
Total Request: 5,595 DASH

Due to the large payments involved I propose holding these funds in an escrow suitable to the community until they are ready to be disbursed. I propose using a 2 of 4 multisignature address to serve as escrow.

Proposed signers for 2 of 4 multisig:
1. Myself as proposal owner
2. Daniel Diaz (Business Development) - TBD, not yet accepted
3. @UdjinM6 who is familiar with setting up multisig addresses - TBD, not yet accepted
4. Robert Wiecko @kot agreed to serve if necessary

Milestone Payment Schedule

From escrow to PO
Month 1: 5 DASH - proposal fee reimbursement
Month 2: 90 DASH - following launch of program
From escrow to exchanges: Up to 5,500 DASH as claimed under program

Unclaimed Incentives:
Any unclaimed exchange incentives at the conclusion of the program can be rolled into an extension/modification or second phase of the program as desired by the community.

Thanks for reading and your suggestions!
Steve

 

[halso]

Hi Steve, welcome to the forum.

Congrats on finding Dash!

The Dash core team have been actively pursuing exchanges for sometime now, and have on an occasion paid for an integration (in the case of kracken).

I think we would all love to see more of the same. Especially with some of the big Chinese exchanges.

The bounty idea is interesting, but if adopted I think most MNs would like to see the Core team team handle the negotiating and payment.

However, this shouldn't stop community members from reaching out to these exchanges via Twitter and other forums to request dash's integration.

 

[GrandMasterDash]

Should add Coins.ph and Satoshi Citadel Industries to the list because the Filiipino remittance market is huge.

* Coins.ph also run operations in Thailand
** Satoshi Citadel Industries have multiple sites / services

 

[DashDude]

Hi Steve, welcome to the forum.

Congrats on finding Dash!

The Dash core team have been actively pursuing exchanges for sometime now, and have on an occasion paid for an integration (in the case of kracken).

I think we would all love to see more of the same. Especially with some of the big Chinese exchanges.

The bounty idea is interesting, but if adopted I think most MNs would like to see the Core team team handle the negotiating and payment.

However, this shouldn't stop community members from reaching out to these exchanges via Twitter and other forums to request dash's integration.

@halso - I was reviewing the earlier treasury proposals and did see the other program for an exchange not mentioned by name (Kraken). This is basically an extension of that. I also sent an email to Daniel Diaz last night to request feedback on strategy, but my idea is that this would be a force multiplier or another tool to accomplish what they are already doing.

As far as negotiations go, the idea is to formalize a "standard" incentive program that we don't need to negotiate at all. Since no payments are made to the exchange until after the listing is active our risk is low. I thought it would be a good idea to have a standard incentive program since the time of the business development team is limited and this would allow us to roll out the program quickly to all eligible exchanges.

 

[DashDude]

Should add Coins.ph and Satoshi Citadel Industries to the list because the Filiipino remittance market is huge.

* Coins.ph also run operations in Thailand
** Satoshi Citadel Industries have multiple sites / services

@GrandMasterDash - My thinking was that we could target the larger exchanges/fiat ramps with this program and see how it is received. If it is successful we could do another round for some of the smaller currencies/exchanges like AUD, BRL, ZAR, etc.

Do you have any volume/share information for Coins.ph & Satoshi Citadel?

 

[GrandMasterDash]

@GrandMasterDash - My thinking was that we could target the larger exchanges/fiat ramps with this program and see how it is received. If it is successful we could do another round for some of the smaller currencies/exchanges like AUD, BRL, ZAR, etc.

Do you have any volume/share information for Coins.ph & Satoshi Citadel?

No, but I found this that says the Philippines ranks third for remittance...
http://www.asianphilanthropyforum.org/countries-receive-remittances/

Those stats might be through old school methods (WU etc). Keep in mind, bitcoin is now legal in the Philippines. Personal experience tells me bitcoin is one of the most popular methods (if not the most popular way).

 

[Stealth923]

Hi @DashDude

Welcome to the forums! I am not sure but I started a thread on the Dash reddit a few days ago on this exact topic which hopefully inspired this proposal.

