Proposal description
Dash Incubator Rion 2023 Q1
Proposal to fund the Dash Incubator reserve administered by Rion Gull, Dash Incubator Lead Strategist.
Summary
Dash Incubator has submitted three proposals this quarter:
In contrast to our previous 2023 Q2 proposal and all Incubator proposals before that, this quarter we are submitting multiple proposals. All Incubator funds are still controlled exclusively by the lead strategist, who is tasked to ensure all transactions follow Incubator rules.
July 17th update:
Lysergic's proposal to "Divert Incubator Funds to DCG" gives MNOs the option to send Incubator-requested funding to DCG instead. Of course this puts Incubator's future in serious jeopardy, but as explained in the final 13 minutes of Incubator Weekly today, pursuing the controversial diversion proposal also puts DCG at risk of getting even less funding. This is because mutually exclusive proposals usually end up with many NO votes, which easily keeps them outside of Dash's difficult passing criteria.
To help avoid this likely fate, Sam (from DCG) and I agreed on an alternative "middle ground" option for MNOs to consider: DCG will request (or has already requested, depending on when you read this) 650 DASH in their typical supplemental proposal this month. This gives MNOs an uncontroversial option to pass that proposal (giving DCG more additional funding) while also supporting this Incubator proposal. Ash and Tim have both agreed that is a sensible alternative to suggest to MNOs, as they can continue work with their respective reserves for at least this quarter with small adjustments.
Of course MNOs have all possible funding options that the superblock allows. We just wanted to give a more sensible option that allows continued support for both organizations.
1 Incubator Updates
Near the end of last quarter Incubator strategists collectively approved an internal rule change that affects how we do Incubator proposals. Formerly, strategists would submit internal proposals to request budgets. The strategic committee would approve or reject the lead strategist's budget request from the general reserve, and the lead strategist would approve or reject budget requests from each strategist. We decided that it would be more effective and efficient to have each strategist request and receive budgets from MNOs and the superblock directly. These, and other rule changes are detailed in the difference between our v3 and v4 rules.
Our Incubator WEEKLY video series continues to air every Monday. The show highlights projects we're working on in the Incubator, and as of this writing includes 22 shows. The first or second Monday of each new quarter is a report of what we've allocated rewards to throughout the previous quarter. Below is our 2023 Q2 Quarterly Report, which aired earlier this month.
The quarterly report covers much of the information given in these proposals, so it's a good supplement or even substitute to this written text.
Figure 1 below shows Incubator's high-level funding rates. The blue series is our superblock requests. The red series shows rewards paid to incubator contributors, averaged into monthly rates for each quarter.
Figure 1 - Reward and request rates over time
2 Project Updates and Outlook
The incubator distributed 3,396.4 DASH in rewards to 23 different projects over the past quarter (2023 Q2).
Now that we are submitting separate proposals for each strategist, this section will highlight only my own (Rion's) projects.
Figure 2 - Reward allocation
The following videos cover projects that I reported on through Incubator Weekly:
In the coming quarter I plan to do the following:
3 Schedule and Budgeting
This proposal continues our typical 3-month funding proposal cadence, now with one proposal for each of our Incubator strategists.
Figure 3 below breaks down this budget planning for the following quarter (3 months shown in the table). I'm including this table and a detailed explanation of it to help everyone understand our new (Incubator rules v4) budgeting and award system. This table can always be accessed in our Accounting spreadsheet.
Figure 3 - Strategist reserve planning (updated July 17)
Some notes from the figure:
Terms and Closing
All operations of the Incubator funded by this proposal are subject to our current Rules. This proposal forms a part of our Network Contract with Dash. Our rules are always subject to and defer to MNO voting.
Thank you, masternode voters, for your support! As always, I'm very excited about this quarter and what we will accomplish.
Respectfully,
Rion
Proposal to fund the Dash Incubator reserve administered by Rion Gull, Dash Incubator Lead Strategist.
Summary
Dash Incubator has submitted three proposals this quarter:
- This proposal requesting 800 DASH/month
- Ash's proposal requesting 200 DASH/month (officially withdrawn - see July 17th update below)
- Tim's proposal requesting 150 DASH/month (officially withdrawn - see July 17th update below)
In contrast to our previous 2023 Q2 proposal and all Incubator proposals before that, this quarter we are submitting multiple proposals. All Incubator funds are still controlled exclusively by the lead strategist, who is tasked to ensure all transactions follow Incubator rules.
July 17th update:
Lysergic's proposal to "Divert Incubator Funds to DCG" gives MNOs the option to send Incubator-requested funding to DCG instead. Of course this puts Incubator's future in serious jeopardy, but as explained in the final 13 minutes of Incubator Weekly today, pursuing the controversial diversion proposal also puts DCG at risk of getting even less funding. This is because mutually exclusive proposals usually end up with many NO votes, which easily keeps them outside of Dash's difficult passing criteria.
