UPDATED Pre-Proposal: Dash + Alt Thirty Six Sponsorship Marketing 2019

[Quansen]

It appears that alt36 uses dash only as a payments rail to push around fiat values. Dash seems to be held for the fewest time possible. As such many transactions on the alt36 platform won’t directly lead to an upwards pressure in dash price.

I don’t necessarily see this as a negative as the platform simply wouldn’t be viable without a stable store of value. This strategy from dash’s perspective seems to be the most promising to slowly penetrate stable currency markets.

Can you confirm that businesses and end consumers have the option to chose dash exposure while using the platform when the demand for dash as a store of value arises at a later point?

 

[ThirtySix]

It appears that alt36 uses dash only as a payments rail to push around fiat values. Dash seems to be held for the fewest time possible. As such many transactions on the alt36 platform won’t directly lead to an upwards pressure in dash price.

I don’t necessarily see this as a negative as the platform simply wouldn’t be viable without a stable store of value. This strategy from dash’s perspective seems to be the most promising to slowly penetrate stable currency markets.

Can you confirm that businesses and end consumers have the option to chose dash exposure while using the platform when the demand for dash as a store of value arises at a later point?

Yes your understanding is correct. All accounts have the option to auto convert or stay in Dash. This is a setting the account holder controls on our portal.

 

[toknormal]

I would be unlikely to vote for this I think.

I've never seen a single Dash blockchain transaction generated by the Alt36 platform in a live commercial environment - ever.

So for me it's a bit premature to be splashing figures of near on $100k for airline tickets and $half a million for conference sponsorships. Maybe try to find even 1 person who wants to buy some hash with Dash first Then show us a video of them doing it, the software processing it, the merchant liking it, and the blockchain munching it.

 

[Stealth923]

Hows about you focus your time and money into existing integrations, get them completed so you have actual use cases as evidence of a working product. Get the partners you have in the queue expedited and integrated then come back and ask for more money.

Right now you want to splash big money around at conferences when you have zero real world proof of your product working for every day merchants/customers.

 

[ThirtySix]

We are focusing a large amount of our time on existing integrations and getting clients participating in the beta period. The conference sponsorships listed in the proposal are planned for all of 2019, broken up over 3 monthly payments. We are open to splitting this up in to more than 1 proposal, but wanted to make sure we captured on the opportunity with the Andfriends sponsorship/partnership. There is a lot of preparation that goes into making that a success - starting now, some of which includes integration work. Prior to submitting this pre-proposal, It was unknown if the network preferred everything being submitted in 1 proposal or multiple.

There is a lot of momentum going right now with the marketing efforts, in order to capture on the most value and funds already spent, we want to continue to move on revenue generating and growth related partnerships. The marketing efforts continue to create validity with the Dash + Alt Thirty Six brands for existing partners and future clients. There are several aspects that go into making a business successful and multiple areas need to be focused on at the same time to increase substantial adoption.

Since we have just recently opened up the Beta, transactions with registered merchants can now occur. Everything seems to be forming into a snowball effect with the business side from partnerships, integrations, merchant demand for the product and investment avenues. We strongly feel it would be a mistake to not present these opportunities + partnerships to the network to request support. If the network would be more likely to approve the request if it were broken up into more than 1 proposal, and then re-evaluate the remaining requests for 2019 in a January or February voting cycle, we could move forward that way. The first piece of the proposal would include the request for AndFriends and remaining proposal or proposals would include the remaining requests.

Our purpose of promoting through marketing requests is achieving companies and customers as a user base fully engaged to use the platform and process with Dash. We are committed to advocate a Dash exclusive platform which includes bringing the right opportunities together to make this happen.

 

[Arthyron]

@ThirtySix -- Hello, and thank you for your pre-proposal. Most of the more significant questions have already been asked by others or in the compilation to which you responded. Some additional questions I had:

1. I was looking over the deck for the Weed Experience and noticed a number of A and B list celebrities mentioned. Could you elaborate on the capacity in which they will be involved? Will they be present for the event, posting on social media about it, licensing their music for it, etc?

2. It's been asked a few different ways, but when can we expect to start seeing actual activity on the blockchain so we can begin to assess if and how much funding we want to allocate to your marketing efforts? I understand there were some obstacles and hurdles and that integrations take time, but that is I think the biggest determining factor in whether or not we'll continue to fund these efforts. You've built this great system, and secured some ideal partnerships, but we want to actually see it in action. Maybe you could reach out to some of your partners and get them to record themselves or see if there are any customers willing to do a video review of using your system or combined systems?

