This is a cross-post from www.dashcentral.org/p/bsdev-wocoins-201611
Wall of Coins is a peer-to-peer Bitcoin exchange that provides a private, fast, and easy method to buy Bitcoin using a variety of payment methods, including fiat deposited at a bank branch or money transmitter locations such as Western Union and Moneygram. Wall of Coins acts as escrow to ensure each transaction processes quickly. This proposal seeks funding for Wall of Coins to integrate Dash into their services.
Wall of Coins provides its services in twelve countries (including the United States, UK, Australia, Mexico, Canada, Germany, Brazil, Argentina, Latvia, Romania, Poland, and the Philippines). The service enables sellers to deposit Bitcoin into their rapid cold storage wallets, and posts their holdings for sale on the website. Buyers are able to enter their address or share their GPS coordinates and obtain a list of offers and locations nearby to purchase. Additional details on these processes and the benefits for websites integrating Wall of Coins can be found in “Additional Background” section below.
Uniquely, Wall of Coins also offers users a high level of customer support, including live support on its website and a toll-free number where representatives will even help users get set up with a wallet for the first time.
Wall of Coins key metrics illustrate substantial reach and growth:
However, the first two proposals were rejected by the network. Although it is impossible to know the rationale behind every masternode owner's vote, through a combination of reading forum posts and talking with investors, it seems there were several primary reasons leading to the rejection:
Proposed Solution
Given the circumstances, the Dash core team has been engaged with Wall of Coins over the last two months to reach a mutually-agreeable set of terms that will finally enable Dash to integrate into their platform. We are pleased to announce that we've arrived at a more favorable set of terms that we hope the network will find agreeable and which substantially reduces the risks posed from project delivery.
The scope of work includes integrating Dash into all of Wall of Coins’ functions with the exception of the “Gift Bitcoin” service which allows users to gift Bitcoin paper wallets through the mail. In addition, Wall of Coins will enable InstantSend for all incoming and outgoing transactions.
The general terms consists of the following:
1) The project cost will be reduced to $57,918 spread evenly across three payments of $19,306 each in the November, December, and January budget cycles. The original proposal was 42% higher than the current figure, so this represents a substantial reduction.
2) The Dash core team is submitting this proposal to the network on Genitrust's behalf, and all funds will be paid to the core team rather than Genitrust directly. The core team will act as stewards of the funds, which will be released to Genitrust based on a set of criteria (which are outlined below).
3) The Dash core team will "make room" in the budget to better accommodate Wall of Coins integration expenses by limiting its requests, which traditionally we restrict to 80% of the total budget. By relying on existing funds and managing the expenses on other projects, we seek to include Wall of Coins within the 80% of the total budget limit.
4) Genitrust will be responsible for project communication to the community and for any cost overruns associated with the integration, while the Dash core team will provide limited technical assistance to ensure existing software tools and technical expertise is available to help lower the execution risk for Genitrust.
5) Detailed criteria for release of funds, milestones, and project completion measures will be negotiated in good faith between Genitrust and the core team which will result in the production of a granular project plan with milestones and deliverables. These will be defined in a way that will be externally verifiable to the extent possible, and will roughly align with the timeline previously outlined by Genitrust (adjusted for the new start date) contained in their previous proposal at https://www.dropbox.com/s/chddplecnxh9xed/dash-adoption-tools.pdf?dl=0. Payment #1 will be released immediately at the start of the project and defining the detailed project plan will be the first activity undertaken by the team. Payments #2 and #3 will be released based on the completion percentage of the project plan.
6) Genitrust will accept all currency risk associated with the project between the time the proposal is submitted and the funds are paid.
7) Genitrust will be responsible for all aspects of implementation, including other components not funded by these funds. These additional expenses include regulatory cost, legal cost (e.g., having terms of service rewritten), marketing costs, etc. All work will be completed by February 5th, 2017.
The main risk associated with this arrangement is that all payments are distributed in advance of the work being completed. However, by ensuring progress is made between each payment, we can provide assurances that by the time the third payment is distributed, Genitrust will have completed roughly 2/3rds of the work and would have large disincentives to discontinue work under those circumstances (not to mention the reputation impact they would suffer). This arrangement provides protection for Genitrust as well against defunding if the work is being executed according to their plan. Genitrust requested this protection because they are carrying the cost of any regulatory, legal, and cost overrun expenses.
Requested funding is as follows starting with the November 4th budget cycle, and extending through the January cycle:
Note: Genitrust assumes all currency fluctuation risks associated with this proposal.
Manually vote YES on this proposal:
dash-cli mnbudget vote-many e602e0b8a0526eee5ad107cb0b48c26043d25e7b9db6ce93807badb3c703b144 yes
OR from the qt console:
mnbudget vote-many e602e0b8a0526eee5ad107cb0b48c26043d25e7b9db6ce93807badb3c703b144 yes
Manually vote NO on this proposal:
dash-cli mnbudget vote-many e602e0b8a0526eee5ad107cb0b48c26043d25e7b9db6ce93807badb3c703b144 no
OR from the qt console:
mnbudget vote-many e602e0b8a0526eee5ad107cb0b48c26043d25e7b9db6ce93807badb3c703b144 no
Additional Background
What does Wall of Coins do for the buyer?
