Welcome!

Less than 8 hours to close of voting and the only viable proposal in months for Venezuela - our top market - needs 174 votes to pass.

Without this funding (and the funding is fully available):
- the Madrid team, which just produced their first 12 combo remittances, STOPS.
- new merchant signups, including basic necessities merchants, STOP
- new merchant verifications, the resolution of the mystery DMV left us, STOP
- our work in Cúcuta to get 35,000+ border-crossers to shop with Dash, STOPS
- our work in Medellín to sell Dash to 2 million Venezuela migrants (to whom Dash is completely new), STOPS
- the value in running Border Free Love ads on local TV funded by another prop is LOST/DELAYED
- our relationships with Venezuela merchants are DAMAGED again
- consumer adoption in Venezuela STOPS

We have only been funded once out of 2 cycles so far for this work. We just spent April turning on the machine. If we have to stop it, it is going to take another few weeks to turn it on again assuming there is another proposal. This is our strongest use case in our strongest region and a historic opportunity to provide a life-saving service to Venezuelans that is going to position us for decades there.

My team, which includes long-time Dash leaders in Venezuela associated with DMV and DV, is performing a turnaround for Dash in Venezuela and catapulting Dash far above anything else ever done in crypto before.

gobject vote-many 50d4092aef841f7e950fccc0d84d3e98cb3a8af384aa3e8131f894b46f4ca472 funding yes

Dash Latam's coordinator in Caracas Freddy Rauseo shown here supporting our merchants in Caracas and re-establishing relationships after in some cases many months of absence:

https://youtu.be/t1BthD1B8Ls

My twitter feed is full of relevant media that shows our work: https://twitter.com/georgedonnelly

Three things: 1. There is now a public transaction tracker so you can see how things are going: https://tracker.pagacondash.com/

2. Dash Colombia has met their goals and commitments, but at this point, it's not a huge number of transactions. If you want to see the transaction meter spin like crazy, this is the prop you need to approve. This will shove money into Venezuela that immediately gets turned into transactions. They are also working on a graph that will show remittances directly. This is the engine that will drive the transaction meter crazy.

3. They have already launched a "combo remittance" program. It works like this. Bob lives in Ecuador (or any of the countries where George has teams working now). A merchant in Venezuela puts together packages of food basics for x Dash (that's the combo). Let's say it's a one Dash package. Bob sends the remittance straight to the merchant, and the merchant delivers the food combo to the relatives in Venezuela. A dozen real orders from Spain have already been done.

By dividing up Venezuela into reasonable sized territories, we can get one or several food merchants to agree to deliver within that district, and it wouldn't take very many merchants (back of the napkin estimate 1-300) and we could get the whole country of Venezuela serviced. Again, best guess, we could have service going over most of Venezuela in 4-6 weeks. Even if it worse by double, we're still talking about getting most of the country serviced with food, driven by Dash in 90 Days worst case scenario.

Get out there and vote dammit! This is important.

solarguy

Friendly reminder to Masternodes: All your votes from last month are cancelled, null and void. Unlike previous months where successful proposals can kind of coast because all their YES vote carry over, this month, THEY DON'T. Please go vote so that we don't leave deserving proposals high and dry. If you are having problems voting, this thread will likely solve your problem, otherwise ask.

https://www.reddit.com/r/dashpay/comments/bi7bk3/1_day_to_go_for_latest_dash_budget_cycle_please/

The clock is ticking.....17 hours. Let's get after it!
solarguy

George gives a nice overview of how these three proposals fit together and reinforce each other. Dash Retail, Dash Colombia and Dash Remittances to Venezuela. A good read and let's not be shy about the votes on all three props either.

https://www.reddit.com/r/dashpay/comments/bi4vqv/george_has_been_busy_again_here_he_describes_the/

solarguy

Dash Watch April 26th 2019 Report on
Dash Colombia by georgedonnelly
https://dashwatchbeta.org/r/APR19/dash-colombia-201902

Dash Watch April 26th 2019 Report on
Dash Venezuela - Oct 2018 - Feb 2019 by algodonfranelas
https://dashwatchbeta.org/r/APR19/dash-venezuela-remittances-201902

The second link should be:
Dash Watch April 26th 2019 Report on
Dash Venezuela Remittances by georgedonnelly
https://dashwatchbeta.org/r/APR19/dash-venezuela-remittances-201902

Dash Watch March 26th 2019 Report on
Dash Retail by georgedonnelly
https://dashwatchbeta.org/r/MAR19/dash-retail-1

Dash Watch March 26th 2019 Report on
Dash Colombia by georgedonnelly
https://dashwatchbeta.org/r/MAR19/dash-colombia-201902

We need cashflow into Venezuela. This proposal will give us that. Without a big influx of Dash liquidity, we could have a million merchants and it still wouldn't move the needle. Give us a chance to move the needle. And don't forget, it will come with objective, near real-time metrics to prove we are getting the job done.

solarguy

Two questions:

1) Please walk me step-by-step through the capital/labor process on your end to make these remittances happen. What, exactly, would we be paying you and your people to do?

2) You mention that with Dash's competitors clearing as much as 66% profit on remittances in the area, that your project could become "self-sustaining" and offers a 25% stake to Dash Ventures. Where would these self-sustaining profits come from, exactly?

Thanks.

Thanks for your questions. I'm going to answer #2 first.

