Welcome!

|EDITS:
|10/16/17: fixed some typos of omitted spaces from original copy/paste.
|10/16/17: added detail and link to new crypto-focused YouTube Channel where videos will be posted.
|10/29/17: added October video!
|11/25/17: This month's video is recorded and is currently being edited: it will be uploaded by Monday 11/27 in the AM Pacific time (UTC-8)
|11/27/17: The November video is now available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znWdxb8exL0 along with a supplemental PDF of our findings here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Bcx28zWxp-yoUR8ievdb7LuTMgI0Ostx/view?usp=sharing. A Bitchute link is also available here: https://www.bitchute.com/video/OHjxZVRQmMHO/ NOTE: There were several proposals posted after our video was completed that aren't included. We'll be posting a supplemental video and information on these proposals on 11/28/17. Thank you all and we look forward to your feedback!
|12/19/17: We will be filming this month's proposal this Friday 12/22, and will have it up on 12/26; three days prior to the voting deadline. Additionally, we will plan a live stream a day before for any additional discussion and last minute proposals!
|12/26/17: The December proposal is now available here: https://youtu.be/OJnOfqAcpqs along with the PDF viewing guide here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1nfoye-_KBVhF7L-kkH_LNaBcqykIluAD/view . We'll provide a live update on all other outstanding proposals that weren't included in the original video on 12/27 at PST available on the same channel! 



Hello everybody! First off, thank you all who provided feedback and encouraged us to go forward with this project! We hope we can help the Dash community foster an ongoing useful discussion of what makes great proposals that make Dash great! Here's a quick video introduction in which we discuss our process in arriving at the final proposal as described below: 


Without further ado, here is our proposal in its entirety:

Abstract: we (Craig Mason and Paul Mason) propose to research and provide commentary upon Dash budget proposals on a monthly
basis in a video format as well as a brief summary of our findings in writing. In doing so, we believe that this proposal will provide a win-win outcome in terms of efficiency for Dash MasterNode Owners (MNOs) as each MNO requires similar information in order to make informed decisions when voting on budget proposals. We will opine upon proposals based on their apparent long-term value proposition for Dash. We believe that we are qualified to do so based on our past performance, dedication to reason and evidence, and ability to communicate
these concepts in a useful manner. In doing so, we believe that we can save Dash MNOs tens of thousands of dollars in value for a fraction of the cost.  

Goal: we will research, briefly summarize,and provide our resulting personal opinions for all Dash budget proposals each month in order to provide Master Node Owners with succinct and useful information in order to simplify and assist decision making in the voting process.

Deliverables: Each month we will research each Dash budget proposal and create a video in which we summarize and discuss each proposal as well as provide our personal opinions as to how we would vote were we to have masternodes. We will also provide a brief written synopsis of our findings containing similar information. 

Who are we: we are two brothers, Craig & Paul Mason, with a YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/c/craigmason) in which we discuss a variety of topics including cryptocurrencies, philosophy, and the world. Craig is an accountant with a master’s degree who has consulted with a variety of small businesses over the last 10 years and has previously started and sold an accounting firm. Paul is a chef by trade and has a degree in philosophy. Both of us are students of philosophy, logic, and reason for many years prior to beginning our channel. (Examples of previous work linked below in the “Examples” section.)  

Background: Dash’s budget proposal function allows for decentralized decision making by MNOs, who have the incentive to make decisions for the long-term best interest of Dash’s value and continued adoption. However, with Dash’s continuing strong growth and its increasing budget, proposals continue to increase, not only in quantity, but in complexity and magnitude as well.

As a result,in order to make fully informed decisions, MNO’s would be forced to spend potentially hours each month researching and considering each proposal before making their votes.

In areas in which significant amounts (in terms of sheer magnitude) of new or changing information are relevant to an industry or group, i.e. perhaps the significance of new tax legislation to an accounting firm, other firms, which specialize in research and analysis, often provide value to such a group, in this example to accounting firms, by providing a reliable “distillation” of the new legislation down to its key points and implications.

