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Proposal: Dash Foundation Donation

Ryan Taylor

Ryan Taylor

Well-known member
Foundation Member
This is a cross-post from www.dashwhale.org/p/found-donate-210608

Now that the voting on budget proposals have largely settled into a stable position, we feel now is the appropriate time to leverage any remaining budget funds and put them to good use. The budget is currently pretty full... only 124.17 Dash remains unallocated. And a good portion of those funds are going toward community-sponsored projects.

This proposal seeks to donate 119.17 Dash to the Dash Foundation. The Dash Foundation is a non-profit entity located in the United States. To date, its main function has been to act as a legal entity acting on behalf of the network when one is required (e.g., signing contracts, litigation, negotiations).

The foundation represented Dash in a trademark dispute that concluded favorably earlier in the year, but more work is needed to proactively protect our trademark in other geographies. In addition, we would eventually like to issue legal opinions and guidance from a reputable law firm in the cryptocurrency space on the implications of PrivateSend on KYC / money laundering laws. Addressing these legal questions on behalf of exchanges or money transmitters in these legal questions will address one of the barriers to our continued adoption and acceptance.

Currently, most of the funding for the foundation originates from membership dues. However, membership numbers are low (24 annual dues-paying members) and other sources of revenue are small, so there is not enough funding to accomplish all the Dash Foundation goals.

The requested funding will help - though not close - the funding gap. By setting aside a small amount of funding when the network can, the foundation should eventually be able to start addressing the above issues.

For more information on the Dash Foundation, you can visit the website at https://www.dashfoundation.io/

Requested funding is as follows for the August 5th budget cycle:
Total: 124.17 Dash

Manually vote YES on this proposal:
dash-cli mnbudget vote-many 10595c5f451bea07df631cf2333e35ce0e6163e6dcc8f1203512b278741601be yes
OR from the qt console:
mnbudget vote-many 10595c5f451bea07df631cf2333e35ce0e6163e6dcc8f1203512b278741601be yes

Manually vote NO on this proposal:
dash-cli mnbudget vote-many 10595c5f451bea07df631cf2333e35ce0e6163e6dcc8f1203512b278741601be no
OR from the qt console:
mnbudget vote-many 10595c5f451bea07df631cf2333e35ce0e6163e6dcc8f1203512b278741601be no
 
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On a personal note, I am really excited about this proposal because (I think) it would represent the first time a non-profit has been directly funded by a blockchain. :cool:
 
What items is the Dash Foundation going to use the funds for? Past expenses, Future expenses?

How much were the legal costs for this dispute?
What are the expenses the Dash Foundation has paid?
How many funds does the Dash Foundation have now?
What are the expected expenses?
 
Having remaining budget funds to be burned is not a problem. A bigger problem would be misusing or wasting DASH (dumping on the market) unnecessarily.

The ultimate goal of the budget is to allow available DASH funds to be transformed into bigger value to the whole DASH system. If the advantages we would get from the funding of a proposal are not clearly superior tho the "inherent value" of the DASH requested, it means that burning is the way to go.

Having said that, as a member of the Foundation, I would love to see it working at full steam. But first of all, I am a member of the DASH community, and as a member of the community I agree with what Solarminer and qwizzie have already posted above: if there is a clear specific need for these funds, please let us know.

Thank you.
 
@Solarminer
What items is the Dash Foundation going to use the funds for? Past expenses, Future expenses?
- As stated, for the moment the monies will be saved toward the listed future expenses. Past expenses have already been paid.

How much were the legal costs for this dispute? All the information on the past legal expenses are published on the website. Per the report in January, the legal costs were $7,470.
What are the expenses the Dash Foundation has paid? Legal fees, website operation costs, registration / filing costs for the entity (e.g., publishing costs for the Articles of Organization), and payment processing fees.
How many funds does the Dash Foundation have now? The last reported balance was 853 DASH and 0.43 BTC, but additional expenses were approved in the subsequent quarterly meetings.
What are the expected expenses? Legal costs for trademarking the Dash brand and hiring law firm(s) to issue legal opinions and guidance on the implications of PrivateSend on KYC / money laundering laws. The funds could also be used for unanticipated legal expenses (like when we needed to defend our use of the name Dash from another legal entity that I referenced in the OP), should the need arise to defend the network.
 
I like this proposal. Even though, I have doubts. Legal clarification of PrivateSend is something that could be useful, why not to fund these things from proposal?

I still feel that this structure could be in some sense helpful and I vote yes.

The important question is: "How do we know that dash foundation will keep representing dash in the future, what if majority of dash stakeholders wants something different?"
 
@babygiraffe love your work, but i'll prob vote no on this one. I don't like these catch all proposals.

However, if the foundation had a board elected by MNs that would be a different story. I would vote for it in those circumstances. Have you guys considered an elected foundation? That would really grab headlines.
 
halso said:
@babygiraffe love your work, but i'll prob vote no on this one. I don't like these catch all proposals.