2. We are offering 2 ways to send and receive your remittance:
(a) Dash to Dash, IOW sender buys Dash and sends it to recipient, Dash wallet to Dash wallet, normal Dash transaction
(b) recipient receives fiat in a bank account

The profits come from (b) by using Dash as the transport layer. Option (a) produces considerably less profit because, as long as we have DAO funding, we will offer a preferential and very advantageous rate for people to send Dash to Dash. Also, option (a) requires a large consumer support team as well as merchant support, both of which are cost centers.

Further, we expect other businesses to come out of this, including (Krip) smartphone sales (most Venezuelans do not seem to have smartphones today), business training and mentoring (2 generations under socialism have lost access to this knowledge) and we have many more ideas that we believe will be feasible down the line, including potentially a chain of Dash stores. The business sector in Venezuela is decimated and we expect to soon have an open field.


1. You are paying for the following:
- Dash remittances sales and support teams in Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Spain and possibly the US. These teams convince people to send Dash to Dash remittances rather than using fiat.
- Dash support teams in multiple Venezuelan cities that work with Dash to Dash remittance recipients so they feel confident about receiving Dash (so we can actually complete the Dash to Dash remittance in the first place, as opposed to using fiat) (Many of the same teams remaining in Dash Venezuela Communities are fulfilling this role.)
- Dash merchant signup and support teams inside Venezuela that verify that existing DiscoverDash-listed basic necessities (food, medicine, car parts) merchants are operational, support them, and direct Dash to Dash remittance receivers to spend their Dash at those merchants
- Financial fiat infrastructure across 3 or more nations that will enable us to extend Dash Colombia's pioneering buyback program for merchants to Venezuelan Dash merchants, which will assist in signing up and retaining merchants, as well as enable Venezuelans to enter and exit Dash at will, effectively bypassing Bitcoin’s fiat on-/off-ramp dominance.
- Educational infrastructure to asymmetrically and inexpensively train large numbers of new Dash users in Venezuela and across Latam via 60-second videos (reduced quality example includes both Colombian and Venezuelan voices: https://youtu.be/ySIaJoiJ9tY)
- Marketing infrastructure across several nations to attract and retain Dash consumers and merchants in an inexpensive fashion using social media, WhatsApp, email marketing, and video, and to support the work of the teams mentioned above.
- Regularly-updated results data at tracker.pagacondash.com to show our results in discrete and concrete terms in as near to real time as possible.
- Sponsorship of colvenz.org, the largest association of Venezuelans in Colombia, with 85,000+ members, which gives us direct entree into the 2 million strong Venezuelan migrant community in Colombia.

Step by step:
- a trained Paga Con Dash representative interacts with Venezuelan migrants in Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Spain or Florida, teaches them about Dash, gets them set up with a wallet, offers them an incentive to remit Dash home (lower price, added amount, etc). Simultaneously or soon thereafter, we coordinate with the intended recipient and go through the same process either remotely or, ideally, in person with another representative in the recipient's city.
- Sell the Dash to the sender, and receiver receives. Receiver is incentivized to spend it at local Dash merchants and record a video of their purchase(s) that we can then use to amplify our marketing efforts.
- Merchant receives assistance to restock paying with Dash or has the option to exit Dash to fiat if his provider has yet to receive Dash.

We have many ways of attracting clients, from community meetings, to social media, to physical stores, personal connections and much more. This is just one simple example.

Hope that answered your questions. Thrilled to answer more questions.

Thanks for these detailed answers. I've voted in support of this proposal and will be watching for results. May you have luck.

Thank you. All of us are very anxious to get started and to deliver concrete results in a transparent manner.

George's teams in the specified countries are very familiar with the Venezuelan communities there. That's why those countries were picked, plenty of Venezuelans, and team leaders who know how to gain access to the community.

They will sell remittances (with a profit margin) to those communities to send value/money/Dash to Venezuela. Then, the teams in Venezuela will offer support for the people who are to receive those remittances to make sure it works, and make sure they have a place to spend it and inspire confidence. There is also a buy back program for the merchants so everybody in the scenario wins. We are also thinking about clever ways to have a referral program to spread the word faster. The profit margin will be far smaller than the current hodge podge network, but still big enough to become self sustaining. Again, designed so that everybody who participates wins financially. When it becomes profitable, the Dash community gets a cut.

When this gets established, this should have a huge multiplier effect. The goal is for every dollar we spend to enable remittances, the amount of value that flows into Venezuela will be 20x that value, and then 50x, and then 100x or more. We just don't have enough money in the Treasury to do huge airdrops of free Dash. And you will get all the data about the number of remittances sold, etc. Best in class reporting.

We think we can _make_ it catch on, and then the media will be shouting the news from the rooftops. Then the value of Dash goes up. The virtuous cycle reinforces itself.

Solarguy

Thank you for this response. It has well-supplemented George's response.

We saved the best for last. You want to be impressed? I invite you to meet the Remittance Team (well, part of the team, there are more!). Smart, motivated, passionate, qualified. They are so ready to go to work for Dash and for Venezuela. Let them....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50f5nv3-zSg&feature=youtu.be

Solarguy

Meet the Dash Venezuela Remittances team, a group of mostly Venezuelans in a range of nations, working together, ready to get started to help the 3+ million Venezuelan diaspora to remit money home with Dash, multiplying the impact of DAO funding by selling Dash to new users using our strongest use case.

Meet them in under 10 minutes: https://youtu.be/50f5nv3-zSg

Now with subtitles.

Where did all of these "NO" votes come from??? What the hell is going on??? This is a real easy "YES" guys, come on!!!