Lastly, more a statement than a question, but you expressed willingness to potentially break up your budget requests in to separate proposals above. Like I said, more than anything, I think most MNOs are chomping at the bit to see the activity and confirmation from (2) that this was a worthwhile venture for the DAO. I believe your proposal would fare better if broken up this way, particularly if demonstrable activity increases over the duration of the first proposal and we see solid evidence in the form of actual use by your completed integration partners.

 

[nodalsoup]

Thanks for all the answers, time and effort you have put in so far - but simply put, the ignoring of questions about transactional data is really starting to bother me. Voting no until this is addressed in some way.

 

[ThirtySix]

Thanks for all the answers, time and effort you have put in so far - but simply put, the ignoring of questions about transactional data is really starting to bother me. Voting no until this is addressed in some way.

We’ve mentioned the beta process has just started. Transactions have been run but nothing substantial in a live environment. Those live scenario transactions have just started. The traction worth mentioning are register merchants, we are now focusing on live transactions and additional registered accounts in AZ and CA. We should be loading a demo that includes a live transaction from the CannTrade portal tomorrow.

 

[Fiicus]

Looking through the dropbox thing alt36 posted, it seems that a lot of stuff is supposed to be happening this month and next, so Q4, 2018. Webjoint, Blaze, ATMs/Kiosk. If I've read things correctly, there may be 1 conference coming live in January, but basically none of these conferences are happening before these things should be going live.

So let's see if they can hit a deadline, considering they've oversold, under delivered, and constantly missed self imposed deadlines, I don't see any reason to fund this unless they actually deliver for once.

 

[ThirtySix]

Looking through the dropbox thing alt36 posted, it seems that a lot of stuff is supposed to be happening this month and next, so Q4, 2018. Webjoint, Blaze, ATMs/Kiosk. If I've read things correctly, there may be 1 conference coming live in January, but basically none of these conferences are happening before these things should be going live.

So let's see if they can hit a deadline, considering they've oversold, under delivered, and constantly missed self imposed deadlines, I don't see any reason to fund this unless they actually deliver for once.

The Alt Thirty Six team has delivered on major deliverables and milestones. Any delays have been explained to the network and in more detail to Dash Core. The primary delay was going live due to legal and compliance reasons. Thankfully we accepted and listened to the legal advice to enhance our compliance policy, register as an MSB and MTL as each state requires. If we had not gone through this additional due-diligence review or implemented additional compliance measures prior to processing transactions, we could very quickly have ended up with cease-and-desist letters from the federal government. Payza is a prime example. Payza was hit by the federal government for operating as an unlicensed money services business.

 

[ThirtySix]

@ThirtySix -- Hello, and thank you for your pre-proposal. Most of the more significant questions have already been asked by others or in the compilation to which you responded. Some additional questions I had:

1. I was looking over the deck for the Weed Experience and noticed a number of A and B list celebrities mentioned. Could you elaborate on the capacity in which they will be involved? Will they be present for the event, posting on social media about it, licensing their music for it, etc? The celebrities mentioned will be participating through performances, appearances on site and some of which have cannabis brands/products will be promoting discounts at local participating dispensaries for their products. If the location is able to obtain proper licensing in time, the products will be sold on site. In addition to performances some of these celebrities with cannabis related businesses will also be sponsoring the event. The event experience is in the process of signing a 3-5 year lease. We have also introduced them to one of our major partners that may be able to assist with the location lease and promotion of the Weed Experience.

2. It's been asked a few different ways, but when can we expect to start seeing actual activity on the blockchain so we can begin to assess if and how much funding we want to allocate to your marketing efforts? I understand there were some obstacles and hurdles and that integrations take time, but that is I think the biggest determining factor in whether or not we'll continue to fund these efforts. You've built this great system, and secured some ideal partnerships, but we want to actually see it in action. Maybe you could reach out to some of your partners and get them to record themselves or see if there are any customers willing to do a video review of using your system or combined systems? We understand seeing this in action is focus for the network, this is also a focus for Alt Thirty Six. We will start to see an increase in transactions on the platform by merchants in AZ and CA over the next month. MJBizCon in Vegas next week will be huge for getting merchants on the system and getting them to begin processing via the CannTrade integration. Testimonials is a great selling point, and this is something we are in talks with right now and hope to put this together to share on our website and with the network.

