Proposal: GB ATM and POS Infrastructure

[generalbytes]

Proposal DASH - GB ATM and POS Infrastructure upgrade

A Proposal to enable full Dash support (including InstantSend) on all GENERAL BYTES BATM and Point of Sale (POS) terminals in existence and future ATM and POS machines sold.​

GENERAL BYTES Company Overview

GENERAL BYTES is a Bitcoin and blockchain based technology provider. We are currently best known for our range of cryptocurrency ATMs but also offer point of sale terminals and an array of blockchain based services. Some interesting data points on our company are:​

1. Original Manufacturer - GENERAL BYTES designs, manufactures and sells cryptocurrency ATMs since late 2013 and is currently the 2nd largest ATM brand worldwide according to coinatmradar.com
2. Innovator - GENERAL BYTES was the first to introduce fingerprint readers, NFC cards for use on cryptocurrency ATMs, POS terminals and is home to many other innovations in the cryptocurrency ecosphere.
3. Fast mover - In 2017 year GENERAL BYTES sold over 600 cryptocurrency ATMs and counting!
4. Dash supporter - Our ATMs have been supporting cash-to-Dash transactions since Feb 2017 and most (if not all!) of the ATMs worldwide currently selling DASH have been manufactured by our company. Besides that, GENERAL BYTES is currently the largest Dash supporting ATM network worldwide but we think we can do even better!
5. Complete solution - In addition to our range of ATMs we also offer Point of Sale Terminals (CortexPay) for a full-circle cryptocurrency implementations.
6. Solid partner - We support our customers with frequent updates so they continue to operate while the ecosystem around them changes (new coins/coin forks/protocol updates/regulations). We also sponsor hacker congresses such as hcpp.cz and support new initiatives in the cryptocurrency industry.

Our core values as a company are truth, privacy and freedom and feel that those goals are very much aligned with the principals the Dash community adheres to and we would therefore propose the following.​

Scope

We will make Dash a first class citizen on our cryptocurrency platform and enable full DASH support on all our products. This will help increase real-world Dash adoption as the InstantSend technology is really ideally suited for this type of application. (ATM and POS)​

Deliverables

By making Dash a first class citizen on our platform we will deliver the following within the specified time-frame should this proposal be approved:​

1. Enable Dash-to-cash functionality on our two-way ATM models. (models: BATMThree and RCKit). Currently DASH is supported on the BATMTwo, BATMThree and RCKit models for the Cash-to-Dash exchange direction. (one-way ATM operation). Cryptocurrency-to-Cash support (two-way ATM operation) is currently only available for Bitcoin and Litecoin on the ATM models BATMThree and RCKit. Our proposal will enable Dash-to-cash functionality in the same way as implemented for Bitcoin and Litecoin on the BATMThree and RCKit models!
2. We will add full support for Dash on our Point of sale terminal product, CortexPay. CortexPay currently supports Bitcoin and Litecoin only but this proposal will add Dash as the 3rd option to an already great POS product.
3. Did we mention that all of the above mentioned new features will contain support for InstantSend? (Fantastic yes, we thought so too!)
4. Implementing the features above will have added side effects (good ones!) like DASH support in the coin.cz blockchain explorer. (yeey! Another Dash block explorer!)
5. Good stuff comes in small packages! We'll throw in support for DASH xpubs in our products so you can accept transactions directly into your Dash hardware wallet and we'll also make sure the NFC wallet cards dispensed by the BATMThree range of ATMs will also be working with the DASH cryptocurrency on ATMs and CortexPay point of sale system.
6. GENERAL BYTES has sold over 800 ATMs, over 445 are listed as currently on-line on coinatmradar.com. We will make available a (free) downloadable update for all existing ATMs, effectively enabling full Dash support in all machines sold by us since 2013 and future ATMs sold by GENERAL BYTES. Please note that while we will make the update available, we can't force the operator to configure Dash on their ATM.

Schedule

We commit to have above mentioned implemented, tested and ready to be downloaded as software update before 1.1.2018 for all our existing cryptocurrency ATM owners plus will have these awesome new DASH features built in standard in any future ATMs shipped by GENERAL BYTES.

