Portfolio update

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I recently joined the Dash Retreat 2023 in Salt Lake City and gave a presentation on the state of affairs at the DIF. If you weren’t there, here is a recording:

It begins with a quick recap of the reasons for establishing the DIF, its early history and organizational structure. For everybody following us for a while, the more interesting part starts around 10:50 min – an update on our assets.

Maya Liquidity Pool

We helped kickstart the Dash liquidity pool on the Maya network on Sep 20, which absorbed the majority of our liquid assets. The funding transaction is here:
https://www.mayascan.org/tx/869A2B12B31B107C45DB31F105FB0A08E414963E92E098CED634AD0D32C07A79

Since then we rode up the phenomenal price increase of the CACAO token, which went from ca. $0.10 at the time of our funding to $0.93 as of today. Because of the way liquidity pooling works and since Dash itself didn’t see quite the same rise, the Dash side of our pool went from 950 to 2532 Dash to keep the total value balanced. As of writing this, our funds on the Maya chain are worth about $174k:
https://www.mayascan.org/address/maya1wkqtc78fwgpdne3janvyay8gywhn9yy0gs0mgq

That’s an excellent result so far, but keep in mind that this is a very volatile market and the numbers could easily reverse just as quickly. There is also not a very liquid market for CACAO, so even trying to cash out would likely incur significant slippage. Since the DIF is not in the trading business, we’re looking at this as providing a service to the Dash network and will keep the pool going in the foreseeable future.

Investment Portfolio

Here is the overview table from the video at 36:47 min:

InvestmentsAt cost (USD)Estimated
88i392,053640,000
Bitfy150,000150,000
Coinroutes149,973149,973
CrayPay / Ionia300,0151,760,000
Crowdnode11
CTX11
Edge Wallet300,000300,000
Quadency100,000100,000
Ready Raider50,0000
Valkyrie100,000167,000
Total1,542,0423,266,975

I’m going over several of these listings in detail in my presentation, especially those where we observed updated valuations in later financing events that allow us to provide a more up to date estimate of our own share value. I’m not going to repeat everything here, if you want to know the details, including if and how we may divest from Ionia and Valkyrie and much more, please watch the video.

Suffice to say at this point, the estimated total value of our assets as of my September presentation is about $3.35 million. Compared to the current USD value of all the Dash we have ever collected from the treasury of a bit over $400k, this represents a growth of over 8 times.

Again a word of caution, this is unrealized gain. At what value we will actually be able to exit our holdings remains to be seen and it could differ significantly from the numbers presented here. In any case, we are proud of our achievement so far and have all reason to be optimistic about 2024!

Supervisor Election Results

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After a long delay, the DIF Supervisor election finally concluded at the end of February. We had four candidates running for (re)election. We used the DAO proposal system for the election, so each candidate had an application page on Dash Central:

The voting cycle ended with superblock 1827760, the voting deadline for which was on Feb 21. The deadline is important because Dash Central keeps tallying votes even after the deadline passed. Some votes did come in late and show up on DashCentral, but didn’t affect the results as mined in the superblock. MNOwatch is a better source for the results: https://mnowatch.org/leaderboard/analysis/?20230221223001

All four candidates had a net-positive vote count and were therefore confirmed as supervisors:

Sven446
Jared375
Justin271
Rodrigo234
Vote results of 2023 supervisor election

As explained in our Call for Applications, Michael had a two-year term and and will remain on the supervisor board for another year. The top three candidates – Sven, Jared and Justin – won a two-year term this time around, while Michael and Rodrigo will stand for re-election next year if they choose to run again.

In the run-up to the election there was apparently some controversy regarding our request for 2 Dash fee reimbursement. I already addressed it in the Dash Forum at the time and as it turns out, my reasoning applied. Even though it looks on Dash Central, due to late-vote counting, as if two candidates broke the 10% threshold, in reality only one candidate did and triggered a payment, as can be seen on any block explorer. The treasury payout transaction ID is f8690dfa5f5ee5fa98a50e750a9833fa583fdb4dc49ebb4e7a818cf93de75077, here it is in block 1827760: https://chainz.cryptoid.info/dash/tx.dws?47264970.htm. The DIF payout address is Xvwp4u7CRZpzoU7ryk2Q66Jgo92ejCvb3K. So we paid 4 Dash in proposal fees and received 2 Dash in reimbursements for a net loss of 2 Dash. I don’t think anyone can complain about the DIF trying to profit from the decision proposals this way.