The "10 Second Graphic Report Tracker" is now up and running, collecting real data about transactions in real life, with enough geographic specificity to tell if we are getting traction or not. No more guessing. No more wondering. This reporting method should dramatically improve the success rate of proposals because it's 1. super easy (10 seconds!) and objective. It will also work with a host of other useful objective metrics, not just transactions. Full details here: https://www.reddit.com/r/dashpay/comments/aum0vf/show_me_the_transactions_ok_heres_a_tool_for_that/

If this proposal doesn't cause real life transactions and real life number of remittances to go up, fire us. When is the last time you heard that on a proposal?

solarguy

Thats pretty cool actually.

Dash Watch February 24th 2019 Report on
Dash Colombia by georgedonnelly
https://dashwatchbeta.org/r/FEB19/dashcolombia-stopgap-122018

Dash Watch February 24th 2019 Report on
Dash Retail by georgedonnelly
https://dashwatchbeta.org/r/FEB19/dash-retail-1

very easy YES

Hello George, you mentioned in your video above their were 10 merchants that you had investigated that are currently not accepting DASH or never accepted DASH. I would be grateful if you might clarify the following please;

1. How many were actually accepting DASH at one point but are no longer accepting DASH. This is an important distinction. By saying they never accepted DASH implies that the entries were made fraudulently into the Discoverdash site whereas if they had accepted DASH previously and are no longer accepting DASH that means the entries were valid at the time but are no longer valid. Which I think is reasonable.

2. What country did you find these merchants that no longer accepted DASH ? Who had added these merchant names to the discoverDash site?

3. How many merchants have you validated in total? I notice you've focused only on the number that are no longer accepting DASH but it would also be helpful to know how many you have investigated that are still accepting DASH.

I don't have all of these answers and the work with the Dash merchants in Venezuela continues, which is contingent upon approval of this proposal. If the proposal is approved, I will be thrilled to expand the work and present a full report.

Any merchant that continues to accept, we gladly record a video, most of which are available here. We have several more pending upload:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL92ognmkx-f48n5811s4hJLlC03SMv1_u

Hello George, if you don't have the answers I would suggest that perhaps it is better if you don't post exclusively lost merchants only since you actually don't know if they were once merchants. We would prefer to see real results posted both retentions and losses together and to know if a merchant was actually signed up at one time but is now no longer signed up. Since you say you don't have the details then I would suggest you don't say "never signed up" until you actually know for a fact that is the case.

I would expect that there could be a % of merchants that stopped using DASH. This is to be expected, anything around 10 to 15 % attrition I would expect as normal. So if 2500 merchants were signed up 250 lost merchants would be acceptable. If we only report the lost merchants however that could paint a unfair picture of the work that was actually achieved by DashMerchants.

I do have the details on merchants that insisted with great intensity they never accepted Dash as well as those who simply responded that they do not currently accept Dash, otherwise I would not have said what I said.

I am simply not ready to release this information.

What I said above is that I do not have all of the answers to all of your questions.

Assuming this proposal is approved, I would be thrilled to provide all the information you request in the format requested at the earliest possible time and on an ongoing basis.

My commitment is transparency and real hard transactions shown as close to real-time as possible.

It is not my job to decide what is fair to report and what is not fair to report. When I have hard information ready to report, I just report it and let the decision-makers decide how to handle it. This is transparency.

If you are not ready to release the information then don't release the information. What is not good is for your to release just negative information, which is what you're currently doing.
In terms of transparency, I'm delighted that you wish to be completely transparent with people. So am I.

This is an untrue statement. I have not just released negative information.

Once again, I have produced videos on my own dime showing successful Dash transactions in Caracas, Venezuela at basic necessities merchants where even the Dash Merchant Venezuela logo is prominently shown a few times.

Here is the link once again. I invite you to watch the videos and share them: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL92ognmkx-f48n5811s4hJLlC03SMv1_u

George it is a true statement regarding your video at the top of this page there is no positive statements about the merchants that are actually still using DASH. You say you don't wish to disclose that information yet but you disclose the negative information in your video.

The community and MNOs need to know what is going on behind the scenes. You do not like the Venezuela teams and you've expressed that several times. I am also aware that you have been negatively slurring the DashVenezuela teams in your DashWatch video.

We had discussed George on our voice calls 6 months ago that the Dash Merchant Venezuela teams had raised concerns to me about you attempting to take over their projects. You denied this at the time stating you had no interest in Venezuela or taking over their projects. I believed you at the time George, but over time I could see what they were saying is in fact correct. You had full intention to overtake their project work as is demonstrated here in this proposal. Your feedback George focusing on negatives on the DashWatch video on the Dash Merchants - negatively slurring their work with your put downs. I find that unprofessional behaviour.

I want the community to pay close attention to how George Donnelly is presenting his facts and notice when he is putting negative emphasis on the Venezuela team's work. I about had enough keeping quite about this issue.

I want the community to know I definitely DO NOT support George Donnelly on this Venezuela proposal. The people that should be running this proposal are the Dash Venezuela Merchant team who did all the work to establish these DASH merchants in Venezuela.

George Donnelly is in Colombia, not Venezuela. My impression of George Donnelly has changed radically since I first knew him. My view is George Donnelly has always wanted to take over the DASH work projects in his region especially those undertaken by the Venezuela teams. The Dash Merchant team had warned me about this 6 months ago but I kept an open mind and did not believe it. I had asked George about this 6 months ago and he said he had no intention of taking over the Venezuela work, but now we can see the Venezuela team were right. George has had all along had ambitions to take over their projects. Thanks to the DashWatch report on the Dash Merchant team that discredited their reputations this has given the opportunity that Donnelly was looking for.

