Proposal “bsdev-wocoins-201611“ (Closed)Back
Title: | Business Development - Wall of Coins Integration |
Owner: | babygiraffe |
Monthly amount: | 1993 DASH (72223 USD) |
Completed payments: | no payments occurred yet (3 month remaining) |
Payment start/end: | 2016-11-04 / 2017-02-18 (added on 2016-10-26) |
Final voting deadline: | in passed |
Votes: | 1013 Yes / 59 No / 0 Abstain |
Proposal description
This is a cross-post from the Dash Forum
Wall of Coins is a peer-to-peer Bitcoin exchange that provides a private, fast, and easy method to buy Bitcoin using a variety of payment methods, including fiat deposited at a bank branch or money transmitter locations such as Western Union and Moneygram. Wall of Coins acts as escrow to ensure each transaction processes quickly. This proposal seeks funding for Wall of Coins to integrate Dash into their services.
Wall of Coins provides its services in twelve countries (including the United States, UK, Australia, Mexico, Canada, Germany, Brazil, Argentina, Latvia, Romania, Poland, and the Philippines). The service enables sellers to deposit Bitcoin into their rapid cold storage wallets, and posts their holdings for sale on the website. Buyers are able to enter their address or share their GPS coordinates and obtain a list of offers and locations nearby to purchase. Additional details on these processes and the benefits for websites integrating Wall of Coins can be found in “Additional Background” section below.
Uniquely, Wall of Coins also offers users a high level of customer support, including live support on its website and a toll-free number where representatives will even help users get set up with a wallet for the first time.
Wall of Coins key metrics illustrate substantial reach and growth:
However, the first two proposals were rejected by the network. Although it is impossible to know the rationale behind every masternode owner's vote, through a combination of reading forum posts and talking with investors, it seems there were several primary reasons leading to the rejection:
countries, and adding Dash to Wall of Coins' API which will enable Genitrust's business partners to more easily adopt Dash.
Proposed Solution
Given the circumstances, the Dash core team has been engaged with Wall of Coins over the last two months to reach a mutually-agreeable set of terms that will finally enable Dash to integrate into their platform. We are pleased to announce that we've arrived at a more favorable set of terms that we hope the network will find agreeable and which substantially reduces the risks posed from project delivery.
The scope of work includes integrating Dash into all of Wall of Coins’ functions with the exception of the “Gift Bitcoin” service which allows users to gift Bitcoin paper wallets through the mail. In addition, Wall of Coins will enable InstantSend for all incoming and outgoing
transactions.
The general terms consists of the following:
1) The project cost will be reduced to $57,918 spread evenly across three payments of $19,306 each in the November, December, and January budget cycles. The original proposal was 42% higher than the current figure, so this represents a substantial reduction.
2) The Dash core team is submitting this proposal to the network on Genitrust's behalf, and all funds will be paid to the core team rather than Genitrust directly. The core team will act as stewards of the funds, which will be released to Genitrust based on a set of criteria
(which are outlined below).
3) The Dash core team will "make room" in the budget to better accommodate Wall of Coins integration expenses by limiting its requests, which traditionally we restrict to 80% of the total budget. By relying on existing funds and managing the expenses on other projects, we seek to include Wall of Coins within the 80% of the total budget limit.
4) Genitrust will be responsible for project communication to the community and for any cost overruns associated with the integration, while the Dash core team will provide limited technical assistance to ensure existing software tools and technical expertise is available to help lower the execution risk for Genitrust.
5) Detailed criteria for release of funds, milestones, and project completion measures will be negotiated in good faith between Genitrust and the core team which will result in the production of a granular project plan with milestones and deliverables. These will be defined in a way that will be externally verifiable to the extent possible, and will roughly align with the timeline previously outlined by Genitrust (adjusted for the new start date) contained in their previous proposal at https://www.dropbox.com/s/chddplecnxh9xed/dash-adoption-tools.pdf?dl=0. Payment #1 will be released immediately at the start of the project and defining the detailed project plan will be the first activity undertaken by the team. Payments #2 and #3 will be released based on the completion percentage of the project plan.
6) Genitrust will accept all currency risk associated with the project between the time the proposal is submitted and the funds are paid.
7) Genitrust will be responsible for all aspects of implementation, including other components not funded by these funds. These additional expenses include regulatory cost, legal cost (e.g., having terms of service rewritten), marketing costs, etc. All work will be completed by February 5th, 2017.
