Self-sustainable Decentralized Governance by Blockchain

Solarminer said:
I like the idea of a project proposal with a block % over x months. Then it can be sold off if needed to get funded immediately. This isn't possible without a defined stopping point.

So looking at your idea.
  • We vote in projects based on % of block rewards. Highest yes vote projects with 51% of vote or better get in. Projects are kicked out if they are over a 51% vote but they go over the 15% project cap.
  • Every 3 months we vote on projects again. If a project needs to get kicked out(non performing or bad idea) it can get knocked out of the queue by a 51% negative vote. Otherwise projects already in the queue continue at the same % until the owner says finished or it is voted out.
  • New projects can be added to the queue every 3 months as long as there are additional funds not used by continuing projects.
I see that there would be an incentive to not finish projects and keep funding going. But this could happen anyway we do this. At lease, there is a mechanism in place to stop the funding for a dud project if this happens.
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I think we should only pay by the job not by hourly or monthly (if you're talking about contract work here.) I would prefer the project is only paid if almost done or completely done and satisfactory.
 
darkchild said:
I've read all of the posts thus far and weighed all the pros and cons from my own perspective.

I'm 100% behind this new initiative and I have the following comments and suggestions to make with the hopes that we can stop arguing like old house wives and keep DASHing.

We currently have three pillars that support DASH. Miners, Masternode Operators and Governance (Devs, Marketing, Legal, Entertainment, Travel, Accommodation, etc). More will be added, but my post is reserved for the three mentioned above.

Miners and Masternode operators have roles that are clearly defined and enforced through the logic in the code.

Governance however is a grey area which is subject to a wide range of human emotion, needs and sense of worth based on each individual's background, culture and expectations. We can not enforce or programme this in code and this is where faith and trust kick in.

We have all seen all the scams, scandals and collapses of different cryptos and foundations which have all provided lessons for all of us to learn from.

For this reason, I'm proposing that anyone who is going to participate in any Governance related project MUST be publicly identifiable.

Evan and a few others are already well known to the community. If you are going to be a public servant, who serves the DASH community and is paid by the community, then you can no longer live in the shadows.

DASH is not a joke. It is something I take very seriously and dedicate an enormous amount of my time in supporting and promoting both online and offline. I'm not the only one who does this. There are many others serving in silence and don't get paid.

Anyone who is going to be paid through the fruits of miners and masternode operators MUST have their identities in the public domain, so that when anything goes wrong, they can be identified and brought to justice if necessary. Any successful business or foundation is not always a democracy and this why we have a board that is elected to serve our collective interests until they let us down.

They are in effect our elected officials and until they fail in performing their duties, we MUST trust and put our faith in them because they operate in the grey areas vs the black and white world of miners and masternodes.

If anyone the Governance body fails to delivers or tries to scam the community, then we know their identity and we we take legal action, which in itself is subject to a vote by the community based on what the community stands to gain or lose or simply for the sake of setting an example to deter others from trying to f**k with the community in future.

So going forward, we put our faith and trust in the Governance pillar with the condition that we know all the public identities of the actors involved. This condition should be non-negotiatable, which means that when you decide to feed of the DASH community, it comes with a great degree of responsibility and accountability.

How far we want to verify each governance actor will be up to the community. If it's someone in legal or finance, we can require a police background check or ask to see that they are accredited with a recognized legal or accounting association in their respective jurisdictions. I don't know any business or organization that hires people without knowing who they are or their competence.

There should be no half measures when you decide to run for a public DASH office.

I don't want no secret government with black budgets and excessive discretionary spending.

Evan is already leading by example and it is time to know who the others are.

No more pseudonyms or hiding in the dark if you want to get paid.

We the community want to know you and support you, since you are part of the governance body.

The same thing will apply to any company we need to hire and outsource DASH services to. We need to know their names, references and this way the Masternode operators can make an informed decision.

If this advice is not heeded, Masternode operators will be left in the dark and we will argue and debate till the cows come home. We will not advanced as a united collective, but as a forced alliance.

I have to believe that anyone who is a Masternode operator is capable of sound judgement when presented with all the facts.

If we want to run DASH like professionals, let's do so properly. Evan has publicly stated on many occasions DASH isn't something created to support criminal activity but to provide transactional privacy among many other innovative features.

While I respect personal privacy, I do believe that those who represent DASH in any capacity as service providers within the Governance pillar should have their real identities made public and why the community and Masternode operators should vote for them.