2017 Dec 1st: Deliverables 2 and 4. Blockexplorer will be operational and Dash will be supported on the Cortexpay Point of sale terminals.
2018 Jan 1st: Deliverables 1 3 5 and 6. Support for 2-way Dash ATM support, InstantSend, Dash xpubs and NFC wallet cards and general availability and distribution of software upgrade.
​

Budget

We have calculated the total cost of this proposal to roughly 50 000 USD.​

This will include two months of development by 2 developers, a third person to coordinate the development process, provide for properly testing of the final output and the preparation of tutorials and instruction videos to instruct ATM operators on how to enable the new Dash functionality in their ATMs and point of sale terminals.​

Our dash address used for proposal is: XrAwEffseCKgQPQhYqXuscBaoUnHqkKxQz but funds will be kept in escrow by greencandle.io, a respected Dash community member (see Terms section)​

Itemized Costs

Table 1 - Total Costs Requested
| Item | Cost | Units | Comment
| Developers | 35000 | USD | 2 full-time developers for two months
| Coordinator | 8000 | USD | 1 Project lead / coordinator for two months
| Testing | 5000 | USD | Testing / debugging and creation of instr. videos
| Maintenance | 2000 | USD | Reserved for unforeseen costs / future maintenance
| Proposal Fee | 5 | DASH | Fee for registering this proposal on the Dash network
| **Total** | **180** | **DASH**| 50.000 USD equals roughly 175 Dash (rate 2017-10-26)

Terms

We are requesting 3 monthly payments of 60 DASH to accomplish this. Funds will be held in Escrow by Green Candle Inc (greencandle.io) to ensure the Dash community that all deliverables are met. Given time and schedule of deliverables (deliverables Dec 1st / Jan 1st) we propose to split the ask in 3. Proposed dates are 2017-11-03, 2017-12-03, 2018-01-03.​

Closing

Why support us:​

1. We always deliver on our promise. In many cases we overdeliver or manage to beat our own deadlines!
2. Solid support on hardware platforms like BATM and Cortexpay will boost Dash adoption.
3. A Boost for DASH support in already existing and deployed ATMs and Point of Sale Terminals.
4. This is a real proposal that adds value to the entire Dash ecosystem, not just an individual.

 

[ampp]

I think this is a no-brainier, just submit the proposal already

There has been a few custom dash branded ATM's, is it possible to eventually make that a standard available option, rather then custom order?

Thanks for verifying here: https://twitter.com/generalbytes

Previous youtube interview:

If you guys get some time a new interview would be awesome.

Perhaps @tungfa can fix your title.

 

[Green Candle]

We got goose bumps reading, "We will make Dash a first class citizen on our cryptocurrency platform and enable full DASH support on all our products. This will help increase real-world Dash adoption as the InstantSend technology is really ideally suited for this type of application. (ATM and POS)".

As mentioned in this post https://www.dash.org/forum/threads/...r-music-festival-in-canada.17448/#post-143153 one of our Directors recently travelled to meet with General Bytes. Seeing the timeline of a January 2018 delivery of this it could greatly increase the chances of Blueprint and Livenation being open to holding a full crypto sponsored event powered by Dash in the summer music festival season.

Because this proposal has so much synergy with our vision for Blueprint and Livenation we are happy to offer to escrow these funds on behalf of the Dash Community and engage with General Bytes directly to ensure this Proposal gets delivered on time and on budget just like the DASH-GAP proposal.

Since this proposal is directly tied to us bringing our vision to life of a fully crypto powered music festival and also to show the community we want to see Dash succeed in a POS environment we will waive the usual management fee to keep this proposal at the same 180 Dash. We would like to suggest though that we split the ask into three months so that the final set of funds wouldn't be released until after the final milestone. This would allow Green Candle to handle the communication and update the community on your behalf and allow you guys to focus on your development efforts.

Should be a win for everyone.

 

[generalbytes]

we are happy to offer to escrow these funds on behalf of the Dash Community and engage with General Bytes directly to ensure this Proposal gets delivered on time and on budget.

This would be fantastic! We will immediately update the proposal so that Green Candle Inc is listed as the Escrow.

we will waive the usual management fee to keep this proposal at the same 180 Dash.

Wow! We are honored! Thank you! We honestly don't know what to say!

We would like to suggest though that we split the ask into three months so that the final set of funds wouldn't be released until after the final milestone. This would allow Green Candle to handle the communication and update the community on your behalf and allow you guys to focus on your development efforts.