The main risk associated with this arrangement is that all payments are distributed in advance of the work being completed. However, by ensuring progress is made between each payment, we can provide assurances that by the time the third payment is distributed, Genitrust will have completed roughly 2/3rds of the work and would have large disincentives to discontinue work under those circumstances (not to mention the reputation impact they would suffer). This arrangement provides protection for Genitrust as well against defunding if the work is being executed according to their plan. Genitrust requested this protection because they are carrying the cost of any regulatory, legal, and cost
overrun expenses.
Requested funding is as follows starting with the November 4th budget cycle, and extending through the January cycle:
Note: Genitrust assumes all currency fluctuation risks associated with this proposal.
Additional Background
What does Wall of Coins do for the buyer?
- The buyer types in how much Fiat they are looking to spend.
- The 3 best rates and nearest locations are presented to the buyer.
- The buyer selects the location, verifies their mobile phone, and then receives the payment instructions.
- The buyer receives the coins within 15 minutes after purchase.
What does Wall of Coins do for the seller?
- The seller tells us how to contact them.
- Seller then selects their Bank account OR Cash Account, this can be any means that they accept cash.
- Seller inputs their payment details.
- Seller then selects the price rate they want for each coin.
- Seller sends coins to their advertisement. Done!
- If "Dynamic Pricing" is selected, the seller selects the Primary Market that they want their price to follow. Should this market get hacked, such as what happened with Mt Gox, Bitstamp, Cryptsy, Bitfinex, etc., Wall of Coins makes the seller select a Secondary Market (Backup market). The price is grabbed from this market if the first market fails.
- The seller can set a premium or discount percentage if their price will follow the price of another market.
What does Wall of Coins do for websites? (Such as Backpage.com)
- Any websites that has been shut out, or "blockaded", from the world of credit cards can accept cryptocurrency; however, cryptocurrency is not easy for the website visitors / end users.
- Backpage.com uses the Wall of Coins web widget for easy integration to easily receive bitcoin payments (currently) WITHOUT the end user realizing that they are using bitcoin. Image the benefits to all parties of using DASH instead (InstantSend).
- What is the widget? It is some HTML to copy/paste onto your website to allow the website to use features on the Wall of Coins site. This is similar to a website using "Log in with Facebook" or Google Analytics HTML code to gain the benefits from Facebook / Google.
- Backpage now receives payments easily AND they receive a commission for their payments. Wall of Coins is effectively a payment processor that pays their business to accept remote cash payments as Dash, while boosting the Dash marketshare.
- Backpage users want their advertisements funded as soon as possible. With Wall of Coins and DASH Instant Send, this becomes a much better solution than using Bitcoin as the payment protocol.
Wall of Coins is a peer-to-peer Bitcoin exchange that provides a private, fast, and easy method to buy Bitcoin using a variety of payment methods, including fiat deposited at a bank branch or money transmitter locations such as Western Union and Moneygram. Wall of Coins acts as escrow to ensure each transaction processes quickly. This proposal seeks funding for Wall of Coins to integrate Dash into their services.
Wall of Coins provides its services in twelve countries (including the United States, UK, Australia, Mexico, Canada, Germany, Brazil, Argentina, Latvia, Romania, Poland, and the Philippines). The service enables sellers to deposit Bitcoin into their rapid cold storage wallets, and posts their holdings for sale on the website. Buyers are able to enter their address or share their GPS coordinates and obtain a list of offers and locations nearby to purchase. Additional details on these processes and the benefits for websites integrating Wall of Coins can be found in “Additional Background” section below.
Uniquely, Wall of Coins also offers users a high level of customer support, including live support on its website and a toll-free number where representatives will even help users get set up with a wallet for the first time.
Wall of Coins key metrics illustrate substantial reach and growth:
- It is growing very quickly, adding 50-100 new users a day. In fact, active users have grown from 15,000 to 18,000 since September 1st.