Sorry George I'm voting NO for this project and all your future Venezuela projects. I don't agree with how you do business and my view is we should not be supporting you, at least in Venezuela.

*typo correction "I am also aware that you have been negatively slurring the DashVenezuela teams in your DashWatch video. " I should have wrote "I am also aware that you have been negatively slurring the Dash Merchant Venezuela teams in your DashWatch video. "

For the record I have had no direct dealings with DashVenezuela I have only worked and supported the DashMerchant Venezuela team and so my comments regarding George's put down behaviour are directly related to only Dash Merchants team which I know a lot about. The community needs to be aware that DashVenezuela is a completely separate team and organization from DashMerchants Venezuela. I can only speak on behalf of Dash Merchants Venezuela with my comments.

I still currently support George in his Dash Colombia proposals. I just do not think George should be involved with Venezuela based projects and I want George to stop negatively and subtly slurring the Dash Merchant team and their work.

Great post, I also agree with you on this one @deepblue

There have been rumblings that Dash Ventures will be up and running soon. George Donnelly is ready, able and eager to sign the paperwork to give the Dash Community a 25% equity stake in the new "Remittances to Venezuela" Proposal/Business.
https://twitter.com/georgedonnelly

Good luck, work hard, have fun, win!
solarguy

This proposal will enable promotion of Dash for remittances in the markets where Dash is already strongest. It will employ a team that knows Venezuela, including some people who were part of Dash Venezuela Communities. The proposal owner, George Donnelly, has a proven track record for getting results that I have personally benefited from as a Dash spending consumer. Furthermore, this proposal offers a 25% equity stake to Dash Ventures. I have voted YES!

Hello Edward, could you confirm under what circumstances the people you mention from Dash Venezuela Communities left Dash Venezuela. Why are they not working for them now and under what circumstances did they leave?

I would also ask clarification on your remittance idea. Could you clarify if a government issued license is required in Venezuela or Colombia for merchants to be selling DASH to customers? In most countries of the world a special money handling license is required for any type of financial services to the public. Thank you.

Dear DeepBlue, pleasure to meet you, my name is Richard Jerez, I am a leader of Dash Los Teques, capital of the Miranda state in Venezuela, I have been working for the Dash network for over a year, giving talks, courses and meetings to users and traders, at the beginning with financing of Dash Global and later with financing achieved with the joint effort of all the Dash communities that make life in VZ, I met Dash with the team of Dash Caracas and Dash Venezuela (DV), from the beginning I had and I keep excellent relations with the DV team and I have no reasons to break that relationship, I will forever appreciate the support and collaboration provided, however I declare publicly that I am fully convinced that the joint work of all communities, inside and outside of my country, can give more contribution than working separately, I am open to collaborate with Dash Colombia, Dash Peru, Dash Argentina, Dash Africa, Dash Haiti, Dash ... ., without walls or borders. I must also clarify that we have always worked by the law, but with the utmost prudence, because in VZ, what is legal today, tomorrow is not and vice versa, only we, Venezuelans, are able to know what risks we can take and as far as we can get, we have a lot of potential and we always find this type of obstacles in the way, in order to achieve our goals, that is why the professionals in VZ are doubly capable of achieving our goals. I support 100% this proposal because I believe that it will give the adoption and increase of the Dash value that we all want.

Stan:
@perrosaurio , please stop trying to cause trouble in here. @Georgedonnelly has already stated his team have legal advisors, no?

George already gave you an answer to that, if you didn't think it was adequately explained then please be more specific with your question. This isn't discord with unlimited channels, it's a single channel chat and seeing the same question repeated endlessly soon gets boring.

Miguel Figuera Dash:
Let me rephrase then:

@Georgedonnelly

¿Which was the mechanism your team use to present the proposal to SUNACRIP and gain the approval?

¿How do merchants that already use dash apply to this Dash Chamber of Comerce?

¿How did your team make the register in Venezuela?

¿Where is this happening? I want to see it with my own eyes.

Like this Stan?

Stan:
I didn't think it was nesassary to contact sunacrip for personal transactions but whatever, much better thanks.

Alexis Dash:
Ok... I will give my knowledge on this matter. The Superintendence is responsible for regulating all commercial, tax, promotional, business activities that have to do directly or indirectly with cryptocurrencies that generate invoices, generate invoices, payment of employees, income from sales, rents, sending money, in order ... must be licensed, otherwise incur legal and fiscal irregularities.

Excuse me, phone error, please ignore

I know that there are three individuals who have been a part of "Dash Venezuela Communities" aka "network of alliances" and would like to work on this proposal if it is funded. I refuse to explain each of their circumstances.

"My remittance idea"??? I don't know what you are talking about.

"Is a government issued license required for a merchant to sell Dash in Colombia?" No.

Venezuela is in chaos right now. There is little enforcement of the laws as they stand and the dictatorship threatens new rules, and then doesn't really follow through with the means to carry them out. Proper establishment of fair laws and their enforcement in Venezuela is going to take a long time. In the mean time, individuals will take it upon themselves to survive without much regard to whether they broke a new regulation about crypto.

Hello Edward, thank you for your reply.My apologies for the confusion on your involvement in the remittances.