Dash is sorely needing major exchanges and volume increase to allow exposure to major investors - this will help accelerate evolution adoption and stability once released - we need to get this going ASAP. Imagine evolution being released and the only way people can buy it in the majority of countries is through bitcoin and the same set of exchanges. Dash will again be facing an uphill battle, so we need to put the hard work in before evolution.

Look at Cryptobud's latest video - his first and probably major drawback with dash is lack of liquidity and availability on major exchanges:

I have a few comments on your proposal:
1) Can you please verify your linkedin account by posting something about Dash/proposal on it
2) We will need to gain confirmation of escrow for the larger payments from most likely a Dash core member as part of the proposal. @tungfa - any ideas?
3) Coinbase and GDAX are separate entities under the same umbrella and coins usually get added to GDAX first before Coinbase, not sure if splitting this one out instead of combining them is a good incentive as I doubt they will add it to both at the same time.
4) Have you thought in detail the marketing approach / strategy once the program begins?, i.e targeting bitflyer, will we need to translate communications via twitter into Japanese? For Coinbase/GDAX Brian Armstrong etc Maybe we can get Dash Force assistance with driving some of the marketing aspects? @mastermined
5) It needs to part of terms of adding the exchange pair that Dash InstantSend is enabled on ALL exchanges - this is the user experience that sets Dash apart from the rest and will allow faster adoption. Kraken ended up doing a security review and added it as part of their integration.
6) Once the coin is added there needs to be press releases and PR communications sent out - who will take care of this - maybe Dash will work with the exchange to accomplish this - be good to get @Minotaur guidance on this from the Kraken proposal that was very successful - https://www.dash.org/forum/threads/proposal-business-development-major-exchange.12881/

Apart from that I think its a good start and if we can iron out the above you have my yes votes and support. Thank you for getting the ball rolling on this one.

 

[DashDude]

Hi @DashDude

Welcome to the forums! I am not sure but I started a thread on the Dash reddit a few days ago on this exact topic which hopefully inspired this proposal.

Dash is sorely needing major exchanges and volume increase to allow exposure to major investors - this will help accelerate evolution adoption and stability once released - we need to get this going ASAP. Imagine evolution being released and the only way people can buy it in the majority of countries is through bitcoin and the same set of exchanges. Dash will again be facing an uphill battle, so we need to put the hard work in before evolution.

Look at Cryptobud's latest video - his first and probably major drawback with dash is lack of liquidity and availability on major exchanges:

I have a few comments on your proposal:
1) Can you please verify your linkedin account by posting something about Dash/proposal on it
2) We will need to gain confirmation of escrow for the larger payments from most likely a Dash core member as part of the proposal. @tungfa - any ideas?
3) Coinbase and GDAX are separate entities under the same umbrella and coins usually get added to GDAX first before Coinbase, not sure if splitting this one out instead of combining them is a good incentive as I doubt they will add it to both at the same time.
4) Have you thought in detail the marketing approach / strategy once the program begins?, i.e targeting bitflyer, will we need to translate communications via twitter into Japanese? For Coinbase/GDAX Brian Armstrong etc Maybe we can get Dash Force assistance with driving some of the marketing aspects? @mastermined
5) It needs to part of terms of adding the exchange pair that Dash InstantSend is enabled on ALL exchanges - this is the user experience that sets Dash apart from the rest and will allow faster adoption. Kraken ended up doing a security review and added it as part of their integration.
6) Once the coin is added there needs to be press releases and PR communications sent out - who will take care of this - maybe Dash will work with the exchange to accomplish this - be good to get @Minotaur guidance on this from the Kraken proposal that was very successful - https://www.dash.org/forum/threads/proposal-business-development-major-exchange.12881/

Apart from that I think its a good start and if we can iron out the above you have my yes votes and support. Thank you for getting the ball rolling on this one.

Hi, @Stealth923. Thanks for the welcome!

I thought of this program independently, but I also saw your thread on Reddit which confirmed that others felt the same way and inspired me to make an official proposal Sorry I forgot to tag you.