Congratulations to the new supervisors and welcome on board!

Election, Take 2

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I know many of you have been wondering what we’ve been up to lately. You probably noticed we haven’t posted a funding request in a long time. And in August, we called for supervisor applications, but as of today, no new supervisors have been added to the board. What happened?

Funding Requests

We decided to suspend funding requests after the Dash price dropped to the $50 range last year. We felt at that price it would simply take too long to accumulate a significant investment fund. We also don’t want to add additional sell pressure to the Dash market. Since we’re holding our liquid funds typically roughly in a 70:30 split, we would have to sell a large amount of Dash into the bear market.

We realize that in reality the sell pressure is not much reduced due to our stepping back because the budget is typically taken up and mostly sold to fiat by other proposals. DCG is standing out among those and as far as the DIF is concerned, that’s fine. Before DCG started posting supplemental proposals, I had a call with Quantumexplorer to discuss the DIF leaving more room in the budget for DCG. We didn’t need much convincing. There are a few voices who say DCG should cut more, even stop work on Platform. To say it with Steve Jobs: “The cure for Apple is not cost-cutting. The cure for Apple is to innovate its way out of its current predicament.” Just swap Apple for Dash. Having funds left for investments is a luxury that we can’t currently afford. We want to see Platform released. We want to see the developers work full steam ahead. We don’t want to see more layoffs mere yards from the finish line.

Supervisor Election

Unfortunately, our call for applications in didn’t yield enough candidates. We extended the deadline in September, but even so, we had to figure out how to deal with a situation where the number of candidates does not exceed the number of available slots. An election wouldn’t make much sense if every candidate is guaranteed a slot.

At the same time, without fresh funds to invest, we reduced our meeting schedule to once per month, which means slower decision-making.

Ash and Glenn also chose not to extend their terms beyond the original election time frame. Both resigned in October. Glenn took on a new job where he had a potential conflict of interest and Ash needed more focus on his own company CTX. We parted on very good terms, but the added workload on the remaining supervisors (Sven, Rodrigo, Michael), who all already have other external priorities and commitments, and then the holiday season led to more delay.

However, we still want to fill the open supervisor slots and so we’re having a second go at it and decided to change the election method. We plan to hold a DAO proposal-based election counting both Yes and No votes. The treasury 10% threshold rule for funding proposals will not apply. The simple balance of Yes minus No votes determines the election result for each candidate. Candidates with negative balance are not elected and the slot will remain vacant for the time being. This adds transparency and gives the community a say over which candidates become supervisors (basically a veto right) and gives us a vote ranking to determine next year’s two-year vs. one-year terms.

You will see these proposals, one for each candidate, posted to the DAO in the next few days. As it looks, we will have two existing supervisors standing for re-election and two new candidates. Michael was elected for a two-year term, so he will extend automatically.

Funds are Safu

Some people were asking about our assets, since you haven’t heard from us for a while. We will publish an annual report for 2022 in a separate post. For now, I’ll just say that almost all of our funds are invested in equity, so we have only limited exposure to the whims of the crypto market. At least two of our investments have developed very well and our portfolio looks strong. More to come.

DIF Supervisor Election 2022 – Call for Applications

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With a little bit of delay, the 2022 election is finally underway! We encourage anyone interested in running as DIF Supervisor to apply here:

https://forms.gle/ut8MetXHJfDhPTPo9

Some background:

Supervisor Terms

In June last year, before the 2021 election, the previous set of supervisors agreed to change the term rules stipulated in the DIF constitution to apply to the 2021 incoming and all future supervisors.