I trust what you say Edward because of the long term work you have done with your Dash Red project and also the level of your transparency on your projects.

I would suggest however that if the people that George is choosing to work with are possibly disgruntled x employees (I do not know if this is the case) bear in mind they could have an agenda also and that their feedback may have to be carefully considered. I do not know much about DashVenezuela workings since I did not have any direct dealings with them. I worked with Dash Merchants team (Lorenzo and Alejandro) and my comments are regarding the way George has interacted with that team and the manner in which George is repeatedly putting that team down in subtle ways. I disagree with how George is doing this. My opinion is this behaviour from George toward the Dash Merchants team is subversive, manipulative and intended to destroy them and to take over their work. I know this for a fact from the calls I have had with George and that is the conclusion I have come to. I think George should stay in Colombia and keep out of Venezuela. He can do the remittance work from Venezuela and learn to work collaboratively with other teams in Venezuela however ones which are not under his control. I do not agree with George Donnelly taking over the Latam projects. We need to keep this decentralized because as history has shown many times previously people with too much power inevitably abuse it later down the line.

DeepBlue, it is my opinion that you have attempted to damage George's reputation right here on this page far more than any damage you allege George has done to others in any public forum.

You will not find comments from George or his associates or his employees on the proposal pages of other proposal owners.

@ec1warc1 I am attempting to make people aware. Harmfully damaging a reputation, as you are suggesting, is deliberately making false statements or focusing exclusively on the negative of a person to give an imbalanced impression of that person. I have no desire to do that. I do, however, feel I have a responsibility to the network and other MNOs to let them know what type of character I believe we are dealing with here. I am saying sincerely my motives are positive for the network. Whether you choose to believe my motives are positive or not that is your choice.

Let me state the positives up front about George so that I am not guilty of what George is guilty of, i.e. giving a distorted one sided subversive view of people and their achievements. George is very smart and shrewd businessman. He has a lot of business experience. He knows how to set goals and objectives and make them successful. He recognizes opportunities and acts quickly on them. He knows how to present himself on video and to give feedback to the community in the way they want to see it. I believe also that he will make this project work in terms of what the goals of the project are.

My concern is not about the project in the short term. It is about much further down the line on this project and other projects to come. Having spoken to George extensively on calls I have a pretty good idea now of what type of character we are dealing with.

Correction of a typo above. *He (George) can do remittance work from Colombia and not get involved with Merchants in Venezuela which is not his area.

My view Edward is that if we do not adhere to the existing law in Venezuela regarding remittances we could endanger the lives of people doing the work there. You, and George are safe in Colombia. You do not have to be exposed to that risk if things go wrong. It is easy to say that we should move ahead however there is a very grave risk that if DASH undertakes promotional work that is not in line with the current law in Venezuela people working on this project in Venezuela could end up in jail for a very long time - whether there is turmoil or not I believe we have to stay within the law as it currently is for the protection of any people in Venezuela working on this project. In addition we do not want negative publicity regarding DASH undertaking any activity that could be classed as illegal. Unlike Colombia, Venezuela does have existing laws regarding cryptocurrency. I strongly advise that any projects attempting to do work in Venezuela first check with a reputable legal firm specialising in finances to give advice and council on how to move forward with any project of this nature.

It is my opinion that when laws are created to give a dictator more power to himself, then there is no law.

It is also my opinion that laws which makes the act of using cryptocurrency illegal or restricting its use to only within certain geographic areas are exactly the laws we should ignore.

The possible consequences and possible benefits are fully understood by those eager to work in Venezuela for this project.

Edward, I somewhat agree with your observations above. The people need help I personally always try to stay within the law because I feel that is what makes a civilized society. I have no experience with going against the law and I cannot say if this is right step in Venezuela or not since I am not living in that country. Sometimes there are ways however to have the same results but staying within the law. My suggestion was simply to see if that is first possible first before taking steps to blatantly breaking the law.

I just hope that the people working on this project in Venezuela have no harm come to them. That was my primary concern.

As i think a remittance project like this is in need to create more real-world demand and in the longterm could potentially provide a large boost to our number of transactions, i decided to support your proposal. Good luck with your proposal.

Thank you for support, this is why I decided to organize this project and submit it to the DAO.

George, you know that our budget is very tight in these troubled times.
You ask for the ENTIRE budget left (after the Core proposals will be approved), which i consider irresponsible and even reckless.
Even more so, that you already had a multi-month proposal approved last cycle, which is still paying out for this and coming cycles.
There will be no room left for any other proposal, besides yours.
Please consider completing existing funded proposals over their payout timeframe first, before applying again and again for even more funds.

Point: it could be more important than other budget requests in terms of # of new customers it could produce

Thanks for your comment, Junior87.

I have been working for many months to recruit, train and/or assemble both this team and the required infrastructure. People are in motion. People are excited. People are urging me to get started. This was the cycle where it all came together. This is not really something I have control of. This simply the speed at which the work came together.

We are in a bear market, maybe at the bottom. We desperately need bona fide real transactions to create demand pressure to ensure our price falls no further. Remittances are our strongest use case. The Venezuela-Colombia region is where our marketing and adoption is strongest. This is what concerns me. Dash is what concerns me.

Hence I offer this opportunity to the DAO in the most timely manner possible not because I am irresponsible or didn't consider the state of funding requests (I did and it gave me great pause) but because I believe we desperately need it.