Such an arrangement allows for far greater efficiency for the entire group than if each member were forced to do the research independently, as each individual member of the group is seeking essentially the same information. Thus the entire group of firms gains value from such an arrangement. 

Value: when we apply the above principle regarding outsourced research to Dash, we can see that there is a similar
potential for benefit: 

Assuming only 1,000 MNOs out of 4,500+ masternodes cast votes in total, and if each voting MNO were to spend an average 1.5 hours researching and deciding on all proposals could be reduced by only a third (from 1.5 hours to 1 hour), the resulting savings would equate to a total of 500 man hours. Assuming the average value of an MNOs time is worth $40/hour this saves a gross reduction of $20,000/month in MNOs time. We believe this is a conservative estimate of the value we provide and will be asking for well less than half of this amount.

Additionally,many MNOs simply may not have the time or desire to research each proposal each month. As a result, MNOs may cast votes which result in a sub-optimal allocation of Dash’s budget. If, as a result of the research proposed herein, MNOs can make even slightly more informed decisions, which result in only a .001% improvement in Dash’s market value (currently more than $2 billion as of the writing of this proposal), the value of such a result would be approximately $20,000. 

Cost: 18.333 Dash/month + 5 Dash for reimbursement for the proposal fee for a total of 20 Dash/month over 3 months. One MNO suggested that we charge 30 Dash/month, but we feel that the proposed amount is adequate compensation for the proposed scope of work. 

Examples of previous work:

Previous Dash Proposal Videos:
October 2017: https://youtu.be/lJwkuuZ_YHA
September 2017: https://youtu.be/AtxRKYg_Xps
August 2017: https://youtu.be/qkfMhgh8cVg
July 2017: https://youtu.be/3ZwIedj7GDE

Other Dash videos we’ve made:
Why Dash Keep Getting Better: https://youtu.be/My7l1cAXm_E
On The Dash Community: https://youtu.be/Icrc76zWqBw
Can Dash Compete With Bitcoin Cash?: https://youtu.be/956qdG42MgE
Max Keiser Should Join Up With Dash: https://youtu.be/f44hwWaBxGY
What’s The Deal With The Dash “Instamine”?: https://youtu.be/UncqwuxCmJQ
Max Keiser Dash Bus Tour Proposal Analysis: https://youtu.be/QZ07sXrvVcM  

Criteria Upon Which Proposals Will Be Evaluated:
All proposals will be evaluated based on their solely on our expectations of long run value to the Dash network. We believe that the more reasonable methodology to do so is by considering the estimated long-term return on investment (ROI) which takes into account the
potential benefit that may be realized in relation to the costs. More specifically, we believe the following factors contribute to increasing Dash’s
value in the long run:
    
·Potential for increased adoption: any cryptocurrency only survives and thrives with a significant network effect – will the proposal potentially cause those unfamiliar with Dash to begin using it? I.e. does it bring awareness of Dash to actual potential users (i.e. properly targeted) who may be interested such a product? Does it do so in a way consistent with principles of sales and marketing which are likely to lead to actual adoption and use (i.e. repeated exposure)? (Examples include: targeted advertising, outreach to targeted communities, etc.)

·Potential for increased use/stickiness: there is an adage in business that we believe to be true which is as follows: it takes far less resources to keep a current customer than to get a new one – Does the proposal help in making current (and especially new) users able to use or find out about Dash more easily? (Examples include: Dash focused media resources such as Dash Force News, region or language specific resources for developing local communities, translations of existing resources, etc.) 

·Potential for increased value to the Dash network itself: only products that are valuable succeed attain sustainable market share in the
long run – does the proposal help Dash provide more value to its users? (i.e. does it make Dash more user friendly, more secure, more robust, or in some other way a better product for users in general?) (Examples include: the Dash bug bounty program, software development, etc.)

·Likelihood that proposal owners will perform as expected/promised and expected results will materialize: as we have seen in the cryptocurrency markets themselves as well as our own personal experiences both in business and in life, not all projects go as initially expected. As others have suggested, we will consider this factor by taking into account each proposal owners qualifications, experience, history with the Dash community, past performance as well as the specificity of their plans to both perform as well has manage the funds to be received and amend or discount our opinions of the future value of each project accordingly.