Since the DIF handles a portfolio of significant investments, it is important to have a certain continuity in its management. Previous election rules allowed for a complete turnover of all supervisors at once. That such a situation isn’t too far-fetched was shown months later by the recent Trust Protector election with a nearly complete replacement of all previous TPs. For the DIF, such a cut would have severe detrimental consequences. Established communications with portfolio companies, knowledge of the history and background of previous pitches and decisions, up to the managing of our tech infrastructure would be affected.

To mitigate this risk, the DIF decided that the three supervisors who received the most approval votes will be appointed for two-year terms. All other successful candidates would be appointed for one-year terms as before.

The original vote tally of the 2021 election happened on the Dash Watch website, which unfortunately is no longer in operation. However, the results can still be confirmed on various other sites that reported on it, e.g. here. They were:

Candidate Results
Darren Tapp 217
Michael Lewis 203
Glenn Austin 195
Rodrigo Ambrissi 194
Sven Rossbach 155
Ash Francis 151
Hytham Abdel-Karim 109
name3 49
2021 DIF Supervisor election results

That means Darren, Michael and Glenn would automatically have their term extended for another year and their seats would not be up for re-election. Why “would”?

Darren Tapp Not Extending

Darren informed the other supervisors that he does not intend to continue his supervisor role and therefore the election should fill his seat. Due to his upcoming wedding and a shift of personal priorities, he feels he wouldn’t be able to contribute to the DIF anymore in the way this position requires.

As anyone who followed the DIF would know, Darren has been instrumental in shaping the DIF from early on. For much of his term, he acted as the chairman of the supervisor board – organizing meetings and being our spokesperson in public. Darren relinquished this responsibility a few months ago already, so his decision isn’t coming entirely out of the blue.

We thank him for his work and hope he will remain a valuable member of the Dash community for many years to come.

That means four seats are now available to be filled in the upcoming election – those of Darren, Rodrigo, Sven and Ash.

Election Platform and Process

In the wake of the Dash Watch closure, we also had to find a new way to conduct this election. The choice was between getting our hands on the software that Dash Watch had been using and setting up our own site for voting with it, and using the DAO treasury system.

We discussed the pros and cons in the Dash Forum and, also based on community feedback on Telegram and Discord, decided to use DAO proposals as a new tool.

No “No” Votes

While DAO proposals allow for a new feature – voting “No” and “Abstain” – we decided against using it for three reasons:

  1. Our constitution clearly calls for an “approval-style election”.
  2. Allowing “No” votes is likely to lead to an awkward situation where the election winners all have negative votes. Imagine three candidates, A, B and C, and 100 voters. 60% prefer A, 30% prefer B, and 10% prefer C. Every voter votes Yes on their preferred candidate and No on the other two. Clearly, A should win with an absolute majority. But if “No” votes were allowed, A received 60 Yes and 2×40 = 80 No for a final tally of -20 votes. The other candidates look even worse. Winning an election with a negative vote count didn’t seem right to us.
  3. We wanted to change the tool, not the process. Previous elections have always been based on Yes votes only, just like any other major election in the world, and that process seemed agreeable to everyone.

Therefore, please do not vote “No” or “Abstain”! Your vote would be wasted. The four candidates with the most “Yes” votes will be elected.

Schedule

We’re aiming to conduct the election at the next budget cycle ending with superblock 1,744,680 near the end of September 2022. Candidate proposals will be posted on Dash Central as soon as the current budget cycle ends around Aug 27 (depending on your time zone). While we can post additional candidate profiles for voting during the budget cycle, we encourage you to submit your application early to maximize your chances.

  • 2022-08-27 Soft deadline for application submissions
  • 2022-08-29 Candidate profiles posted as treasury proposals, vote collection opens
  • 2022-09-26 (approx.) Voting ends

If you have any further questions about the role or the election process, please comment here or on the election thread in the forum. We’re looking forward to your applications and wish all candidates the best of success!

Investment News – Valkyrie, Edge, Ionia

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Time for an update on the recent goings-on at the DIF!