I am not the decision-maker here. I am the humble servant. All I can do is survey the field, create the vision, build the team, start as cheaply as possible, and offer the opportunity to you guys. What you do with it is your choice.

If I was to make a political calculation and say, oh, this could step on toes, then that would be a disservice to the entire ecosystem, a kind of price-fixing, or cartelization, where there was some spoken or unspoken agreement among PO's to not compete with each other. And this would be wrong. I would be presuming to make your decisions for you.

The DAO does not work when PO's collude against it. It works through competition. By offering you this choice, I have chosen to put the DAO and the vision of a true DAO ahead of any other concern. You remain free to vote it down.

The Dash Retail proposal is software infrastructure for my other projects from which I draw zero compensation and play a minimal role. The very capable developers (known community members) are doing all the work. Once again, if I place limits upon myself, I am doing a disservice to the DAO. If we can grow faster and do so cheaply, why would anyone want to stop that?

Thanks again, happy to answer any other questions.

He's asking for 330 DASH, how is that the entire remaining budget?

If you visit https://app.dashnexus.org/proposals/leaderboard you will see there are 4048 Dash not yet appropriated. Dash Core has two proposals this month, totaling 3710, which if funded, would leave 338 Dash not yet appropriated. Keep in mind that this proposal came in before Core proposals, so the PO could not evaluate Core proposal amounts. I believe that the Dash Nexus proposal, which is more costly than this one, did not receive funding due to lack of funds in the treasury last month.

I don't find this proposal to be "irresponsible" or "reckless". It offers an excellent opportunity to continue working in Venezuela at a reasonable price. It sets attainable goals that will have a meaningful impact. Perhaps it will not be funded because the budget cycle is tight, but that is no fault of the proposal owner. We should be happy to consider the offer.

We did touch base with Core to see if their ask would be the same 60% as last month. George did everything possible to fit within the very tight constraints. Also, note that the scope of his proposal takes up the slack left by the unfortunate events of the Dash Venezuela Merchant prop, which carried a price tag of 295 Dash. Plus, this prop gets you teams in Ecuador, Peru, Spain, Venezuela and Colombia to do the on-the-ground grunt work to get the remittance market to Venezuela on its feet.

solarguy

Total Available Budget : 6176.72

Multi-Period proposals already approved from previous cycles : 2129.13
Core-Team Compensation (march) : 3100
Core-Team Business Development : 610

Unallocated for this month : 337,59 Dash

Remittance into Venezuela is what has been missing from our Venezuela strategy so far. A team outside Venezuela is best situated to deliver that key piece.

We could not get a better team that the one George has built in Colombia to start getting remittance into Venezuela happening.

This project will give us valuable experience allowing us to expand to dash remittance within and into Latin America as a whole.

Core have been babbling about US-Mexico remittance being a key pillar and era of focus for a year (or more?), have a large budget for it (would be under biz dev) and have 0 results to show.

I bet George’s team can do more for dash remittance in Latin America in this 4 month (330 dash p/m) proposal than core have done forever with a bigger budget.

FWIW I support the other good projects inside Venezuela as well as Georges efforts, not one or the other.

Thanks for your support, bitedge.

Dear George,
Ambitious proposal, but I think that it escapes extremely delicate aspects regarding the activities proposed in this reckless project created from Colombia, but with a sustained operation, largely, with the work achieved for almost two years in Venezuela.

In Venezuela we are a block of autonomous and united communities

The Dash communities in Venezuela were satisfied with the decentralized spirit of the Blockchain. They are autonomous and have generated the ability to work in a block, with co-responsibility and transparency among them. In 18 months they have received the direct support of Dash Venezuela, support from the international community through crowdfunding, the DAO and other Fintech initiatives in the case of professional training. Some of them have participated in several rounds of proposals to the treasury and DashBoost, by the way, with edges similar to yours, which have been available for the evaluation of the entire community for months, and which received different results from the DAO.

Affirming that the communities have not been supported in Venezuela, rather than ignorance, is a lack of respect that borders on the defamation against those who have directly strived for more than a year and a half to build a network that covers almost the entire national territory, coordinating efforts to carry out a project in our country, for the benefit not only of Venezuelans, but of the entire Dash community.

There is no merit in trying to deny the growth of Dash in Venezuela

Ensuring that they will "verify merchants" and "update DiscoverDash" is to deny the hard work of recruitment, adoption, education, implementation, training, follow-up and constant support that Dash Venezuela, the allied communities and other projects that make life in the country to companies, businesses, entrepreneurs and non-profit organizations.

You have tried to pigeonhole this team with other groups that have committed faults, minimizing our work that you may not see, but that the constant support of the Master Nodes endorses.

We do not see in the region, nor particularly in Colombia, a development in blockchain and crypto formation, in the commercial actions of any crypto, as we achieve Dash communities in Venezuela LONG AND WIDE of the Venezuelan territory. That should be your main concern, instead of trying to "replace" the effort of a whole team that has given great and unprecedented results as Dash Venezuela and all its allied communities have given.

It has been our best practices and our decentralizing spirit that has resulted in the constant call of other enthusiasts who, outside of Venezuela, approach us to advise them by promoting exchanges of experiences and knowledge that even at the beginning you take advantage of.