Remember that is it these people who are going to do the work, so we are actually voting on their competence and ability to do the work and not just on the project. We have to be able to vote on a project and then vote on the assignees who have to be publicly known, so that they can earn reputation credits, which is potentially another DASH feature. Evan, Flare, Udjin, Crown, Fernando, Tungfa and others have already earned such reputation as credits in my books.

We can vote YEA on a brilliant idea, which doesn't get executed because it was assigned to people who were not competent, lacked reputation credits or got projects assigned to them through cronyism.

The DASH community is made up of people from all works of life and from every continent. They are a passionate bunch as I've seen from the many arguments for and against these proposed changes. If they had no interest they would have simply packed up their bags and left like some did when we switched branding. I have faith in the DASH community and that includes those who are for or against some of the new ideas.

Every major crypto foundation has failed and one of the key reasons hasn't been lack of skill, but lack of transparency and the desire to work in the shadows.

Let DASH be first crypto to take off without VC backing, bailouts, donations and with a transparent governance body.

Finally let us never forget who we are serving, the other 7 billion people who DON'T GIVE A SHIT about miners, masternode operators or the brilliant code that has been written. All they want is eye candy and something that works and solves their real world problems.

They will also recognize bad governance from a mile away and never come back and that starts with the public faces of DASH.

My two duffs.DC
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Good points here. I think we would need the KYC paperwork for anyone getting paid by DASH in the US. I would also add that any members with keys to a foundation multisig wallet(if that is even needed) do the same. I am not a lawyer, but as the amounts of DASH get bigger we really need some legal advice on how to keep legit with everything. The DAO model may allow some exemptions. I see more paperwork/legal requirements with a wallet owned by the foundation distributing funds vs just individual payees getting the block rewards directly. Also if the CIA or government agency requests information, we need to have a response.

Just to be clear, I am less concerned about loosing some DASH for a few months on a project since we should have a mechanism to stop funding before it becomes excessive. I am more concerned about outside entities taxing or licensing DASH out of existence because we didn't plan ahead.
 
crowning said:
That would exclude ALL people from countries where crypto-currencies are not allowed from doing any work.
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I support darkchilds proposal - I don't do business with anyone I can't track down and tickle mercilessly if they become vexacious. All my shared MN partners know who and where I am and have my number.

But your point is valid too. How about a sponsorship system?

Those who would face real trouble if their identities were public could ask a publicly known figure (another Team member for example) to vouch for them, and that publicly known person would assume all responsibility by proxy.

We can be flexible about this to a degree. I don't need to know exactly who Crowning is to be happy that you get paid, but some pseudonym I've never heard of, with no proven track record... not so much.

Another option is that those wishing to remain anonymous may do so but they don't get anything upfront, ever, they get paid only on delivery.
 
thelonecrouton said:
I support darkchilds proposal - I don't do business with anyone I can't track down and tickle mercilessly if they become vexacious. All my shared MN partners know who and where I am and have my number.

But your point is valid too. How about a sponsorship system?

Those who would face real trouble if their identities were public could ask a publicly known figure (another Team member for example) to vouch for them, and that publicly known person would assume all responsibility by proxy.

We can be flexible about this to a degree. I don't need to know exactly who Crowning is to be happy that you get paid, but some pseudonym I've never heard of, with no proven track record... not so much.

Another option is that those wishing to remain anonymous may do so but they don't get anything upfront, ever, they get paid only on delivery.
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To me, we shouldn't even pay upfront to publicly known people without them showing any work. If this plan is put in place and the payment to devs is a sure thing, it's more about if we can trust the contractors to finish work than if they can trust us to pay them.
 
crowning said:
That would exclude ALL people from countries where crypto-currencies are not allowed from doing any work.
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Like I said, Governance is a grey area, so in such cases I can propose that the DASH foundation board members verify such an individual or corporation and have their public identities on file and then let the community know that they can confirm that the person or corporation are who they claim to be. It thus becomes the responsibility of the DASH foundation to keep these identities safe from anti-crypto jurisdictions.

In the meantime almost 100% of the world's nations have no issues with cryptos other than people operating exchanges or trading. I'm not familiar with any country where people are banned from doing programming, design, or marketing because it is related to cryptos. These countries are more concerned with people operating crypto exchanges, facilitating crypto trade and competing with their government issued fiat.

However since this is a grey area and we don't want anyone getting sent off for water-boarding, we can keep such identities protected by the DASH foundation.

Remember that we're all looking for PROGRESS, not PERFECTION.