Market Conditions

The DIF receives funding from Dash treasury proposals in Dash. Since our equity investments are typically denominated and transacted in fiat currency, we need to liquidate this funding to USD and potentially EUR or other fiat currencies. Rather than selling large chunks of Dash at once, incurring slippage and being at the mercy of the Dash price at the moment of investment, we liquidate Dash in normal operations through a bot that sells little by little over time in frequently adjusted limit orders aiming to maintain a roughly 70:30 USD:Dash balance. Any investor familiar with the concept of dollar-cost averaging (DCA) will recognize this as basically the reverse.

Unfortunately, we’re facing a market situation that supervisors felt does not allow us to actively pursue new equity investments. Our treasury funding at the current Dash prices does not bring in enough USD to build up a large enough fund for future investments in a reasonable time. So we’d rather let the DIF lay dormant for a few months and sit out the bear market. Not selling off Dash during this time also takes a bit of sell pressure off the market although the effect on price will be negligible. We’ll start liquidating Dash for USD again once we get more bang for the buck. Or rather, more buck for the Dash. 🙂

Valkyrie

At our weekly meeting on May 24, we decided to move most of our Dash holdings into the Valkyrie Trust.

In addition, since we don’t need USD readily available for investments as explained above, we decided to also move some of our USD funds from our bank account to the Valkyrie Dash Trust, save for a reserve to cover standing commitments. This is actually resulting in us buying Dash, which is probably welcome news to the community, but again, the price effect will be negligible. It is simply a consequence of Valkyrie holding Dash, not USD.

This process is underway. Our Valkyrie trust account is set up and verified and we’re currently consolidating funds from the various sources. This is taking a while since our setup doesn’t allow individual supervisors to move funds. All in all, we expect to move ~3500 Dash into the trust.

This is a nice chunk of change and a strong signal of support, but more funding is needed to maintain the Valkyrie Dash Trust as a viable financial product. The availability of a traditional investment vehicle is a great advantage for Dash and we encourage the community to help out by storing more of your Dash in the trust.

Edge

As many of you have already heard by now from our press release, Edge was the “TBA investment” listed our last reported balance sheet. Yes, we closed the deal last year already and have been unable to share the news until now due to an NDA and news embargo. We’re very excited about this one as the deal brings Dash Direct functionality to a multi-coin wallet and thereby exposes a significant non-Dash user base to our features.

We recorded an interview with Paul Puey at La BitConf last November:

Watch Paul describe the fascinating concept of crypto investment going in reverse (2:43), Bitcoin companies as “trad-fi” (traditional finance), and promise to support Dash user names (5:10).

Ionia

We recently received an update to our investment in Ionia, previously known as CrayPay. You all know them as the company behind Dash Direct.

Following standard accounting practice for long-term equity investments, we carry our investments on our balance sheet on a cost basis, even if we have reason to believe that the current value of our shares may be substantially higher.

Do we have reason to believe? You bet!

Our initial investments in Ionia were in the form of convertible debt notes. Ionia recently completed a Series Seed round of $2.5m at a $25m pre-money valuation. We also participated in this seed round itself and the round triggered the conversion of all convertible notes into equity. How did we do?

Investment TrancheAmount invested, USDInterest accrued, USDConversion share price, USD# of sharesValue at series seed valuation, USD
Convertible note, Dec 23, 2020100,00011,484.934.9522,520557,370
Convertible note, Jul 28, 2021100,0006,728.7712.388,623213,419
Equity Series Seed100,00024.754,041100,000
Totals300,00035,184870,804
Some values don’t add up exactly because no fractional shares were allowed, so there are a few dollars “left over”.

We almost tripled our investment so far! Not a bad beginning and we hope Ionia’s trajectory and growth will lead to further increases in valuation. Still, a word of caution: We’ve all seen in the last few days how quickly markets can turn and how unforeseen problems (e.g. with the card-issuing bank) can arise. A sustained bear market, with people less willing to spend their crypto at such low prices, will certainly also affect Ionia’s business model. We have full trust in Ionia’s team’s ability to find creative solutions, but we will be as conservative as possible in reporting higher valuations in our upcoming quarterly statements.