Absolutely. Good idea actually. We have updated the proposal in the original post to reflect these changes. A big thank you to all at Green Candle and everyone that provided feedback so far!

 

[generalbytes]

There has been a few custom dash branded ATM's, is it possible to eventually make that a standard available option, rather than custom order?

Glad you liked them! We love those Dash blue ATMs! We had to try a few times to get the color just right but are very enthusiastic about the end result. You probably guessed it already but blue is our favourite color here at GENERAL BYTES. Adding color variety to the ATMs is on top of our priority list and we can currently produce the ATMs in any RAL color combination desired but (there is always a but...) the custom paint process slows down production and usually delays shipping on these custom orders. (slow shipping, not good! ) Because of this we can currently only accommodate custom color orders for orders on 5 units or more at the moment but we hope to be able to bring this down in the future. For now it is more a logistics problem than anything else.

 

[ewok]

Yes for sure. Instant market penetration to machines in the wild.

By the looks of the budget and current voting trends there is room for this to get up in the next 3 days. Lets make this happen.

 

[Nuancer]

This proposal is an easy yes for me in its current state. Expanding the Dash ATM network with instant send functionality, at a reasonable cost, will provide the network a meaningful return on investment.

Here are my suggestions to strengthen an already great proposal and turn it into an excellent proposal.

Reporting
Once the Dash software is ready, please provide our community with monthly reports for at least a year, with the below information if it is available:

• Chart of # and % of General Bytes ATMs accepting Dash over time
• Chart of # and % of CortexPay systems accepting Dash over time
• Chart of # and % of Dash transaction volume (vs other Cryptos) over time (ATMs/POS)
• Chart of # and % of Dash transaction total $ (vs other Cryptos) over time (ATMs/POS)

Marketing / Roll out - Please add appropriate marketing budget to proposal

• Let's nudge ATM operators to quickly install the Dash software update upon release. I would support the addition of a marketing budget to send $50 of Dash per ATM to the operator if they install the upgrade within a month of the software release. I think this is important given that not all ATM operators will be familiar with Dash.
• Is there any way to nudge ATM operators to set Dash fees such that they are lower than Bitcoin and Litecoin fees?
• Promotional email to ATM operators to install Dash and welcome operators to our community here at dash.org

 

[RGXDK]

We shouldn't be subsidizing businesses. If we are going to put up an investment, especially on as large as this one, we should expect a return. Is the network keeping a part of the profits? If not, VOTING NO.

 

[Beru]

As a network, our "profit" is adoption. Buisnesses cant share their profits with us, at least for now. I know its sometimes frustrating when companies ask us funding when they dont (and cant) do the same for others integrations. But I think this partnership can be really "profitable" for us in the short term. But we have to be sure they gonna walk the extra miles to promote this integration.

 

[RGXDK]

As a network, our "profit" is adoption. Buisnesses cant share their profits with us, at least for now. I know its sometimes frustrating when companies ask us funding when they dont (and cant) do the same for others integrations. But I think this partnership can be really "profitable" for us in the short term. But we have to be sure they gonna walk the extra miles to promote this integration.

The purpose of these ATMs is to generate a profit to whoever is controlling them. I'm down to fund a company that is not for profit, with the intent to promote adoption as you said. This is clearly not the case, we would be literally subsidizing his operation and we shouldn't do it.

 

[TheSingleton]

@RGXDK Why do you care if they will profit from this the only question should be if we are going to profit from this and I think that's a pretty clear yes.

 

[generalbytes]

Once the Dash software is ready, please provide our community with monthly reports for at least a year

We manufacture the terminals and write the software but do not operate the machine. As such we do not see client transactions or touch the funds of our clients. (this is by design) Our products are are owned by individual ATM operators (our clients) that in over 99% of the cases run their own management software (on their own hardware or VPS) to do the fleet management of their ATMs and point of sale terminals. ATM owners set their own cryptocurrencies, wallets, exchanges, rate source tickers and of course their fee %. This distributed server setup is better from a security point of view and makes the network more resilient to attacks. Side effect is that we, the manufacturer, can't produce pretty charts with our client data because we do not have transaction data as the manufacturer. (they are not our transactions so having no access is a good thing) The ATM operator will be able to draw charts of transaction volume using the GB software but there are literally 100s of operators out there.

https://coinatmradar.com/charts/#cryptocurrency lists the number of ATMs worldwide that currently sell DASH. This is currently around 5% but GB has a 25%+ market share so this proposal would make Dash compatible with at least 25% of the existing cryptocurrency ATMs that have reported their online status in the past 24hrs.