- The buyer types in how much Fiat they are looking to spend.
- The 3 best rates and nearest locations are presented to the buyer.
- The buyer selects the location, verifies their mobile phone, and then receives the payment instructions.
- The buyer receives the coins within 15 minutes after purchase.
What does Wall of Coins do for the seller?
- The seller tells us how to contact them.
- Seller then selects their Bank account OR Cash Account, this can be any means that they accept cash.
- Seller inputs their payment details.
- Seller then selects the price rate they want for each coin.
- Seller sends coins to their advertisement. Done!
- If "Dynamic Pricing" is selected, the seller selects the Primary Market that they want their price to follow. Should this market get hacked, such as what happened with Mt Gox, Bitstamp, Cryptsy, Bitfinex, etc., Wall of Coins makes the seller select a Secondary Market (Backup market). The price is grabbed from this market if the first market fails.
- The seller can set a premium or discount percentage if their price will follow the price of another market.
What does Wall of Coins do for websites? (Such as Backpage.com)
- Any websites that has been shut out, or "blockaded", from the world of credit cards can accept cryptocurrency; however, cryptocurrency is not easy for the website visitors / end users.
- Backpage.com uses the Wall of Coins web widget for easy integration to easily receive bitcoin payments (currently) WITHOUT the end user realizing that they are using bitcoin. Image the benefits to all parties of using DASH instead (InstantSend).
- What is the widget? It is some HTML to copy/paste onto your website to allow the website to use features on the Wall of Coins site. This is similar to a website using "Log in with Facebook" or Google Analytics HTML code to gain the benefits from Facebook / Google.
- Backpage now receives payments easily AND they receive a commission for their payments. Wall of Coins is effectively a payment processor that pays their business to accept remote cash payments as Dash, while boosting the Dash marketshare.
- Backpage users want their advertisements funded as soon as possible. With Wall of Coins and DASH Instant Send, this becomes a much better solution than using Bitcoin as the payment protocol.
Wall of Coins is a peer-to-peer Bitcoin exchange that provides a private, fast, and easy method to buy Bitcoin using a variety of payment methods, including fiat deposited at a bank branch or money transmitter locations such as Western Union and Moneygram. Wall of Coins acts as escrow to ensure each transaction processes quickly. This proposal seeks funding for Wall of Coins to integrate Dash into their services.
Wall of Coins provides its services in twelve countries (including the United States, UK, Australia, Mexico, Canada, Germany, Brazil, Argentina, Latvia, Romania, Poland, and the Philippines). The service enables sellers to deposit Bitcoin into their rapid cold storage wallets, and posts their holdings for sale on the website. Buyers are able to enter their address or share their GPS coordinates and obtain a list of offers and locations nearby to purchase. Additional details on these processes and the benefits for websites integrating Wall of Coins can be found in “Additional Background” section below.
Uniquely, Wall of Coins also offers users a high level of customer support, including live support on its website and a toll-free number where representatives will even help users get set up with a wallet for the first time.
Wall of Coins key metrics illustrate substantial reach and growth:
- It is growing very quickly, adding 50-100 new users a day. In fact, active users have grown from 15,000 to 18,000 since September 1st.
- Services are available in 12 countries, up from 7 this spring
- There are 15 “publishers” (affiliates) integrated with their API and/or Web Widget
- The USA supports over 120,000 purchase locations
- Currently, over 1,000 sellers are on the platform
However, the first two proposals were rejected by the network. Although it is impossible to know the rationale behind every masternode owner's vote, through a combination of reading forum posts and talking with investors, it seems there were several primary reasons leading to the rejection:
- The proposal cost was quite high at approximately $82,000, and contained uncertainty over whether additional expenses would be requested to complete the project (e.g., cost overruns)
- The budget was paid directly to Genitrust and therefore offered little protection against project execution risks
- Because of the high level of funding requested, it would necessitate "knocking out" other valuable proposals, including essential core team functions' proposals
Proposed Solution
Given the circumstances, the Dash core team has been engaged with Wall of Coins over the last two months to reach a mutually-agreeable set of terms that will finally enable Dash to integrate into their platform. We are pleased to announce that we've arrived at a more favorable set of terms that we hope the network will find agreeable and which substantially reduces the risks posed from project delivery.
The scope of work includes integrating Dash into all of Wall of Coins’ functions with the exception of the “Gift Bitcoin” service which allows users to gift Bitcoin paper wallets through the mail. In addition, Wall of Coins will enable InstantSend for all incoming and outgoing transactions.
The general terms consists of the following:
1) The project cost will be reduced to $57,918 spread evenly across three payments of $19,306 each in the November, December, and January budget cycles. The original proposal was 42% higher than the current figure, so this represents a substantial reduction.
2) The Dash core team is submitting this proposal to the network on Genitrust's behalf, and all funds will be paid to the core team rather than Genitrust directly. The core team will act as stewards of the funds, which will be released to Genitrust based on a set of criteria (which are outlined below).