Lastly, more a statement than a question, but you expressed willingness to potentially break up your budget requests in to separate proposals above. Like I said, more than anything, I think most MNOs are chomping at the bit to see the activity and confirmation from (2) that this was a worthwhile venture for the DAO. I believe your proposal would fare better if broken up this way, particularly if demonstrable activity increases over the duration of the first proposal and we see solid evidence in the form of actual use by your completed integration partners.

We are absolutely willing to break up the proposal as the network gets to view the progress to determine funding on additional sponsorships for 2019.

 

[Fiicus]

The Alt Thirty Six team has delivered on major deliverables and milestones. Any delays have been explained to the network and in more detail to Dash Core. The primary delay was going live due to legal and compliance reasons. Thankfully we accepted and listened to the legal advice to enhance our compliance policy, register as an MSB and MTL as each state requires. If we had not gone through this additional due-diligence review or implemented additional compliance measures prior to processing transactions, we could very quickly have ended up with cease-and-desist letters from the federal government. Payza is a prime example. Payza was hit by the federal government for operating as an unlicensed money services business.

I agree that you have to follow the law and do things appropriately. Not understanding the scope of what you needed to do legally is a mistake, it's something that should have been researched, and it reflects poorly on Alt36. Everyone makes mistakes, but funding for this project started in what, June 2017, and things were supposed to be live 6 months following that. It's been over 16 months and while Dash Core and Alt36 may see a lot of work being done, all that we're seeing is words. I'd love to see you guys actually deliver on your Q4 2018 deliverables, it would in large part assuage my apprehension and renew my faith in the company. Missing that self imposed deadline would push things in the other direction, and I imagine that many people would agree with that outlook.

 

[ThirtySix]

I agree that you have to follow the law and do things appropriately. Not understanding the scope of what you needed to do legally is a mistake, it's something that should have been researched, and it reflects poorly on Alt36. Everyone makes mistakes, but funding for this project started in what, June 2017, and things were supposed to be live 6 months following that. It's been over 16 months and while Dash Core and Alt36 may see a lot of work being done, all that we're seeing is words. I'd love to see you guys actually deliver on your Q4 2018 deliverables, it would in large part assuage my apprehension and renew my faith in the company. Missing that self imposed deadline would push things in the other direction, and I imagine that many people would agree with that outlook.

At the time of building the platform we did not have access to the legal advisors that assisted in our most recent compliance review. We did research and review the grey areas of our business model prior to building, but it was not clearly defined. During the build of the platform, we were actively seeking legal advise and were told/advised by legal counsel that Dash has used that we did not need to obtain any licensing. Once we were able to put funds together to retain legal advice from a top blockchain and MTL firm, (earlier this year); we realized if we want to protect the Dash grants and ensure long term success, we would need to move forward as an MSB with MTLs. As a company we believe in doing things the right way and sometimes that can cause delays. This doesn't necessarily classify as a mistake, but shows that we are serious about getting the correct information and protecting the project to ensure success.

 

[mastermined]

When will the Dash 36 month exclusivity agreement start? After the beta is completed i'm guessing?

 

[nodalsoup]

We’ve mentioned the beta process has just started. Transactions have been run but nothing substantial in a live environment. Those live scenario transactions have just started. The traction worth mentioning are register merchants, we are now focusing on live transactions and additional registered accounts in AZ and CA. We should be loading a demo that includes a live transaction from the CannTrade portal tomorrow.

So transaction count is effectively zero at the moment?

 

[akhavr]

1. The major part of the funding would go to the events through 2019, but you request funding in Dec 2018, Jan, and Feb 2019. Is there a reason why you need the funds beforehand?
2. 5% buffer for dash price fluctuation is too low, even through last 3 months the volatility was higher. Why choosing 5% buffer?
3. Do you plan to convert to fiat immediately or to hold onto Dash?

Sorry, but I've not seen answers to (1) and (3) in the https://www.dropbox.com/s/7jzp3ouarzu8exg/Dash Network Update Nov 2018.pdf?dl=0

So far, I'm going to vote "no" on a single 3month funding proposal, but will likely to vote "yes", if the proposal would be split up to deliver funding through 2018q4 and 2019.