That's what makes us human.

Countries that accept Bitcoin (cryptos)
https://www.coinpursuit.com/pages/countries-that-accept-bitcoin/
 
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"we can keep such identities protected by the DASH foundation." darkchild

Another great innovation of Dash is the foundation. We can use it in ways never seen before.

I am confident Dash will continue to shows itself as the safest form for internet payments.
 
I have been reading page after page after page of debate on the topic of whether the funds for projects should be collected BEFORE a project is ready, or AFTER a project is ready. The main argument for why NOT to "siphon off funds" is that the money would be squandered on frivolous expenses to enrich a few greedy individuals, at the expense of the MN owners. The argument for why we SHOULD divert the funds from the MN owners regardless of whether a project is approved seems to be that MN owners would be shortsighted and fail to approve worthy projects if they were allowed to just keep the funds (short-term gains at the expense of long-term potential). I actually don't buy either of these arguments...

Let's break down the arguments:
1) Funds would be squandered at the expense of MN owners

I think most MN owners are pretty well informed intelligent people. Certainly more intelligent than the average person. To think that they will squander the funds on unworthy projects just because it is there in an irrational fear. Comparisons to governments is pretty ridiculous in my opinion. This would function much more like a corporation seeking funding approvals from its shareholders. If corporations start underperforming, guess what happens in the real world? The existing managers get kicked out pretty quickly. No waiting for 4 or 6 years for the next election cycle. Think something is ineffective? Propose a vote to revoke funding.

Simply because the funds are there is not a reason they would be squandered. I think I am an intelligent person and I know I for one don't plan to squander the funds. I don't think I've seen a single post from one community member that's expressed anything other than the need for prudence in the manner and purposes for which the funds are released for use.

2) These funds are squandered at the expense of me as a masternode owner... I'm being robbed!

As far as these projects being at the expense of MN owners, that simply isn't the case either. The "masternode market" seems to have a market clearing rate of around 15-25% / year. Raise the share of mining rewards that go to MN owners and more MNs will spring up until the reward frequency drops to around that same 20% or so. Lower it and the opposite happens. This is the same thing that happens in the "mining market" in which the higher the price (and therefore the higher the reward), the more mining power is directed at our network. The conclusion is that MN owners are likely to get about the same long term rewards whether we share 10% or 90% of the block rewards with them... it just results in more or fewer masternodes on the network. So this isn't really coming at the expense of MN owners at all.

3) MN owners would not approve projects if they could keep the money instead

I keep seeing posts from people that basically say, "I'm intelligent and I wouldn't do this, but I fear others would just vote to keep the funds". This fear is unfounded as well and I would find it very surprising if true. Will there be SOME bias towards taking rewards now instead of a future payoff? Yes, as there should be... future plans always involve uncertainty vs immediate consumption. It's why you have to pay someone back with interest when you borrow. If you didn't, they would have no reason to lend to you instead of consuming their money today. But the market will define that clearing "interest rate" based on the benefit of the expense, the uncertainty of the payoff to the coin value, the timeline, and the other "investment options" competing with it at the time. That's the whole beauty of a free-market system... it tends to discover the best use of capital over time vs. other approaches.

So who IS paying for the projects then, babygiraffe, if the MN owners aren't getting ripped off if we pre-fund projects?

Emissions dilute ALL existing coinholders, not just MN operators. Any projects that release these coins to vendors or contractors would enter the market and presumably a large share of them would be sold (though I'm sure some small % will be held by the payee). This places downward pricing pressure on the value of all coins, JUST LIKE the downward pressure from miners selling their rewards to pay electric bills or MN owners selling their rewards to pay for hosting services. This means all coin holders essentially "pay" for these expenses through a lower price for the coin.

But here's the interesting part... if the network never spends the coins, they are never released "into the wild", thus avoiding this downward price pressure. Only when approved and released do the coins ever "tax" existing coinholders via a lower price. Thus unspent coins don't cost us as coin holders (whether a MN owner or not) a penny... not until they are spent.

In fact, if we "siphoned off" 15% of the coin and never found a single worthy project to spend them on, the emission rate of the network would effectively be 15% lower than it is now. Thus, price would actually rise as supply decreases. In contrast, give them to the MN owners because we don't have projects to spend them on, and they will enter the market driving price lower.

Conclusion:

Since coins held in escrow for projects is not really "taxing the network" until they are released for approval, then the first argument that matters is whether the MN owners would approve projects that don't benefit the coin simply because they were available. I don't think that is the case based on the intelligence and thought this community exhibits.