Potential Risks (and Proposed Mitigating Factors) with this Proposal:      

·Potential for maligned incentives: were we to accept donations from known proposal owners may create incentive to review those proposal owners more favorably than reviews based on perceived merit alone. If you’ve seen The Big Short, this potential problem is clearly evidenced when it comes to light that the rating agencies are paid by big banks, and thus become incentivized to rate their products favorably.

Proposed solution: we will not be accepting donations from any known proposal owners. Previously we have received less than 0.5 Dash in unsolicited donations the majority of which was from one proposal owner. Prior to the close of voting on this proposal we will either return those funds to the donor or donate the funds to another cause unrelated to Dash.

While it’s likely that we will open up our channel to accepting donations in general in the future (potentially even during the course of this proposal), we will both disclose and return or donate forward to others (if we’re unable to return) any donations received prior to or during the course of the performance of this proposal from those who are known to us to be proposal owners. (Currently, the only donations we receive have been via the Dash Slack “tip bot” which were unsolicited.)

Additionally, we will disclose all other income received related to our channel(s) (i.e. income from media related activities, not including other personal income or personal investments in cryptocurrencies or otherwise) from any other sources during the course of the performance of this proposal on a monthly basis.

Furthermore, while we believe we are taking significant steps in order to remove as much personal bias and maligned incentives as is reasonably possible, we believe that a variety of perspectives and opinions is necessary in order to gain a more accurate view of any situation. We hope that others will follow suit in what we’re doing and provide their own perspectives in order to best serve the Dash community and the long-term value of Dash in general.

As we have stated many times on our channel, we believe values are at the root of making good decisions. We believe that transparency is a key value to for a venture such as this, and as such, we will strive to make our venture as transparent as possible to everyone involved.

·Centralization of media sources andpotential censorship: if you have seen our previous content related to other topics, you’ll have
noticed that we don’t shy from discussion controversial topics. With increasing censorship from mainstream tech platforms of non-advertiser friendly content creators, this leaves open the door that our platform could be taken away at any moment.

Proposed solution: as other have suggested, we will be posting videos relating to this proposal on a new cryptocurrency only focused channel on YouTube (now created here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAEQPqrAxRwAsElJwHtLsQg) as well as on at least one other less censorship prone platform (TBD, likely DTube or BitChute). This will allow the videos related to this proposal to both benefit from exposure to the subscriber base or our current channel (https://www.youtube.com/c/craigmason) where we will promote the video as well as allowing others to share the content via the cryptocurrency specific channel linked above without associating it with unrelated and potentially controversial topics. Additionally, by posting the content on less censorship prone platforms as well, the content will be less resistant to censorship in general.

·Other unknown factors: as with any new venture, we are sure that there are other risk factors which we have not taken into account here.

Proposed solution: openness to criticism is one of our core values. We believe in consistently improving and correcting our mistakes. As such, as we have done thus far, we will encourage any and all feedback as to how we can improve our work.

OTHER FACTORS FORCONSIDERATION AND DISCLOSURES      
Please note that the content to be created from this proposal will be based on information that has not been verified by us. (i.e. proposal owners and others put forth information and make promises which we cannot verify.) The content we create will be entirely reliant on unverified information provided by others or will be our own personal opinions. None of the information provided is intended to be financial advice or an assurance of the accuracy of information put forth by the potential proposal owners or any other sources. The value we will provide will come from the time spent in distillation, summation, and opining upon that information rather than any kind of assurance or advice as to how to use it. All information put forth will either be our personal opinions or unverified
information only. 

Conclusion: we look forward to your feedback and for the opportunity to work with the Dash community and hope that we can create a mutually beneficial relationship that makes the lives of MNO’s easier and helps contribute to Dash’s bright future. We can be reached via email at craigmasonvideos@gmail.com, or via twitter @oldcraig (Craig) and @lilpolty(Paul). Thank youall for your consideration. 

-Craig Mason& Paul Mason