Your proposal could generate administrative and criminal penalties

In Venezuela there is a government institution called Superintendence of Cryptoactives and Related Activities (Sunacrip), which regulates, licenses, permits, promotes, coordinates and supervises the use of activities related to cryptoactives, which by the way, is the only organization of this type in the world. REMITTANCES are a subject regulated by the economic entities of the State, in charge of the exchange control and particularly in the case of the cryptos, by the Sunacrip. This activity is legal, under certain parameters, otherwise, as established by law, there are ADMINISTRATIVES SANCTIONS such as temporary closures or prohibition to operate commercially, PECUNARY FINES against your property and even SANCIONES PENALES such as imprisonment.

It is clear that you and the team you represent have not studied the legal regulations that apply to crypto in our country, if you did, you would know that you have to register as a natural or legal person and apply for licenses and permits to do this or any other type of crypto activity in Venezuela. You would know that to date there is only one company authorized by the State to do so. And you would know that in Venezuela the sanctions as established by law, DO NOT PRESCRIBE.

I suggest that you review the viability and pertinence of proposing a project for which you have inadequately reported and that puts at risk the work and commitment, not only of Dash Venezuela and all the communities that live here, but also the effort and investment of the masternodes owners who have supported the Venezuelan project, but especially, you are willing to put at risk the integrity and security of all those who represent Dash in the country.

We are a block of talented leaders who love our country

We are struck by the promise of "saving people" from a country with a market full of regulations, based on political news that we all know, many times are not true, a country that YOU DO NOT KNOW, and finally, and more serious still, to base its promises on a change of government without knowing the consequences that this could derive in our society.

Work without solid bases that endorse the project without knowledge of the Venezuelan regulations, making promises about events that have not happened, subtracting merit to teams and communities that have worked hard, with concrete and auditable results for almost two years, wanting to look like unifying and saving project of LatinAmerica, definitely, is not the most ethical way to work. If it were not for the positive reports you have presented of your project, we would say that this is simple OPPORTUNISM.

Around the world many people have been moved by the social and economic political events that Venezuela is facing and have taken advantage of possible help to alleviate these situations, however, unlike you, thousands of these people are respectful of the professional abilities of Venezuelans who have bet on the country and have the theoretical and practical knowledge to develop high quality projects such as the one developed by Dash Venezuela and all the communities allied to this project

I do not want to say goodbye without sending you the invitation to meet and be received by Dash Venezuela, the Dash communities, and the at least 10 owners of projects approved by the DAO in our country and that you know of the experience, adoption and usability that Dash has in Venezuela.

I contend that this comment from @JahlexisTafari is an inappropriate attack on this proposal and enforces the fact that Dash Venezuela has failed to achieve its goals. Dash Venezuela has apologized for ignoring the pleas of MNOs to appear and report on its activities. Dash Venezuela has "assumed full responsibility" for the "delay" in reporting appropriately to DashWatch, however, other than saying this, has done nothing new. These are the failures Dash Venezuela admits to.

While it is true that the DAO has received some value for its investment in Dash Venezuela, I believe that much of that investment has been squandered. I have seen evidence that demonstrates that there are not as many merchants that accept Dash in Venezuela as has been reported. I have also seen evidence that the communities in the "network of alliances" built by Dash Venezuela have been ignored by the home office. Some of these communities are eager to work with George in this proposal. Dash Venezuela has not properly reported the number of employees it has maintained, and has not provided sufficient reasoning for maintaining such a costly infrastucture. Please review their latest report from dashwatch here: https://dashwatch.org/files/1548395884077.pdf

I support this proposal from George Donnelly. I have reviewed evidence that George is working with people in Venezuela today. Much of George's efforts in Venezuela have been the ground work for this proposal and have yet to receive any funding. I believe that it is time for the DAO to make a better investment in Venezuela and this is a great opportunity to do so.

JahlexisTafari

Please see George's reply to Junior, above. I think that addresses your criticisms. I don't think George is denying that there have been great things done in Venezuela. We are faced with very very difficult decisions due to the severe budget constraints. I wish our budget was 10x the current size and we could fund everything. Unfortunately, we don't have that luxury at the moment.

Respectfully, solarguy

To proposal owner : since this is a rather ambitious project you are undertaking with a multi-term period, would it be possible to implement escrow into your proposal ? Your thoughts please...

Thanks for your question. I welcome ideas, questions, requests and suggestions of all types. If there is an escrow provider interested in working on this, I am interested to hear what they can offer me.

That said, if I should fail the network in some decisive way, the DAO has shown itself fully capable of moving proposals from the top of the list to the bottom in a matter of days. Our governance system is fully capable of ending bad proposals within 1 cycle.

And the first month is going to involve trial and error anyway. We, the now considerable team I have recruited and trained for the DAO at no additional cost, have an action plan, but once you implement any plan, things change. You discover new opportunities. You learn you were wrong about X and doubly right about Y. And this is normal. I am not progressing through some pre-established process here, such as levels in a video game, paperwork for a government license or grades in a school.

I am venturing out into the unknown and creating value for the DAO where it did not previously exist. This is an inherently creative process that requires great flexibility of mind and action. Escrow introduces an additional and inflexible variable that could actually harm the project, not to mention serving as a brake.

What's more, in order to make interesting results happen for the DAO, I must take on personal commitments to people for compensation and other resources. Without doing so, I am unable to get the results we need. Should escrow interfere with my ability to fulfill the commitments I make in the name of the DAO, then we will have sullied the sterling reputation I have built for myself/Dash (because we are in this together) in Latam so far.

Further, I am doing this in Venezuela, a nation in hyperinflationary crisis where the prices of things can change from one day to the next, a nation where the DAO has made significant investments, investments which are now at risk due to no fault of mine, but which I am attempting to not just save, but leverage for meaningful growth.