I'll try to answer your questions by the number.
1) I added DASH Cryptocurrency to the "Skills" section of my public LinkedIn profile.
2) Yes, I'm open for any suggestions to escrow. Due to the large amount of money, even multi-sig might be a good idea.
3) I've also been thinking about the Coinbase/GDAX issue whether to treat them as a single or two entities, whether they should be eligible for one or two incentives, etc. I'll try to collect more feedback from the community and/or business dev team on this topic.
4) Yes, I plan to work and coordinate with the DFN & business dev teams on this proposal. I'll add a note to the proposal to make this explicit. Regarding translations, I think DASH comms, major materials & DFN should all be translated into all major languages, but this is a larger issue than this proposal attempts to address.
5) Regarding InstantSend - I'd love to see that implemented as well, but we need to be careful if it is a significant hurdle to a basic listing. I'm not sure how big of a technical hurdle this is. Perhaps others can comment and we can revise the proposal accordingly.
6) I agree on the PR. I'll work with whomever is the official/unofficial DASH person.

Thanks for your thoughts!
Steve

 

[IronVape]

Assuming escrow and accountability are in place... I fully support this Force Mutiplier!

4 payments of 1,275 would fit into the budget a bit smoother.

Also. 75%, on activation, 15% at 6 months, and 10% at one year .

 

[DashDude]

Assuming escrow and accountability are in place... I fully support this Force Mutiplier!

4 payments of 1,275 would fit into the budget a bit smoother.

Also. 75%, on activation, 15% at 6 months, and 10% at one year .

Thanks for the encouragement and suggestions, @IronVape! We could definitely level load the treasury payments. If it's all going into escrow anyway I suppose it doesn't matter if the milestone payments are different than the payments into the escrow. Regarding holding a final 10% payment for a year - I'll discuss with whomever we settle on for escrow since this would be an extra task for them to issue another series of payments.

 

[DashDude]

OK - I made a few changes in the proposal:

• Decided to consider Coinbase and GDAX as two separate entities, each eligible for an incentive. This raises the maximum cost of the program by 500 DASH. However, these are arguably the two entities that would give the most "punch" to the program. The benefit to DASH visibility, access, sentiment and hopefully market cap is probably worth the extra expense should they list us.
• Decided to even out the monthly treasury payments to escrow - might make more room for other proposals in some months.
• Added a milestone payment schedule out of escrow to match program deliverables.

Still needed:

• Suitable escrow solution - @tungfa any ideas?
• Feedback from Daniel Diaz @Minotaur - I want to ensure this proposal matches high level strategy and does not interfere with any other efforts that might be ongoing.
• Decision regarding requirement for InstantSend - Is technical difficulty high enough to delay/discourage a basic listing? @moocowmoo, @UdjinM6 any feedback here?

Thanks for everyone's suggestions.

 

[UdjinM6]

...

• Decision regarding requirement for InstantSend - Is technical difficulty high enough to delay/discourage a basic listing? @moocowmoo, @UdjinM6 any feedback here?

...

I guess they won't rely on anyone else's review and would like to have their own tech team to dig deeper before enabling InstantSend which could take a while probably. I'm personally completely fine with them listing us without InstantSend asap instead. They can always enable it if they see additional competitive benefit and are comfortable with the tech, no need to force anyone imo.

 

[DashDude]

I guess they won't rely on anyone else's review and would like to have their own tech team to dig deeper before enabling InstantSend which could take a while probably. I'm personally completely fine with them listing us without InstantSend asap instead. They can always enable it if they see additional competitive benefit and are comfortable with the tech, no need to force anyone imo.

Thanks, @UdjinM6. That is helpful.

Here is how I am leaning with regard to InstantSend. I think we should strongly encourage it in the listing pitch that we make to the exchanges, but not require it for the incentive. Requiring InstantSend could delay basic listings unnecessarily and we need the listings above all. That said, incorporating InstantSend has the following benefits to the exchange:

• Potentially more trading volume from ideologically motivated DASH owners that want to see the feature enabled at exchanges
• Increased exchange volume due to InstantSend usage from cross-exchange arbitrageurs. InstantSend speeds value transfer between exchanges that have it enabled which reduces cost/friction of arb opportunities and should help improve exchange volume. There are two types of arb traders - the quick and the dead! Use InstantSend to be quick!