3) The Dash core team will "make room" in the budget to better accommodate Wall of Coins integration expenses by limiting its requests, which traditionally we restrict to 80% of the total budget. By relying on existing funds and managing the expenses on other projects, we seek to include Wall of Coins within the 80% of the total budget limit.
4) Genitrust will be responsible for project communication to the community and for any cost overruns associated with the integration, while the Dash core team will provide limited technical assistance to ensure existing software tools and technical expertise is available to help lower the execution risk for Genitrust.
5) Detailed criteria for release of funds, milestones, and project completion measures will be negotiated in good faith between Genitrust and the core team which will result in the production of a granular project plan with milestones and deliverables. These will be defined in a way that will be externally verifiable to the extent possible, and will roughly align with the timeline previously outlined by Genitrust (adjusted for the new start date) contained in their previous proposal at https://www.dropbox.com/s/chddplecnxh9xed/dash-adoption-tools.pdf?dl=0. Payment #1 will be released immediately at the start of the project and defining the detailed project plan will be the first activity undertaken by the team. Payments #2 and #3 will be released based on the completion percentage of the project plan.
6) Genitrust will accept all currency risk associated with the project between the time the proposal is submitted and the funds are paid.
7) Genitrust will be responsible for all aspects of implementation, including other components not funded by these funds. These additional expenses include regulatory cost, legal cost (e.g., having terms of service rewritten), marketing costs, etc. All work will be completed by February 5th, 2017.
The main risk associated with this arrangement is that all payments are distributed in advance of the work being completed. However, by ensuring progress is made between each payment, we can provide assurances that by the time the third payment is distributed, Genitrust will have completed roughly 2/3rds of the work and would have large disincentives to discontinue work under those circumstances (not to mention the reputation impact they would suffer). This arrangement provides protection for Genitrust as well against defunding if the work is being executed according to their plan. Genitrust requested this protection because they are carrying the cost of any regulatory, legal, and cost overrun expenses.
Requested funding is as follows starting with the November 4th budget cycle, and extending through the January cycle:
- Three payments of 1,991.54 Dash ($19,306 USD @ $9.694 per the October 25th average rate at https://bitinfocharts.com/comparison/price-dash.html)
- 5.00 Dash reimbursement for the proposal cost
Note: Genitrust assumes all currency fluctuation risks associated with this proposal.
Manually vote YES on this proposal:
dash-cli mnbudget vote-many e602e0b8a0526eee5ad107cb0b48c26043d25e7b9db6ce93807badb3c703b144 yes
OR from the qt console:
mnbudget vote-many e602e0b8a0526eee5ad107cb0b48c26043d25e7b9db6ce93807badb3c703b144 yes
Manually vote NO on this proposal:
dash-cli mnbudget vote-many e602e0b8a0526eee5ad107cb0b48c26043d25e7b9db6ce93807badb3c703b144 no
OR from the qt console:
mnbudget vote-many e602e0b8a0526eee5ad107cb0b48c26043d25e7b9db6ce93807badb3c703b144 no
Additional Background
What does Wall of Coins do for the buyer?
- The buyer types in how much Fiat they are looking to spend.
- The 3 best rates and nearest locations are presented to the buyer.
- The buyer selects the location, verifies their mobile phone, and then receives the payment instructions.
- The buyer receives the coins within 15 minutes after purchase.
What does Wall of Coins do for the seller?
- The seller tells us how to contact them.
- Seller then selects their Bank account OR Cash Account, this can be any means that they accept cash.
- Seller inputs their payment details.
- Seller then selects the price rate they want for each coin.
- Seller sends coins to their advertisement. Done!
- If "Dynamic Pricing" is selected, the seller selects the Primary Market that they want their price to follow. Should this market get hacked, such as what happened with Mt Gox, Bitstamp, Cryptsy, Bitfinex, etc., Wall of Coins makes the seller select a Secondary Market (Backup market). The price is grabbed from this market if the first market fails.
- The seller can set a premium or discount percentage if their price will follow the price of another market.
What does Wall of Coins do for websites? (Such as Backpage.com)
- Any websites that has been shut out, or "blockaded", from the world of credit cards can accept cryptocurrency; however, cryptocurrency is not easy for the website visitors / end users.
- Backpage.com uses the Wall of Coins web widget for easy integration to easily receive bitcoin payments (currently) WITHOUT the end user realizing that they are using bitcoin. Image the benefits to all parties of using DASH instead (InstantSend).
- What is the widget? It is some HTML to copy/paste onto your website to allow the website to use features on the Wall of Coins site. This is similar to a website using "Log in with Facebook" or Google Analytics HTML code to gain the benefits from Facebook / Google.
- Backpage now receives payments easily AND they receive a commission for their payments. Wall of Coins is effectively a payment processor that pays their business to accept remote cash payments as Dash, while boosting the Dash marketshare.
- Backpage users want their advertisements funded as soon as possible. With Wall of Coins and DASH Instant Send, this becomes a much better solution than using Bitcoin as the payment protocol.
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