To help avoid this likely fate, Sam (from DCG) and I agreed on an alternative "middle ground" option for MNOs to consider: DCG will request (or has already requested, depending on when you read this) 650 DASH in their typical supplemental proposal this month. This gives MNOs an uncontroversial option to pass that proposal (giving DCG more additional funding) while also supporting this Incubator proposal. Ash and Tim have both agreed that is a sensible alternative to suggest to MNOs, as they can continue work with their respective reserves for at least this quarter with small adjustments.
Of course MNOs have all possible funding options that the superblock allows. We just wanted to give a more sensible option that allows continued support for both organizations.
1 Incubator Updates
Near the end of last quarter Incubator strategists collectively approved an internal rule change that affects how we do Incubator proposals. Formerly, strategists would submit internal proposals to request budgets. The strategic committee would approve or reject the lead strategist's budget request from the general reserve, and the lead strategist would approve or reject budget requests from each strategist. We decided that it would be more effective and efficient to have each strategist request and receive budgets from MNOs and the superblock directly. These, and other rule changes are detailed in the difference between our v3 and v4 rules.
Our Incubator WEEKLY video series continues to air every Monday. The show highlights projects we're working on in the Incubator, and as of this writing includes 22 shows. The first or second Monday of each new quarter is a report of what we've allocated rewards to throughout the previous quarter. Below is our 2023 Q2 Quarterly Report, which aired earlier this month.
The quarterly report covers much of the information given in these proposals, so it's a good supplement or even substitute to this written text.
Figure 1 below shows Incubator's high-level funding rates. The blue series is our superblock requests. The red series shows rewards paid to incubator contributors, averaged into monthly rates for each quarter.
Figure 1 - Reward and request rates over time
2 Project Updates and Outlook
The incubator distributed 3,396.4 DASH in rewards to 23 different projects over the past quarter (2023 Q2).
Now that we are submitting separate proposals for each strategist, this section will highlight only my own (Rion's) projects.
Figure 2 - Reward allocation
The following videos cover projects that I reported on through Incubator Weekly:
- Dash Tools #1: DashPhase - Incubator Weekly
- Dash Tools #2: DashKeys - Incubator Weekly
- Dash Tools #3: DashHD - Incubator Weekly
- Web Framework Integrations #1 - Incubator Weekly
- Web Framework Integrations #2 - Incubator Weekly
- CoinJoin JavaScript SDK - Incubator Weekly
In the coming quarter I plan to do the following:
- Continue work on payment and merchant tooling.
- Continue work on Dash Improvement Proposals (DIPs).
- Continue work on our web Wallet SDK and UI.
- Continue work on our JavaScript CoinJoin SDK.
- Continue work on supporting Electrum (pending developer availability)
- Help fund a hackathon for a major web2 project (was scheduled last quarter, but the event was delayed).
- Finish other lower-priority projects (e.g. DashPay thumbnail image server, GitHub migration, Trello clean up, etc).
3 Schedule and Budgeting
This proposal continues our typical 3-month funding proposal cadence, now with one proposal for each of our Incubator strategists.
Figure 3 below breaks down this budget planning for the following quarter (3 months shown in the table). I'm including this table and a detailed explanation of it to help everyone understand our new (Incubator rules v4) budgeting and award system. This table can always be accessed in our Accounting spreadsheet.
Figure 3 - Strategist reserve planning (updated July 17)
Some notes from the figure:
- Column A indicates the strategist and month for the upcoming three months of budget requests.
- Column B shows the current reserves in each strategist reserve, along with the total as of the screenshot in cell B5.
- Column C shows each strategist's budget request, along with the total in rows 5, 11, and 17.
- Column D shows each strategist's projected output (rewards paid to Incubator contributors).
- Column E shows the maximum base commission that strategists can claim (10% of the MNO-approved budget).
- Column F shows the maximum output commission that strategists can claim (20% of strategist-approved tasks, shared with admins if used for certain projects).
- Column G is the sum of E and F, representing the total commission strategists can earn (25% of MNO-approved budget maximum over time).
- Column H is column C less columns D and G, representing the surplus or deficit of each reserve.
- Column I is the sum of E and L, representing the projected end-of-month balance.
- Column J is the projected buffer for each reserve assuming subsequent funding continues.
- Column K is the projected buffer for each reserve assuming no continued funding (bounties paid from reserves alone).
- 0.9 month buffer for the Incubator overall (down from 2.7 months from last quarter)
- 1.2 month buffer for my strategic reserve (down from 2.2 months from last quarter)
Terms and Closing
All operations of the Incubator funded by this proposal are subject to our current Rules. This proposal forms a part of our Network Contract with Dash. Our rules are always subject to and defer to MNO voting.
Thank you, masternode voters, for your support! As always, I'm very excited about this quarter and what we will accomplish.
Respectfully,
Rion
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Discussion: Should we fund this proposal?
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It is not just this budget proposal, a lot of other budget proposal saw a sharp decline in number of votes.
Even DCG Compensation budget proposal is seeing a sharp decline in votes (only +58 votes)
It is difficult to tell with Dash Central.
You think we should double the treasury? Is this correct? That indicates poor judgement. Is your mind made up on this?
Are you on Discord? Would be happy to discuss it more there.
Would you want to come on Incubator Weekly?
We don't need video of you. Audio only works fine (and you can alter your voice using software if you want).