From a marketing standpoint we could also develop an "InstantSend Enabled" logo that exchanges and other third parties could show to their customers along with the DASH logo. There could even be a DASH logo that incorporates the "InstantSend Enabled" message. Lastly, on the Get DASH webpage we could add the "InstantSend Enabled" designation to qualifying partners.

I also have some thoughts on the escrow issue. I see that DASH does have multisig capability from the QT console. Let's use a 2 of 4 multisig address to serve as escrow. I originally thought 2 of 3, but since the final payouts could be up to a year away it might be a good idea to have an extra signatory in case someone becomes unreachable for whatever reason.

I am open to nominations for the 4 multisig participants, but here are some ideas. I would nominate myself as proposal owner, Daniel Diaz @Minotaur from Business Development, @UdjinM6 who appears to have multisig experience, and another. @kot will you participate or suggest another?

 

[Stealth923]

Agree with the above @DashDude. Would also say Ryan @Ryan Taylor as one of the Multisig members.

We need to see core member input on this. Will be putting a question forward for the Q2 call if no input provided by then.

 

[kot]

To be honest, I don't have an opinion on this. I can serve as multisg/escrow in case we decide for this.

 

[Stealth923]

To be honest, I don't have an opinion on this. I can serve as multisg/escrow in case we decide for this.

Why don't you have an opinion on this? I saw in the latest update that the business dev team were in discussions with Korean and Japanese exchanges. This proposal may directly affect discussions. You don't think some communications and input from the core team is necessary? @kot @Ryan Taylor

 

[Dashmaximalist]

Problem Statement: DASH is more difficult to buy than Bitcoin or Ethereum due to being listed on fewer exchanges and with fewer fiat on/off ramps. This program provides incentives to exchanges to help close this gap.

Proposal Description and Goal: The purpose of this program is to make DASH more widely available around the world by increasing the number of exchanges where it is offered. This infrastructure program will help lay the groundwork for Evolution.

Proposal Owner: Allow me to introduce myself. I've been into crypto about 2 years and am a reformed Bitcoin maximalist. I got bitten by the DASH bug recently because of all it's great features and all of the governance problems I see with Bitcoin. I bought my first DASH last month and wish to jump right into the community by submitting my first funding request!

I'm writing under a new handle DashDude, but for full transparency my name is Steve Dussault. I'm an experienced professional working as a Sr. Product Manager in heavy industry with many years of blue chip company experience. I have extensive experience introducing new products worldwide and working with programs to increase market share.

My LinkedIn profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/steve-dussault-10630a18/
Email: [email protected]

Program Scope: New DASH/Fiat pair exchange listings in key Asian, American and European regions and currencies including the USD, CNY, KRW, EUR and JPY.

Eligible exchanges were selected by volume share and regional & fiat currency coverage. Incentives are designed to be competitive in nature. The earlier claimants for each region receive payouts that are larger than later claimants as indicated below.

USA: DASH/USD

Coinbase, GDAX, Gemini

1,000 DASH for first exchange listing and 500 DASH for second and third exchange listing

China: DASH/CNY

OKCoin, Yunbi, Huobi

1,000 DASH for first exchange listing and 500 DASH for second and third exchange listing

Korea: DASH/KRW

Coinone, Korbit

1,000 DASH for first exchange listing and 500 DASH for second exchange listing

Europe: DASH/EUR

Bitstamp - 500 DASH for exchange listing

Japan: DASH/JPY

Bitflyer - 500 DASH for exchange listing

Global: Uphold

500 DASH for adding DASH as a supported currency

Rules for claiming incentive: Exchange agrees to make a good faith effort to promote the new listing and keep it active for at least a three year period to allow exchange volume to grow. Listing must be active to all exchange users and not in beta/test mode. DASH listing must be working properly at time of claim review. Exchanges may also add DASH/crypto pairs, but adding the respective fiat pairs is required to qualify for the incentive. 75% of the listing incentive will be payable within 30 days of verification of initial claim. The remaining 25% will be paid 6 months later if the listing is still active. DASH reserves the right to modify the program at any time without notice. In the event of a dispute regarding the incentive program DASH will make the final determination of the outcome.