- Services are available in 12 countries, up from 7 this spring
- There are 15 “publishers” (affiliates) integrated with their API and/or Web Widget
- The USA supports over 120,000 purchase locations
- Currently, over 1,000 sellers are on the platform
However, the first two proposals were rejected by the network. Although it is impossible to know the rationale behind every masternode owner's vote, through a combination of reading forum posts and talking with investors, it seems there were several primary reasons leading to the rejection:
- The proposal cost was quite high at approximately $82,000, and contained uncertainty over whether additional expenses would be requested to complete the project (e.g., cost overruns)
- The budget was paid directly to Genitrust and therefore offered little protection against project execution risks
- Because of the high level of funding requested, it would necessitate "knocking out" other valuable proposals, including essential core team functions' proposals
countries, and adding Dash to Wall of Coins' API which will enable Genitrust's business partners to more easily adopt Dash.
Proposed Solution
Given the circumstances, the Dash core team has been engaged with Wall of Coins over the last two months to reach a mutually-agreeable set of terms that will finally enable Dash to integrate into their platform. We are pleased to announce that we've arrived at a more favorable set of terms that we hope the network will find agreeable and which substantially reduces the risks posed from project delivery.
The scope of work includes integrating Dash into all of Wall of Coins’ functions with the exception of the “Gift Bitcoin” service which allows users to gift Bitcoin paper wallets through the mail. In addition, Wall of Coins will enable InstantSend for all incoming and outgoing
transactions.
The general terms consists of the following:
1) The project cost will be reduced to $57,918 spread evenly across three payments of $19,306 each in the November, December, and January budget cycles. The original proposal was 42% higher than the current figure, so this represents a substantial reduction.
2) The Dash core team is submitting this proposal to the network on Genitrust's behalf, and all funds will be paid to the core team rather than Genitrust directly. The core team will act as stewards of the funds, which will be released to Genitrust based on a set of criteria
(which are outlined below).
3) The Dash core team will "make room" in the budget to better accommodate Wall of Coins integration expenses by limiting its requests, which traditionally we restrict to 80% of the total budget. By relying on existing funds and managing the expenses on other projects, we seek to include Wall of Coins within the 80% of the total budget limit.
4) Genitrust will be responsible for project communication to the community and for any cost overruns associated with the integration, while the Dash core team will provide limited technical assistance to ensure existing software tools and technical expertise is available to help lower the execution risk for Genitrust.
5) Detailed criteria for release of funds, milestones, and project completion measures will be negotiated in good faith between Genitrust and the core team which will result in the production of a granular project plan with milestones and deliverables. These will be defined in a way that will be externally verifiable to the extent possible, and will roughly align with the timeline previously outlined by Genitrust (adjusted for the new start date) contained in their previous proposal at https://www.dropbox.com/s/chddplecnxh9xed/dash-adoption-tools.pdf?dl=0. Payment #1 will be released immediately at the start of the project and defining the detailed project plan will be the first activity undertaken by the team. Payments #2 and #3 will be released based on the completion percentage of the project plan.
6) Genitrust will accept all currency risk associated with the project between the time the proposal is submitted and the funds are paid.
7) Genitrust will be responsible for all aspects of implementation, including other components not funded by these funds. These additional expenses include regulatory cost, legal cost (e.g., having terms of service rewritten), marketing costs, etc. All work will be completed by February 5th, 2017.
The main risk associated with this arrangement is that all payments are distributed in advance of the work being completed. However, by ensuring progress is made between each payment, we can provide assurances that by the time the third payment is distributed, Genitrust will have completed roughly 2/3rds of the work and would have large disincentives to discontinue work under those circumstances (not to mention the reputation impact they would suffer). This arrangement provides protection for Genitrust as well against defunding if the work is being executed according to their plan. Genitrust requested this protection because they are carrying the cost of any regulatory, legal, and cost
overrun expenses.
Requested funding is as follows starting with the November 4th budget cycle, and extending through the January cycle:
- Three payments of 1,991.54 Dash ($19,306 USD @ $9.694 per the October 25th average rate at https://bitinfocharts.com/comparison/price-dash.html)
- 5.00 Dash reimbursement for the proposal cost
Note: Genitrust assumes all currency fluctuation risks associated with this proposal.
Additional Background
What does Wall of Coins do for the buyer?
- The buyer types in how much Fiat they are looking to spend.
- The 3 best rates and nearest locations are presented to the buyer.
- The buyer selects the location, verifies their mobile phone, and then receives the payment instructions.
- The buyer receives the coins within 15 minutes after purchase.
What does Wall of Coins do for the seller?
- The seller tells us how to contact them.
- Seller then selects their Bank account OR Cash Account, this can be any means that they accept cash.