However, if the foundation had a board elected by MNs that would be a different story. I would vote for it in those circumstances. Have you guys considered an elected foundation? That would really grab headlines.
Click to expand...
Yes, we have considered it. However, there are some big unanswered legal questions about that type of setup. Current laws support a membership-driven model in which one member = one vote for the board. Having a masternode-driven election mechanism doesn't yet exist in the legal world, and we'd need to obtain legal support to offer an opinion. It could probably be done, but that would be yet another legal expense to have answered.

The present officers are elected for two-year terms, I believe (someone correct me if I'm wrong), so a good time to address that question might be prior to the next election cycle, which I think would be this winter.

But the short answer is that, yes, the foundation has considered having its board elected via masternode vote rather than membership vote.
 
Comodore said:
Why don't you make masternode owner a member? This way, you are OK.
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Someone with some legal background in the US would need to back my statement on this, but I think current law requires members to a foundation be either a natural person or a legal entity. A signature on the blockchain from an address holding 1,000 Dash doesn't fit that framework. So it's one of those cases where the law hasn't stayed current with technology. We THINK it can be done based on off-the-cuff opinions of legal experts, but we would need to hire a law firm and probably seek an approval or opinion from the state before implementing the change. I don't know everything that would be involved, but it's a great idea and I think we should pursue it when we have more resources.
 
Comodore said:
Why don't you make masternode owner a member? This way, you are OK.
Click to expand...
too many masternodes.

@babygiraffe we are breaking new ground for sure! Why not set up a not for profit organization in Switzerland or somewhere neutral.

However, we would then probably need to vote on a constitution or set of byelaws outlying the roles and responsibilities of a board.

If the budget was amended to deal with that explicit question, i would vote for it. But at the moment, i have no idea who is even on the Dash foundation board.
 
babygiraffe said:
Someone with some legal background in the US would need to back my statement on this, but I think current law requires members to a foundation be either a natural person or a legal entity. A signature on the blockchain from an address holding 1,000 Dash doesn't fit that framework. So it's one of those cases where the law hasn't stayed current with technology. We THINK it can be done based on off-the-cuff opinions of legal experts, but we would need to hire a law firm and probably seek an approval or opinion from the state before implementing the change. I don't know everything that would be involved, but it's a great idea and I think we should pursue it when we have more resources.
Click to expand...
I think the bitcoin foundation is an incorporated "not for Profit" entity registered in the US.
 
Blockchain-based board elections would be great. But using a masternode vote seems unbalanced. The wealthy would have an unfair advantage over someone who can barely afford a masternode. One member - one vote seems to be the most balanced and fair. Just my 2 cents.
 
mstang83 said:
Blockchain-based board elections would be great. But using a masternode vote seems unbalanced. The wealthy would have an unfair advantage over someone who can barely afford a masternode. One member - one vote seems to be the most balanced and fair. Just my 2 cents.
Click to expand...

"The wealthy (masternode owners) having an unfair advantage over someone who can barely afford a masternode" is not a bad thing, and is actually the fair and logical way to (try to) keep the DASH network in balance*.... After all, the more money you invest (risk) in the network, the more "power/control" you should have over it.

But I agree with you that, specifically regarding the Foundation, it would not make much sense having the Masternodes elect the board members. And that is because the Masternodes are not (or do not represent) Foundation members (only if every single masternode owner was a Foundation member, and if there was only one Masternode per member/owner... that's not the case). Considering that the Foundation is a specific "person", independent from the rest of the network (it is even possible that more than one DASH Foundation exists, in parallel, one independent from the other, if people decide to create in their countries, neighbourhood, clubs, or whatever).

* for balance, I consider the following powers:
- Miners;
- Masternode owners;
- Developers;
- Merchants;
- The Market;
- Users...
Each with their own ways to influence and "control" the way DASH develops.
 
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babygiraffe said:
This is a cross-post from www.dashwhale.org/p/found-donate-210608
(...)more work is needed to proactively protect our trademark in other geographies. In addition, we would eventually like to issue legal opinions and guidance from a reputable law firm in the cryptocurrency space on the implications of PrivateSend on KYC / money laundering laws. Addressing these legal questions on behalf of exchanges or money transmitters in these legal questions will address one of the barriers to our continued adoption and acceptance.(...)
Click to expand...

Each country has got its own laws, and very specific rules (the US law will not rule all other global jurisdictions - no matter how hard the US tries to). So, it could be quite a heavy burden for the Foundation to take care of it on its own. It would make more sense that each merchant/exchange "do their own homework" and hire their own trusted local legal couselor.

Anyway, if the Foundation needs an attorney in Brazil: www.liborio.adv.br ...:cool:
 
raganius said:
Each country has got its own laws, and very specific rules (the US law will not rule all other global jurisdictions - no matter how hard the US tries to). So, it could be quite a heavy burden for the Foundation to take care of it on its own. It would make more sense that each merchant/exchange "do their own homework" and hire their own trusted local legal couselor.

Anyway, if the Foundation needs an attorney in Brazil: www.liborio.adv.br ...:cool:
Click to expand...
While that is true, the issue - as you can imagine - is the most pronounced in the US. I think that if we can show that it is not a concern in the US (or isn't when certain measures are taken), then other jurisdictions would probably follow the guidance from the strictest location (US) with confidence.

So if you address it from a US standpoint, I think that would do the trick across the entire industry.
 
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