Ready Raider

As these things go, no light without shadow. Ready Raider was the DIF’s first investment. At the time, investments and funding for them were still individually approved by the DAO. The investment is still carried on our books at a $47k value (cost method, as described above), but we have recently become concerned that the site looks abandoned. The last event listed was in March 2021. We have reached out to the founding team to get a clearer picture of the situation and any potential future plans.

Dash Investment Foundation Newsletter Feb 2022

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Formed in 2019, the Dash Investment Foundation (DIF) supports the growth of the Dash Network by enabling enforceable legal and financial arrangements between the Dash DAO and traditional businesses seeking funding from the network. The DIF can hold assets on behalf of the network and redeploy profits into additional growth-oriented projects. As such, the Dash Investment Foundation is the world’s first ownerless and memberless investment fund. The DIF was incorporated on March 21st, 2019 as a Cayman Islands foundation company limited by guarantee and is completely controlled by Dash’s decentralized network. Read more about the Dash Network at dash.org and the Dash Investment Foundation at dashinvests.org.

Investment News

CoinRoutes

The DIF is excited to announce its investment of $149,973 in CoinRoutes. CoinRoutes provides advanced algorithmic trading software for traders, agency and OTC desks, as well as investment managers. The focus is on pulling real-time, full-depth order books from all major exchanges to minimize slippage while trading. The offering was oversubscribed, and the DIF was happy to participate in the round. Additionally, the DIF is looking forward to partnering with CoinRoutes as it rolls out new products related to spot and derivative trading in the near future.

RUNE Token Purchase (THORChain)

In Q4, the DIF completed an investment of $100,000 in RUNE, the native settlement token of the THORChain DEX. This investment will seed a yield-bearing liquidity pool in anticipation of a pending DASH/RUNE pairing. Like all new assets, DASH will be added provisionally at first, THORChain users can then “vote” with their liquidity to make provisional assets permanent. By contributing a significant sum toward the initial liquidity pool, which requires staking both DASH and RUNE in proportion, the DIF helps ensure DASH is swiftly migrated from provisional to fully-supported asset. Technical integration is provided by the Dash Incubator. Stay tuned for DASH availability on THORChain.

THORChain is a decentralized exchange protocol that will provide a convenient on- and off-ramp for Dash by allowing for trustless and KYC-free swaps between any supported blockchain and yield earnings from native assets for liquidity providers. It aims to bind all cryptocurrencies together with an accessible, secure, and lightning-fast bridging protocol. At its core, THORChain is a cross-chain liquidity network. Future plans for THORChain include synths, composites, lending, leveraged trading, and more.

TBA Investment

In Q4, the DIF invested $300,000 in a company yet to be announced. Stay tuned!
Other News

Valkyrie Dash Trust and Valkyrie advancement

The Valkyrie Dash Trust investment vehicle is live. The Dash Investment Foundation was happy to support the launch of the fund. Today, trust shares are available for accredited investors globally. Funding can be performed via USD wire or directly with DASH. To invest or for general inquiries, please contact [email protected]. Please be on the lookout for a planned Valkyrie podcast and also a chance to discuss the Dash Trust one-on-one with a DIF volunteer.

Dash Wallet + DashDirect

DashDirect is a white-labeled version of CrayPay’s instant savings mobile application and the result of a successful collaboration between CrayPay, Dash Core Group, and investment funding provided by the Dash Investment Foundation. The rollout was smooth and quite popular, enabling quick and painless spending of DASH, at a discount, at over 155,000 retail locations and 75+ national US retailer websites. The Dash Core Group further enhanced this relationship by streamlining the interaction between the DashDirect and the Dash Wallet apps through the wallet’s newly released Explore feature. This collaboration highlights how a relationship can mature and enable additional value to the community.

That’s all for now. Stay tuned (subscribe!) for more news from the Dash Investment Foundation. Thank you.