- Seller inputs their payment details.
- Seller then selects the price rate they want for each coin.
- Seller sends coins to their advertisement. Done!
- If "Dynamic Pricing" is selected, the seller selects the Primary Market that they want their price to follow. Should this market get hacked, such as what happened with Mt Gox, Bitstamp, Cryptsy, Bitfinex, etc., Wall of Coins makes the seller select a Secondary Market (Backup market). The price is grabbed from this market if the first market fails.
- The seller can set a premium or discount percentage if their price will follow the price of another market.
What does Wall of Coins do for websites? (Such as Backpage.com)
- Any websites that has been shut out, or "blockaded", from the world of credit cards can accept cryptocurrency; however, cryptocurrency is not easy for the website visitors / end users.
- Backpage.com uses the Wall of Coins web widget for easy integration to easily receive bitcoin payments (currently) WITHOUT the end user realizing that they are using bitcoin. Image the benefits to all parties of using DASH instead (InstantSend).
- What is the widget? It is some HTML to copy/paste onto your website to allow the website to use features on the Wall of Coins site. This is similar to a website using "Log in with Facebook" or Google Analytics HTML code to gain the benefits from Facebook / Google.
- Backpage now receives payments easily AND they receive a commission for their payments. Wall of Coins is effectively a payment processor that pays their business to accept remote cash payments as Dash, while boosting the Dash marketshare.
- Backpage users want their advertisements funded as soon as possible. With Wall of Coins and DASH Instant Send, this becomes a much better solution than using Bitcoin as the payment protocol.
Show full description ...
Discussion: Should we fund this proposal?
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https://www.buybitcoinworldwide.com/exchanges/wall-of-coins/
Backpage.com CEO Facing Sex Trafficking Charges
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0brquHIwSDI
warning by Bitcoinity:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/46fwp5/bitcoinity_is_warning_about_wall_of_coins/
empty Reddit:
https://www.reddit.com/r/wallofcoins/
nearly no updates on Facebook (except repeated refs to Dashcentral):
https://www.facebook.com/wallofcoins/
and an old report from Easycount:
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:8VDPbmo7-MwJ:review.easycounter.com/wallofcoins.com+&cd=8&hl=de&ct=clnk&gl=nl
>>>>>>>>>>---------------------------------------------------------------
To create Wall Of Coins review we checked Wallofcoins.com reputation at lots of sites, including Siteadvisor and MyWOT. We found that Wallofcoins content is not safe for kids and looks fraudulent. We would describe it as mostly legit, but the site's reputation is compromised due to a number of negative reports.
Robert Genito of Genitrust Inc failed to keep it trustworthy. Please be warned that to describe security status of Wallofcoins.com we use data openly available on the Web, thus we cannot guarantee that no scam sites might have been mistakenly considered legit and no fraud or PC issues may occur in this regard. But usually the crowdsourced data we have is pretty accurate. Let's see it below.
---------------------------------------------------------------<<<<<<<<<<
Basically I know this service since the last proposal and cannot say much about it. But for sure they have a massive marketing problem.
on the companies background:
* https://pitchbook.com/profiles/genitrust-profile-investors-funding-valuation-and-analysis
* http://thedashtimes.com/2016/09/21/peer-peer-dash-cash-matters/
* https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/2z93tg/wallofcoinscom_review_get_bitcoin_and_sell/
I ask myself:
- what is the difference between "purchase location" and "seller" - both mentioned in the proposal
- why should DASH pay WOC and not other markets?
- $55,000 is a lot of money (maybe more before the recent price decline but at least less than the last proposal);
>>> my conclusion is that this kind of service could be very valuable. But WOC needs marketing - why is not one of the 10 employees busy with social media and news? With the given numbers (50 new users/d, 18000 user total, 15 affiliates, 120000 purchase locations, 1000 sellers) the platform should be deep in business but instead Backpage is mentioned multiple times where WOC is not mentioned a single time on their page. Probably Paxful.com and Bitquick.io do also claim Backpage as their customer.
I think that this investment is high risk. Every VC company would ask serious questions on the validity of the presented numbers and check their business plan thoroughly.