 

[toknormal]

The way I see this playing out now is:

Year 1:

• Dash funds the major software development work, legal due diligence costs and corporate operating costs for the platform which is ultimately not Dash exclusive.
• Much of that budget would qualify as capital costs of the type described in section 3 here which means that both the corporate equity in Alt36 and the intellectual property value of the software platform remains with private interests (not "necessarily" an issue in itself)
• There is no "adoption" ROI this year for the network as there are no live commercial implementations, even at a trial level (e.g. 1 merchant who's using it live)

Year 2:

• Dash funds a major promotional push which involves both expenses and significant conference sponsorships in the 6-figure level
• This spans into 2019 and there is still no "adoption" ROI for the network because still no live merchants

Year 3:

• Dash celebrated as launch customer
• A tiny trickle of blockchain activity starts to appear from the odd merchant using the Alt36 platform

Year 4:

• Exclusivity agreement runs out
• All major cryptocurrencies supported

I think if this was a regular "VC" project with "VC Capital" invested in it, this funding MAY be justified. But the Dash funding is not invested - it's "gifted". No equity is taken in return, so it's essential that a substantial and verifiable market penetration in terms of blockchain use is demonstrated to justify the award IMO. Otherwise it's best to burn the coins because they just get dumped on the exchange markets and dilute everybody.

Also we are now starting to address the longer term requirements of the project and longer term this isn't a Dash-specific platform, it's a generalised platform who's scope (the more time moves on) is increasingly likely to span a wider range of blockchains.

So the ROI under these circumstances has to be questionable IMO.

Like I say - that's just my perception of the project at the moment. Am happy to have my perceptions "corrected".

 

[ThirtySix]

Sorry, but I've not seen answers to (1) and (3) in the https://www.dropbox.com/s/7jzp3ouarzu8exg/Dash Network Update Nov 2018.pdf?dl=0

So far, I'm going to vote "no" on a single 3month funding proposal, but will likely to vote "yes", if the proposal would be split up to deliver funding through 2018q4 and 2019.

Sorry, but I've not seen answers to (1) and (3) in the https://www.dropbox.com/s/7jzp3ouarzu8exg/Dash Network Update Nov 2018.pdf?dl=0

So far, I'm going to vote "no" on a single 3month funding proposal, but will likely to vote "yes", if the proposal would be split up to deliver funding through 2018q4 and 2019.

I believe your questions are answered on page 14. We will update the proposal today to show the proposal split up to deliver funding for immediate sponsorship marketing, specifically Andfriends project. We will then submit an additional proposal for the remainder and network can re-evaluate the progress.

 

[nodalsoup]

@ThirtySix Would you consider giving the masternode network some equity in the business?

Can you clarify the date of when the 36 month exclusivity period ends? Would you consider an extension to this considering there have been a negligible quantity of transactions on the platform to date?

 

[ThirtySix]

@ThirtySix Would you consider giving the masternode network some equity in the business?

Can you clarify the date of when the 36 month exclusivity period ends? Would you consider an extension to this considering there have been a negligible quantity of transactions on the platform to date?

As far as we've been told, the network is not setup to retain equity in the business. We have asked this same question to see if this would be an option as we submit future proposals. An entity would need to be setup and structured to invest in the Dash projects. The current treasury system or something similar could probably be used for voting and the investment entity would retain ownership in the projects similar to a VC or private equity firm. There are a few other options we've brainstormed on our end but for now we are told the structure and legal entity is not setup to support this type of engagement.

The 36 month exclusivity period is not anywhere near the end at this point. We are circling back with Dash core to get an exact date. Our goal has always been to make the relationship between Alt Thirty Six and Dash mutually beneficial. The build of the platform is the first step, outside of operations there are several other growth related activities that require funding to support the project. This last year we focused on; building the awareness and excitement around the application enabling Dash transactions, secure a testing environment for integrators + complete our first partner integrations to enable compliant transactions. The results we are setting out to achieve in 2019 are continued goals from last year but now also more importantly promoting the live integrations, register accounts and generate transactions in our licensed states.

To extend an exclusivity we would also want to have an understanding that additional proposals would be submitted for growth related activities, that would increase the success of the platform adoption. We would not asking for favoritism or automatic approvals, but an understanding that our team may submit future proposals as it relates to growth and proven success measures.