Let's nudge ATM operators to quickly install the Dash software update upon release. Is there any way to nudge ATM operators to set Dash fees such that they are lower than Bitcoin and Litecoin fees? Promotional email to ATM operators to install Dash and welcome operators to our community here at dash.org

Most operators monitor https://generalbytes.com/support/ and install updates once they are released. This will include the Dash functionality but also bug fixes and other updates so 99% will have this update installed after the first week of release. Transaction fees are set by the owner / operator of the ATMs. We have no control over those fees or take a share / cut out of those fees. Promotional email to ATM operators to install Dash and welcome operators to our community here at dash.org is a good idea and will send out a newsletter with the instruction videos on how to install Dash once we go live. We will also point to the community, or a specific thread here at dash.org

 

[generalbytes]

We shouldn't be subsidizing businesses. If we are going to put up an investment, especially on as large as this one, we should expect a return. Is the network keeping a part of the profits? If not, VOTING NO.

I think you are confusing manufacturer and ATM operator. We manufacture the ATMs, we do not own or operate them. ATMs manufactured by us sell many coins (including Dash) but we want to enable more Dash features (like Instantpay and 2-way ATM operation) to enable better support. The funds requested in the proposal are not for subsidizing our business or expand a network of ATMs we purchase elsewhere but are solely used for developing the extra features that make Dash special as a cryptocurrency (like intantspend) and embed these into the entire range of GB cryptocurrency products.

The profit for the Dash community is that Dash, as a cryptocurrency will become a more useful cryptocurrency with more infrastructure support for ATMs and POS that can be used in closed loop, club like payment solutions with the NFC wallet cards. (no mobile phone needed to pay!) Full support for Dash (not just the core wallet) will make it easier to configure Dash for ATM owners, leading to more ATM operator adoption, leading to more visibility for Dash on the ATMs and point of sale.

People sometimes say cryptocurrencies have no value and most of it is pure speculation. I always tell them the value is in the network and adding functionalities to a cryptocurrency network makes it more valuable as usability of the network will increase. In case of this proposal we would bridge the gap between the online world and offline world for Dash by building support for POS and 2-way ATM operation. This, in my opinion will help increase the value of the Dash network in ways we can not even calculate right now.

 

[Nuancer]

Generalbytes, thanks for the thoughtful responses to our comments above. You have convinced me that ATM operators are highly likely to add Dash upon the software's release. Good clarification on your status as a manufacturer vs ATM operator. I appreciate that you will help promote Dash.org to your customers. I am happy to give an enthusiastic YES to this proposal!

 

[RGXDK]

I think you are confusing manufacturer and ATM operator. We manufacture the ATMs, we do not own or operate them. ATMs manufactured by us sell many coins (including Dash) but we want to enable more Dash features (like Instantpay and 2-way ATM operation) to enable better support. The funds requested in the proposal are not for subsidizing our business or expand a network of ATMs we purchase elsewhere but are solely used for developing the extra features that make Dash special as a cryptocurrency (like intantspend) and embed these into the entire range of GB cryptocurrency products.

The profit for the Dash community is that Dash, as a cryptocurrency will become a more useful cryptocurrency with more infrastructure support for ATMs and POS that can be used in closed loop, club like payment solutions with the NFC wallet cards. (no mobile phone needed to pay!) Full support for Dash (not just the core wallet) will make it easier to configure Dash for ATM owners, leading to more ATM operator adoption, leading to more visibility for Dash on the ATMs and point of sale.

People sometimes say cryptocurrencies have no value and most of it is pure speculation. I always tell them the value is in the network and adding functionalities to a cryptocurrency network makes it more valuable as usability of the network will increase. In case of this proposal we would bridge the gap between the online world and offline world for Dash by building support for POS and 2-way ATM operation. This, in my opinion will help increase the value of the Dash network in ways we can not even calculate right now.