Answers: all answers are provided with a "--->" followed by the answer. The answers are underneath your items that I re-posted.
warning by Bitcoinity:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/46fwp5/bitcoinity_is_warning_about_wall_of_coins/
---> the answer is already on this page. Did you read it? TL;DR is that Kacper expected us to pay a bitcoin address that he never gave us before and did not GPG sign. And he decided to go dark, not return our emails, not message me back over IM, etc. Then one day he freaks out and posts this on his site. True story, and also a reason why no one has sponsored his website since.
empty Reddit:
https://www.reddit.com/r/wallofcoins/
---> so? go write something there if you don't want it to be empty? Also, follow the bitcointalk.org link if you'd like to see our past posts. This is for our future marketing campaigns.
nearly no updates on Facebook (except repeated refs to Dashcentral):
https://www.facebook.com/wallofcoins/
---> again: so? as we grow our marketing wing, we have much larger fish to fry, such as a new website design in the making as we speak.
and an old report from Easycount:
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:8VDPbmo7-MwJ:review.easycounter.com/wallofcoins.com+&cd=8&hl=de&ct=clnk&gl=nl
---> I'm guessing there's a reason why this isn't around anymore and is stuck in cache. Was this from when we first opened publicly?
"Basically I know this service since the last proposal and cannot say much about it. But for sure they have a massive marketing problem."
---> I wouldn't say it's a "problem" we have; it's a new growth area for the Wall of Coins service. Ya can't focus on *everything* at the same time when you're a privately funded, rapidly growing company! This is simply being realistic.
on the companies background:
* https://pitchbook.com/profiles/genitrust-profile-investors-funding-valuation-and-analysis
---> This is laughably inaccurate....
* http://thedashtimes.com/2016/09/21/peer-peer-dash-cash-matters/
* https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/2z93tg/wallofcoinscom_review_get_bitcoin_and_sell/
---> check out these links, they're way better:
---> https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/2i6d0e/my_vision_and_passion_over_the_last_2_years/
---> https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=812397.0
I ask myself:
- what is the difference between "purchase location" and "seller" - both mentioned in the proposal
---> a "purchase location" is the place (brick-n-mortar) you go to make your payment. The "seller" is the company/individual that has an advertisement with Wall of Coins to liquidate their coins.
- why should DASH pay WOC and not other markets?
---> this is a valid question.
"...But WOC needs marketing - why is not one of the 10 employees busy with social media and news? With the given numbers (50 new users/d, 18000 user total, 15 affiliates, 120000 purchase locations, 1000 sellers) the platform should be deep in business but instead Backpage is mentioned multiple times where WOC is not mentioned a single time on their page."
---> 1) we have 21 employees, 2 are focused on building up our marketing campaigns. Our first marketing-related employee was hired 3 months ago, and the other last month.
---> 2) the platform's business is good, and the business positioning in this industry is insanely on point. Marketing is our upcoming deadly weapon.
---> 3) Go use backpage and you'll see that Wall of Coin's Web Widget is integrated with them---this is in the area where you buy credits, not on the front page or some place that has no context. And yes, backpage does mention WOC. In fact, WOC was the very first exchange/marketplace ever mentioned by Backpage.
I think that this investment is high risk. Every VC company would ask serious questions on the validity of the presented numbers and check their business plan thoroughly.
---> You can never do enough research, right? :) Thank you for bringing up these issues and asking great, relevant questions!
This question is valid for many proposals, where DASH is supposed to finance what is done for free with other alts.
Not for nothing, the smartest thing PayPal ever did was pay new users a $10 bonus for signing up =)
in this case I will not reveal my own voting
Dash rewards business development, marketing, programming, etc., and that speaks HUGE for the democratic Dash ecosystem. Bitcoin only pays miners, who aren't required to care for or give back to the ecosystem.
That documentation will also be updated for working with the DASH context!
Why? I can't understand why we as blockchain should pay for something, with which a company will make money in the end and if they say for example, "hey we are going out of business", we payed around 50 000 $ for absolute nothing, because its closed source!
I won't understand how someone could vote yes for that ...
We also were less concerned about the timing because 1) there was more than a week before the next budget cycle, and 2) this proposal has been submitted several times under different terms, so MN owners should be very familiar with its contents by now (the only things that have changed are the exact terms).
I know that rgenito has reached out to Dash Detailed and many others to offer an interview, but it is really up to those show owners whether they want to conduct one. If you'd like to see him interviewed (which I also think is a great idea), might I suggest you reach out to various shows and recommend it... it might help make that happen.