Dash Investment Foundation Newsletter Sep 2021

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Investment News

Valkyrie Dash Trust Launch

The Valkyrie Dash Trust investment vehicle has launched. The Dash Investment Foundation (DIF) was happy to support them for the launch of the fund. Future plans include enabling masternode rewards shared with Valkyrie Dash Trust shareholders. Today, trust shares are available for accredited investors. Funding options include USD wire or directly with DASH. To invest, or for general inquiries, please contact [email protected].

Bitfy DIF Investment & Dash Integration

In Q2, the DIF invested $150,000 in a company that, at the time, remained to-be-announced. That company was Bitfy. Bitfy allows users to buy, sell, and swap crypto. Additionally, Bitfy enables users to spend DASH at any of the 1.5 million merchants using Cielo’s Point of Sale machine. We hope this integration will encourage more DASH use cases in Brazil.

88i DIF Investment

Also in Q2, the DIF invested in 88i. 88i offers a microinsurance product to Brazilians. For example, 88i could issue an insurance policy to an Uber driver that exists only for the duration of a ride. Due to its extremely fast network, Dash Platform enables real-time registration of microinsurance policies. The entire contents of a policy can be recorded via Dash Platform, thus enabling verification and settlement in real-time.

Blockchain represents a core component of the suite of technologies that enable fast, frictionless, digital insurance. Blockchain technology uniquely provides traceability, intelligence, real-time application, and lowered costs. These features combine to streamline processes and eliminate fraud—fundamental to both insurance providers and their customers. To provide these features 88i is expected to leverage Dash Platform.

Quote from Darren: “Supervisors were impressed with the quality of 88i as a business. Investor updates since DIF investment continue to provide strong evidence that 88i is an outstanding and growing business.”

CTX.com Equity

CTX.com (formerly Dash Retail) issued equity to the DIF from both of its UK and Canadian corporate entities. CTX offers merchant payment-processing services and is expanding to provide fiat on- and off-ramps for consumers. DashDirect, another DIF portfolio company, uses CTX to power its payment processing.

Quadency Code for Lifetime 50% Off

Quandency crypto-asset management platform is issuing a lifetime discount of 50%. The discount offer code: [REDACTED Newsletter Subscribers only]

Interview with New Supervisors

Other News

DIF Chairperson & Vice-Chairperson

The DIF Supervisors unanimously elected Darren Tapp as our chairperson for 2021/2022. His assumption of this role has already proved vital. Darren serves as an identifiable and clear point-of-contact for potential investments. He arranges, sets the agenda, and manages our regular meetings, and performs other management functions. Sven Rossbach was elected as vice-chairperson. In addition to his vice-chair duties, Sven is working to improve the DIF vision, mission, and processes.

New Supervisors Onboarded

We have received confirmation from our director that our new supervisors have been appointed. Please extend a warm welcome to Glenn Austin, Ash Francis, and Sven Rossback.

Proofreader Appointed

As part of our ongoing communications efforts, we have appointed a proofreader and editor, Todd Warner. Todd will be responsible for reviewing our reports and newsletters before they are published.

Ryan Taylor Appointed as Advisor

Due to other obligations, Ryan Taylor elected not to run for a supervisory role. Instead, the newly elected supervisors offered Ryan the role of advisor. We are pleased to announce that Ryan has accepted the advisory role. As a DIF advisor, Ryan will not be empowered to vote, but will lend his expertise and be available to supervisors for questions. This appointment also provides a bridge of continuity between previous and newly-elected supervisors.

New Supervisors Statements

Glenn Austin

“Obviously we’re not all coming from the same background. For example supervisors bring marketing, entertainment, finance, and technical skills. We bring very different perspectives when we evaluate these businesses. We really complement each other with our various strengths.”

Ash Francis

“I was thrilled to join the DIF and the calibre of investment opportunities already presented has been exemplary. I would also like to thank both Darren and Sven for their continued work on chairing and running many aspects of the DIF and improving our processes, respectively”

Sven Rossbach

“I’m very happy to see what type of companies approach us. I think in the future we might want to be a bit more pro-active and aproach potential targets according to a strategy that we drive.”

That’s all for this month’s newsletter. We look forward to sharing more ongoing news and updates with you every month.