If you accept that this community isn't a bunch of idiots too stupid to realize when funds are being wasted or simply don't care that their holdings are being diluted by a bunch of worthless activity, then the second question is which form of allocation is more efficient and helps stabilize the coin value? If you hold in escrow until their is a "positive return project", the number of MNs supporting the network should remain stable (since the rewards for running one will be stable), AND the coin value should remain stable (since coins are being held in escrow until something positive can come from them). However, if you release them to MN owners until there is a "positive return project", the number of MNs supporting the network will swing up and down based on the current share allocated to them (since the returns will constantly be changing), AND the coin value will be driven lower by a higher emission rate "into the wild" relative to the escrow scenario. Then, when a project is approved, the supply will suddenly drop at the same time the market will (hopefully) perceive increased value due to a great new project / functionality / marketing campaign / whatever that is coming. This should cause wilder price swings relative to escrow. Worse, with some MN owners exiting the MN market at this exact time (due to lowered rewards), a flood of coins being pulled from MNs will enter the market driving even wilder swings into the price. When projects finish and the money reverted back to MNs, then there will be a flood of new MNs wanting to spring up (thus swinging the price higher). This creates a very unstable pricing environment for our existing and potential customers / users.

So to me the answer is clear. Escrow until approved is far superior UNLESS you think the community of MN owners are predominantly idiots that squander money given the opportunity. Think about what is best for our customer and the answer is clear. We as shareholders should do the right thing for our customer or there is no successful Dash in our future.
 
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babygiraffe said:
Let's break down the arguments:
1) Funds would be squandered at the expense of MN owners
2) These funds are squandered at the expense of me as a masternode owner... I'm being robbed!
3) MN owners would not approve projects if they could keep the money insteadSo who IS paying for the projects then, babygiraffe, if the MN owners aren't getting ripped off if we pre-fund projects?Conclusion:
Since coins held in escrow for projects is not really "taxing the network" until they are released for approval, then the first argument that matters is whether the MN owners would approve projects that don't benefit the coin simply because they were available. I don't think that is the case based on the intelligence and thought this community exhibits.
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I appreciate the effort to lay this out. I am not of the same opinion about the escrow process having a significant benefit.

The biggest issue I see with escrowing payments is that there needs to be a mechanism to escrow/store them that doesn't fail with loss, theft, or creating a target for an outside party(government) to tax/confiscate, while at the same time not slowing the process of actually delivering the funds.

The other point you call out is that the 15% that would come from the network does not affect the coin supply and therefore has no effect on pricing. It does. Here is how.
For example if 5% come from miners and 10% from masternodes.
  • Miners will see a 5% loss in earnings and hash rate will drop until the profit to mine is above the electricity cost. This reduces the security of the coin. - Maybe this isn't that big of a deal. It is still a loss.
  • Masternodes base their investment in DASH on the future rewards that are predicted. If we suddenly reduce the reward structure by 10%, the masternodes will be reduced based on the lower future profit predictions. This will cause a massive dump on the market. There is also a loss of transaction speed from less masternodes, but this may not be a huge problem
Let's just walk through an escrow process:
Network gets the 15% tax put into an escrow.
Masternodes dump because of less future earning predictions - value of DASH drops ~10%.
2 Projects come out for a vote A and B.
Projects A and B get voted on and are approved.
Funding just started to be escrowed, so we need to wait until there is funding available to actually pay for the project.
Project A doesn't need any funds to get start so they get going.
Project B needs funding before it can start.
Project A is finished in 3 weeks. There are still not enough funds to pay for it. So we wait until we can implement the project.
6 weeks later the funds to pay for Project A are accrued.
How do we pay for the project? Do we have a MN vote to trigger the transfer(with 1 week to vote)? give control to foundation members with keys? Which project gets funding first? The one that needs it to start or the one that is finished? So there needs to be someone that is managing the account and more decisions on how to allocate funds.
Project B waits until funding 2 months later and gets paid. Then starts.
See the delay with the Escrow process. Funds need accrue before they can be sent out, and then decision/security on distribution become an issue.
The bigger issue.: Some government sees the project owner somehow is connected to an activity they don't like(terrorism, drugs, ISIS). They take them to court, find out about the DASH funding and then go after the entire DASH escrow fund and anyone with access to it.