Can you please explain how Dash mining is "net negative security?" I've never seen this claim and don't understand it.
You've made a very large claim that indicates one of us does not understand the security model of the network.
Most MNO will be responsible enough to not fall for your turbo-mining fantasy, fueled by your greed and egoism.
All that is earned in excess now, will be earned less later.
And if not, then be as sincere to admit, you want to reduce blocktime down to 60seconds (or whatever) while keeping the block reward subsidy as is.
What means, we would reach Max Supply (and meager Rewards along the way) much earlier than forecasted.
Why would you want to waste your time on something, which isn't going to affect you at all?
Funny how all those magnificient ideas which would significantly impact the project,
almost without exception, are suggested by people who don't own a single Dash coin.
But they are all so eager to help us out with their enormous wisdom. How noble of them.
We MNO must suffer from a lack of ideas ourselves, it seems.
Other MNOs have expressed interest in cutting miner allocations, etc. Are non MNO Dash holders and earners barred from thinking about how to draw in new investment to Dash?
Non-MNO Dash holders and earners are certainly not barred from anything,
but usually (not always!) their ideas are of a poor quality, what isn't surprising after all.
If only they'd think and suggest less, and the vested MNO on the other hand, would think more, faster and better.
Also, a finite asset will never be able to compete yield-wise with unlimited money printing,
at least not for extended periods of time and/or relatively high rates.
The BRICS, along with the Saudis and half of the world, are going to attack the greenback soon.
What will eventually come to transpire is runaway dollar inflation.
Right now the dollar hangs on a thin thread which is OPEC.
As soon as OPEC is going to publicly announce to sell oil in other currencies, its going downhill very fast.
And how is it being exploited?
Instead of finding a way to drive demand for dash through improvement they are now eyeing changes to the supply. It is bad.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MsxnMMoHyPE
when Dash price is already on the brink of collapse, due to almost inexistent demand in the marketplace.
Even just talking about increasing inflation in such a market environment,
should be reason enough to deal them slaps in the face, right and left, again and again, till they shut up !!
If Bitcoin ever crashes down to $10K, guess where Dash price will be? $10
And those Amateurs are talking about increasing inflation? NOW ??
Good Lord, let it rain some brains.
Hoping to see more support.
Will add this here as well giving my explanation of what is going on: Initially Incubator strategists made 3 proposals for a total of 1150 Dash, representing a 15% increase month to month even though we just had a 7% reduction in treasury, soon thereafter a community member called lysergic made a proposal aimed to distribute those funds instead to DCG. This in turn caused Rion to look more greatly at DCGs public information on our finances and burn rate. Rion later met with me and we discussed our respective finances. He proposed that incubator would reduce their ask to 800 Dash by only submitting this proposal, which would allow both orgs enough funding through mid October to November (if neither reduced costs - which we do plan to do additionally).
As a personal side-note: I believe Lysergic has a valid point: without DCG and more notably a good release of Platform, incubator wouldn't be able to ship. However I personally also believe that there will be a great deal amount of value derived from the work of incubator. I value incubator and don’t want to see them defunded. My hope is that we see Rions 800 Dash proposal and the supplemental from DCG at 650 both pass. This would allow the maximum amount of effort to continue going to the development of the Dash Project.
As part of this plan, Ash has officially withdrawn his funding request for this month/quarter. Please see his proposal for details.
Also note, THIS proposal is not withdrawn. I am still seeking funding and votes here. This will make more sense Monday when we have confirmation from DCG about data and plans. Thanks for your support and understanding.
See the italic part of the proposal description above.
https://www.dashcentral.org/p/Divert-Incubator-Funds-to-DCG
That proposal threatens to compromise funding for both Incubator and DCG since supporters on each side will likely downvote the other proposal, resulting in neither proposal reaching funding, despite strong support for both organizations historically.
Would you guys please stop from selfishly and recklessly requesting massive amounts of Dash, while you are already sitting on a pile of thousands and thousands of Dash, and all the while DCG is in jeopardy of going broke in about 2-3 months and threatened by massive layoffs including Devs?
Why don´t you act a little bit sensible and responsible?
At least give it a try.
You're right though; DCG is in bigger trouble than we thought at the time of our proposals. I've been in discussion with Sam this morning. I have better data now, and we'll have even better data by Monday when I'll give an updated plan for how to deal with this.
Please see my comment above for more context.
You better make sure it makes sense, because its really a lot of money in extremely tough times.
And if market continues spiraling downwards, we all gotta tighten our belts i guess.
Those who receive must deserve it.
https://mnowatch.org/proposalowners/?po=rion
$815k to Andy, before him
https://mnowatch.org/proposalowners/?po=andyfreer2020
$324k to Ash.
https://mnowatch.org/proposalowners/?po=AshFrancis
Now, I am not saying we don't get anything for it, after all, we are getting MAYA in the coming days and that was solely motivated from the incubator, but I think DCG is more crucial right now and for that reason I am voting on the diversion proposal and not withdrawing it despite the DCG Supp proposal that was recently launched, have fun going down memory lane on this site. :)
https://mnowatch.org/proposalowners/