Change of Process

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Dear MNO Community,

Over the first term of the Dash Investment Foundation, the previous round of supervisors made an operational decision that the current round of supervisors feel is ineffective in the way the DIF currently operates. Legally, the DIF supervisors have a fiduciary duty to the network and have operational control over the funds the DIF holds.

In the course of DIF business operations, DIF supervisors are meeting and discussing many sensitive and private topics with potential investment opportunities – topics which are necessary to assess the risks and opportunities that may result from an investment – and are at most times legally bound (e.g., under NDA) to not discuss the information shared.

Many community members express the frustration of being asked to weigh in on DIF investment opportunities through decision proposals without the benefit of full access to information. It is impossible for MNOs to effectively assess opportunities in this manner. We therefore feel that as representatives of the network entrusted with our roles as supervisors, we should act in the best interests of the network as intended.

In order to more streamline the operations within the DIF to be able to offer the network the best service in terms of directing investments toward the best opportunities, the current round of supervisors has taken a unanimous decision to discontinue seeking MNO approval for each individual investment decision. The DIF supervisors will instead exercise their responsibility to make investment decisions on behalf of the network, allowing the MNO community to continue to influence the operations of the DIF via the selection of the supervisors and funding proposals.

Seeking approval for each investment was well-intentioned. While we value decentralization, we also recognize that tasking the MNOs with decision making that could only be effective with information inaccessible to them makes little sense. We believe this new approach will result in better outcomes for the network we represent.

-DIF Supervisors

Welcome!

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Dash

Dash was established to be peer-to-peer cash. It allows transactions over the internet without a intermediary such as a bank or credit card. The hope is that, those currently undeserved by the banking sector could benefit from the service Dash provides. It is also hoped that those currently served by banks could save on fees by using Dash. By cutting out the middle man, Dash will provide more value to customer and merchant.

What Makes Dash Different?

Dash is modeled after the original bitcoin.

Dash:

  • completed research that allows it to keep fees low, even with significant network traffic.
  • diverts some of it’s mining reward to provide powerful nodes to the network.
  • will launch Dash platform which will support a more user centric experience and provide native apps.
  • diverts some of it’s mining reward to provide for funding of projects that advance that dash ecosystem.

This last bullet is what established the Dash DAO.

Dash DAO

Dash established the oldest operating Decentralized Autonomous Organization,
or DAO. That means that decisions can be made in a decentralized way as an organization.
Often decisions involve payouts that are to be used to carryout the DAOs decision.
Here are some examples of what the DAO is currently funding:

  • Dash Core Group — This pays for developers that develop the Dash client
    and other functions
  • Dash Platform Incubator– Provides bounties for deliverables on Dash Platform
  • Dash Newsroom– Provides an outlet for Dash related events and news.
  • Dash Mall and Parking– Showcases how Dash can be used to solve payment
    challenges in the real world. Skip long lines paying for parking at malls in
    Venezuela. This also encourages mall vendors to accept Dash.
  • Dash Nigeria — Encourages acceptance and partnerships providing Dash use cases
    in Nigeria.

However operating as a DAO provides challenges when interacting with traditional businesses. The Dash Investment Foundation was established to support the network’s growth by enabling enforceable legal and financial arrangements between the Dash DAO and traditional businesses.

Dash Investment Foundation

The Dash Investment Foundation is established as a legal entity. It can do all the things a person can do legally. For example, it can participate in contracts and courts, it has its own bank account.

Generally speaking, the DAO has provided grants to carry out specific projects. These projects are not expected to turn a profit or be self sustaining. Previously, this grant system has incentives that are out-of-whack when funding for profit businesses. It doesn’t really make sense to fund a project that will ultimately benefit one or a few owners. However, for profit companies can produce a long lasting impact for a infusion of startup capital. Much of the needed Dash infrastructure, e.g. exchanges, merchants, and point-of-sale soutions, are for profit.

In 2019 the inception document of the DIF was published. The DIF has been working since to establish itself as a thriving part of the Dash ecosystem.