Doesn't sound likely? Look at Charlie Shrem - He didn't directly buy/sell drugs which is what would be illegal, but by association with a 3rd party using bitcoin to buy drugs was found guilty and took his funds. Actually the two counts were 'failing to report suspicious banking activity" and "operating and unlicensed money transmitting business". How likely will something like this happen when the fund is big($1 million)? 100% The only way around this is to be completely hidden, or to not store funds at all.

Look at the alternative. Vote per Project Donation
Project comes up that is good.
Masternodes vote it in. It needs 5% of block rewards. Since the masternodes feel this is a good investment they will not dump coins, even though current rewards are less.
Funds per project are directly transfered from the block rewards on the network as soon a project is voted in. The masternode vote triggers the funding and the owner starts to get funds. Simple. Project starts immediately, and only small amounts are given up front. If the project owner fails to deliver at the first milestone, a vote to stop funding is started and the funds stop with a 51% negative vote. A small loss is incurred from funds transferred up to the first milestone. We should be only working with project owners that are trustworthy, so I don't see this as a big issue. (If there is a questionable transaction or funds needed upfront, that could be handled with a separate escrow account or private investor, insulating liability from the foundation.)
The alternative to the bigger issue: Government says the project owner is 'bad' guy, sues him and take his funds. They find that he was paid from block rewards, but doesn't have a specific person to go after. DASH is safe.
 
Short term price swings are not our biggest concern., and as a side note the trader in me really likes the sound of that volatility... Personally I also do not think a large number of masternode operators will sell of their node just because of an occasional income flux from 100%-85% of expected returns.
 
5kmi said:
Short term price swings are not our biggest concern., and as a side note the trader in me really likes the sound of that volatility... Personally I also do not think a large number of masternode operators will sell of their node just because of an occasional income flux from 100%-85% of expected returns.
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It isn't a temporary fluctuation between 45-60% block reward percentage masternodes get that is a problem. It is a mandatory 15% donation model that pushes the maximum block reward to 45%.(The extra block rewards that are not used will never be returned, however hopeful and pleasantly this is presented.) The owners of masternodes are currently basing their 1000 coin/node investment on the block rewards increasing up that 60% on 3/2016.

Alternatively, a per project donation fluctuation is not an issue, since each projects value will be compared to the reduced rewards during the voting process. This would actually be a good way to play the market if you had a feeling either way about a project vote. It actually might be interesting to see what happens.

Just to hammer this home again.
  • A mandatory donation/tax will not be reduced or returned. It will end up getting used on less valuable projects.
  • Any co-mingled funds in a managed escrow account will be at risk for loss, theft, misuse, taxing, confiscating, etc.
I understand the comments about blockchain, multisignature wallet controls, masternodes can vote on it, and all of it. But these two items above are based on human interaction. Over time(think 100+ years) humans will make decisions that will corrupt the system. If we start with both of these time bombs on day one, we will be in trouble. Why settle for guaranteed problems in the future? Let's build a great system that will last without these limitations.

I have posted a lot of messages here in the last few days because I feel strongly about all of this. You can see that I have more trophy points then messages, so I guess a lot of people are agreeing with me.
 
moli said:
I haven't read every post that's been posted here but I'm wondering do our opinions matter or this issue has already been decided?
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I would say that they do, because out of these discussions some good ideas can be procured. People have differing opinions, and out of these discussions we get the best (or worst sometimes) out of all involved. This idea has been in planning for a couple of months now, so I'm sure they have an idea of how they want to proceed. I don't think however that they'd be that arrogant to think that they have already created a perfect system, and would welcome all input.
 
moli said:
I haven't read every post that's been posted here but I'm wondering do our opinions matter or this issue has already been decided?
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The first post says that the acceptance of this proposal will be decided by the masternodes themselves.
 
TaoOfSatoshi said:
I would say that they do, because out of these discussions some good ideas can be procured. People have differing opinions, and out of these discussions we get the best (or worst sometimes) out of all involved. This idea has been in planning for a couple of months now, so I'm sure they have an idea of how they want to proceed. I don't think however that they'd be that arrogant to think that they have already created a perfect system, and would welcome all input.
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I really hope so.
 
moli said:
I haven't read every post that's been posted here but I'm wondering do our opinions matter or this issue has already been decided?
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eduffield said:
Besides that, masternodes will be able to vote on the introduction of this change, making the first distributed decision the actual creation of the system, similar to establishing a Constitution.
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eduffield said:
We are in no hurry to implement it and I would love to get feedback from the community to help refine this idea.
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