Is the BTC network paying you for implementing HD wallets? Is the LTC network paying you for adding it to your ATM? If not, I don't see why we should pay you to add features of our coin. We are not going to directly profit from this investment, we are not exclusive in your project and both you and the ATM owners are in for your own profits, not to promote Dash. I don't see how any masternode can support this.

 

[RGXDK]

@RGXDK Why do you care if they will profit from this the only question should be if we are going to profit from this and I think that's a pretty clear yes.

1. He is implementing other coins and they are not paying, why should we?
2. The ATM owner's mission is to generate profit for themselves, not to promote Dash.
3. The manufacturer's mission (OP) is to generate profit for themselves, not to promote Dash
4. There is no exclusivity, it's a cryptocurrency ATM not a DASH ATM.
5. I can think of better ways to spend the money
6. There is no reporting of any sort (not in the past, not now and there won't be in the future as he mentioned).
7. We have to be responsible with our spendings. No reports means we don't know if it's working for us.
8. Can't measure or estimate ROI

Those are the reasons I can think of at the moment.

Now if OP was making Dash ONLY ATMs, if the code, design and intellectual property was owned by the masternode network or some entity controlled by the network (even Core), if the #1 objective was to promote Dash, then the story would be different.

Ps: what happened to the masternode owner badges?

 

[ampp]

1. He is implementing other coins and they are not paying, why should we?
2. The ATM owner's mission is to generate profit for themselves, not to promote Dash.
3. The manufacturer's mission (OP) is to generate profit for themselves, not to promote Dash
4. There is no exclusivity, it's a cryptocurrency ATM not a DASH ATM.
5. I can think of better ways to spend the money
6. There is no reporting of any sort (not in the past, not now and there won't be in the future as he mentioned).
7. We have to be responsible with our spendings. No reports means we don't know if it's working for us.
8. Can't measure or estimate ROI

Those are the reasons I can think of at the moment.

Now if OP was making Dash ONLY ATMs, if the code, design and intellectual property was owned by the masternode network or some entity controlled by the network (even Core), if the #1 objective was to promote Dash, then the story would be different.

Ps: what happened to the masternode owner badges?

You forget that dash is not number 1 (yet), therefore we don't have all the advantages where people have to implement us to have a business. We get the ability for a fully implemented ATM user experience with instant send. We get the ability for ATM owners to choose, and we can provide incentive structures for them. ATM's are a uphill battle and are not easy to run and capitalize. There are many issues, and right now it's not really profitable for anyone to run a Dash Only ATM as there is not significant demand in most cities. If you have better solutions for the money then by all means get a proposal up.

ATM owners have to have a business case to run Dash on their machines, but first it has to be properly available on the machine and have all the supporting infrastructure.

All generalbytes ATM's should be listed on Discover Dash, so if anyone finds one then get it listed. That is a community problem that we don't know how many are Dash enabled right now, not a generalbytes problem.

 

[Macrochip]

The last time we funded an ATM project it turned out to be a complete desaster that almost divided this community. And that was supposedly escrowed as well (can't tell for sure because no one ever bothered to give us any report on that disgraceful failure). Besides I fully agree with @RGXDK there, so I'd definitely vote no.

 

[ampp]

The last time we funded an ATM project it turned out to be a complete desaster that almost divided this community. And that was supposedly escrowed as well (can't tell for sure because no one ever bothered to give us any report on that disgraceful failure). Besides I fully agree with @RGXDK there, so I'd definitely vote no.

I'm not entirely sure which project you are referencing but i really doubt it is anywhere the same as this. This is upgrades for a existing base of built ATM's (well over 3 million dollars of installed value) and all future ATM's, it's a very reasonable ask. These opportunities are how dash stays ahead of other projects. In traditional business almost nobody comes to you for implementation on their platform. They see demand growing however its not enough to justify spending all that development effort for Dash and its specific features. If the Dash community had ordered 100's of custom blue machines generalbytes could probably justify the extra expense, but as it stands we basically have to pay for any implementation of Dash with instant-send etc. As I've said before, ATM's is not a easy market, its a loss leader right now in general, but the coins with the most deployed fiat to coin gateways is a network value that you can't exactly put a dollar value on.

 

[Macrochip]

If you don't know about that proposal, you should read up on it real fast. Otherwise there's no point explaining how all the arguments you make sound all nice and impossible to disagree with, until you'll realize the problem lies somewhere else. Emphasis on lies.