Finally, I am not a new person. I have been producing standout results for the DAO for 8 months in this same area of the world while providing exemplary transparency to Dash Watch.

George keeps me interested in Dash. Proposals like this are what make me log onto my account and feel the need to get involved. This is how we win. Great work George and I wish you all the best! You are killing it out there!
-Dash Bus Blake-

Thanks Blake, much appreciated.

This is an ambitious proposal from a proven efficient team. George is very good at strategy and problem solving. The time is past for nice ideas and talking about adoption, and anything else that does not produce a real jump in transactions. Dash needs real world use and adoption. And he will give you the transparent and obvious metrics to see that progress. I believe his method of reporting will set a new standard for props. At a great price I might add.

Full disclosure, I played a modest role in designing this proposal.

solarguy

Thanks for your support, solarguy, and for your ideas and guidance.

@george this has become alarming and concerning, you have multiple concurrent proposals for 1000's of dash with no escrow, and not much history

Thank you for your comment. Let us be factual:

- "1000's of dash" is not a true statement.
- "not much history" is not a true statement.

What active projects do I have in motion for the DAO?

- Dash Colombia, now #3 globally in merchants and active wallet installs for (often considerably) less than USD$14,000 per month.
- Dash Retail, essential software for expanding the digital cash vision from which I draw zero compensation, which has already produced an AWS-hosted POS software (not developed by us) available to use globally (https://pos.pagacondash.com) (soon with transaction tracking) and a more robust Dash exchange rate server.
- Dash Latam, which received 1 x 87 dash in funding and got us into Sao Paulo, Bogotá, Bucaramanga, Cúcuta and potentially Lima and Quito, and from which I drew zero compensation.
- Dash Venezuela Remittances, from which I draw zero compensation and which leverages the first 3 proposals to save the DAO time and money.

All of this while providing exemplary transparency to Dash Watch, including monthly reports, video, photos, direct always-on access to my accounting and a 90-minute interview.

How much money has George received from the DAO?

Jun Jul Aug 2018 3 x 22 dash = 66 dash
Sep Oct Nov Dec 4 x 59 dash = 236 dash
Sep (Dash Latam) = 87 dash
Jan Feb 2 x 179 dash = 358 dash
Feb (Dash Retail) = 129 dash

Grand Total: 876 dash

Why are so many eggs in George's basket?

Dealing with the DAO is very challenging both to get approval and to maintain a stable working situation. It is simply a fact that this discourages many (not that I recommend changing anything).

Challenging to get approval because you have to pay 5 dash and create stunning proposals, or else you will fail. Challenging because the potential proposal owners overwhelmingly do not speak the same language as the decision-makers. Challenging because transparency requires a lot of paperwork and care.

Challenging to maintain a stable working situation because proposal owners have families and working for the DAO is risky. You can lose funding, your funding can decrease in value. Crypto is a new industry where anything can happen. We are at the bottom of a bear market where enthusiasm can be scarce.

You will not see "the creation of new Dash leaders" as a line item in my budgets but that is what I do every day. I have at least 11 very solid individuals in training working for the DAO as part of my proposals who will one day have their own proposals and/or play leading roles in the Dash Latam ecosystem. But the one only one willing/able to take on a project like this at this time is me.

If the DAO has some other leader who is willing and able to do what I do, by all means, let us bring him on board. I started off months ago thinking I would be small fry in this community.

I did not seek all of this responsibility, but I will not shirk it either. All I can do is the best job I am capable of, which includes creating new visions, relationships, projects and results for the DAO.

What the DAO does with that is outside of my power.

@georgedonnelly you may want to consider recalculating for ibstance you missed your stopgap funding request.

Thank you

MrHack, thanks for your comment. You are once again incorrect, I am afraid, as the numbers above do indeed include the stopgap funding.

Jan Feb 2 x 179 dash = 358 dash

That 179 is the 6x59 proposal's final 2 remaining months + the stopgap 2x120. 59+120 =179.

Happy to answer any other questions you might have.

Would escrow resolve your qualms? Somebody has to pick up the slack in Latin America. It would be a shame to waste all that momentum. You want more transactions and real world use? George can deliver that, and provide "best in class" reporting and metrics. Solarguy

You said the same about eugenia and vz before,

Eugenia provided demonstrable results did she not? Now we are faced with the extremely unfortunate choice imposed on us by the very skinny budget. How to best leverage those results going forward......
solarguy

You are evading his question, would escrow resolve your problem with this budget propsal ?

Qwizzie, i concede escrow wont make a difference in this case, however slowing the cart a little would allow a greater deal of MNO to see the operations of dash-latam interally, and make an informed decison

Considering george has three existing paying proposal, it seems we are putting our eggs in one basket situation again.

Where one party steps up and is willing to go across the whole world and back, and we know how that ends in the past..

I like the work george is doing and how he is going on about it, my concern primarily is he may be biting of more than he can chew.

Thank you

I suppose the answer to your question about escrow is multi-fauceted and not as black and white as we hope thr escrow inter alia, have to be sttuctured in a fashion to assist the PO and maximize roi for DASH.

Just vote no with your imaginary masternodes, and stop concern trolling.

Or you can vote with your REAL nodes for bs, great intellectual abilities there kiwi.

Cheers I will, got to admit that your concern trolling is so predicable now and you get in early to ensure that you are at the top of the page. Got to give credit where credit is due....lol.

And a bit over ambitious*