I will work closely with the DASH business development team to coordinate efforts. When new exchanges are added I will also coordinate PR or provide content to Dash Force News or others as appropriate.

Duration of Incentive Program: The program will end when the exchanges claim their incentive payouts. Exchanges have until March 31, 2018 to activate their listings to qualify for the 75% portion of the incentive. The remaining 25% payout will take place 6 months later as noted above.

Project Benefits: This program seeks to greatly expand the availability of DASH/fiat on/off ramps to bring DASH to as many users worldwide as possible. This helps to stimulate a "virtuous cycle" where some users switch to Dash because of improved availability. This increased volume leads to more interest in DASH which leads to more adoption and industry partner interest.

Some may argue that the exchanges should fund their own integration since they will earn trading revenues from the new pairs. While it is true that the exchanges will see increased revenues, the expected revenue at this early stage of adoption may not make a compelling business case for an added DASH listing. In addition, many other coins are competing for attention from exchanges. This proposal helps to tilt the business case in favor of DASH to speed listing and adoption.

This program is similar to and expands upon the incentive that was offered to Kraken earlier this year. Developing a standardized program for multiple exchanges reduces the time required of our business development team to cover each exchange individually.

Finally, it should be noted that it is very possible that the price of DASH may increase following improved exchange listings. Such an increase in the DASH market cap could more than offset the cost of this proposal.

Program Risks: While the objective is to receive wide listing, it is not likely that all eligible exchanges will choose to participate in the incentive program.

Program Funding Request:
Listing Incentives - 5,500 DASH (to be paid to exchanges)
Program promotional material development, communications and program management - 90 DASH
Proposal fee reimbursement - 5 DASH
Total Request: 5,595 DASH

Treasury Payment Schedule (into escrow):
Month 1: 1,400 DASH
Month 2: 1,400 DASH
Month 3: 1,400 DASH
Month 4: 1,395 DASH
Total Request: 5,595 DASH

Due to the large payments involved I propose holding these funds in an escrow suitable to the community until they are ready to be disbursed. I propose using a 2 of 4 multisignature address to serve as escrow.

Proposed signers for 2 of 4 multisig:
1. Myself as proposal owner
2. Daniel Diaz (Business Development) - TBD, not yet accepted
3. @UdjinM6 who is familiar with setting up multisig addresses - TBD, not yet accepted
4. TBD - seeking community trusted nomination/volunteer.

Milestone Payment Schedule

From escrow to PO
Month 1: 5 DASH - proposal fee reimbursement
Month 2: 90 DASH - following launch of program
From escrow to exchanges: Up to 5,500 DASH as claimed under program

Unclaimed Incentives:
Any unclaimed exchange incentives at the conclusion of the program can be rolled into an extension/modification or second phase of the program as desired by the community.

Thanks for reading and your suggestions!
Steve

welcome to the team , just when i thought dash is getting very slow , i saw this , its so refreshing to see such aggressive ideas and i think it's a simple yes from any MN owner

the exchanges you are talking are the big daddies and getting listed on them especially the likes of Coinbase / GDAX / Okcoin is an absolute game changer

So yes you have my all Votes

 

[Dashmaximalist]

@GrandMasterDash - My thinking was that we could target the larger exchanges/fiat ramps with this program and see how it is received. If it is successful we could do another round for some of the smaller currencies/exchanges like AUD, BRL, ZAR, etc.

Do you have any volume/share information for Coins.ph & Satoshi Citadel?

India currently accounts for 10% of crypto volume and is the world's largest remittance market i suggest we target zebpay.com coinsecure.in unocoin.com three largest indian exchanges

 

[DashDude]

India currently accounts for 10% of crypto volume and is the largest remitance market i suggest we target zebpay.com coinsecure.in unocoin.com three largest indian exchanges

Thanks for the kind words @Dashmaximalist!

Regarding the Indian exchanges - my thought was to see how this program is received with the major exchanges listed in the proposal and DASH community first. If things go well with this first proposal I have envisioned another round of incentives to cover some of the second tier fiat pairs/exchanges including the ones you mentioned.

 

[GrandMasterDash]

Can we just hurry up and get this proposal live