Nu as a decentralized startup. Some questions

[cryptog]

Recently JL performed an auction of NSRs to get some new funding not only to support the peg but also to finance the development of Nu.

That reminded me of the fact that Nu is also a startup, somehow.

I would like to get an answer to the following questions ideally:

1- who are the current shareholders?
2- what is the current funding of Nu?
3- who are the employees of Nu (that receive a monthly salary)?
4- what would be the amount of the next round of funding needed, if any?

I guess the answer to 1- is “any owner of NSRs” .
So let me rephrase it as follows: to which extent the shares are distributed? to which extent is the decision-making power (the voting power) decentralized?
In other words, what is the distribution diagram of the shares?

I think it is very important to show the world (while proving it) that Nu’s voting is distributed and decentralized.
Not only we do not want to have a situation in which a handful of shareholders control the network from a democratic perspective but remember the security of the network (its trust-less, decentralized aspect) depends on the distribution of the minting power.

[creon]

In other words, what is the distribution diagram of the shares?

That’s not really measurable. There is an NSR rich list, which could be filtered by unique minting addresses, but it of course only knows about addresses and not wallets. Several top addresses usually also belong to exchanges and large holders tend to distribute their coins over several addresses, so I am personally not a fan of rich lists at all.

[irritant]

http://blockexplorer.nu/charts/solvedby a pie chart of the current voting

[cryptog]

Right it looks distributed but there is no guarantee that there is no single physical person owning plenty of minting addresses.

[cryptog]

Another very important question.

How much of the company was sold to investors?
Implying the need to define who are the founders and starting members.

Without wanting to point the finger to anybody, how much is owned by the starting members?
My understanding is they are jordan lee, desrever, sigmike, ben, and others (sorry if I did not mention your name) at least but I do not really know about the rest.
I think it is important to clarify that if Nu wants to become even more transparent.

I am following teeehe’s IPO and it clearly states:

–
This prospectus details the Initial Public Offering of Teehe.net. The Initial Public
Offering of over 20,000,000 shares representing 20% of the company.

Do we have the same in Nu?

[Cybnate]

I doubt you get answers as every shareholder appreciates their privacy. You are guessing who the founding members are, but even that is not clear and definitely not public information as far as I’m aware. Initially there was an unwritten rule that an individual wouldn’t be able to get more than 5m Shares. In the blockchain it became clear to me that there were Shareholders (likely founders) awarded with larger blocks than that, with at least one up to 30m. With the latest auction I suspect that there are more Shareholders with even a larger share than that. However as everyone is now splitting shares between different addresses and moving it around things are harder to follow.

Disclaimer: My guesses are all based on a combination of some blockchain analyses and probability analyses. So don’t trust me on it

[cryptog]

Tks for your guess.

Well I guess it is gonna be very difficult to know about that since Nu is a DAO (probably impossible) but beyond the mere question of who owns what, it is in fact the question of the network’s security that is important as I implied in the opening. If so is able to veto any motion vote by just minting and not putting the motion inside the votes, that would be not secure from a blockchain’s decentralization perspective and dictatorial from a management perspective.

[Cybnate]

I recognize your concerns about a small group of shareholders owning a significant number shares and working together basically running the network which is controverting Nu stands for. Not sure how to proof whether this is the case or not in a DAO like Nu. Even a statement from JL would need to be substantiated with proof of ownership of shares which Shareholders won’t be willing to provide. I’m afraid this is a not so great feature of POS and anonymous ownership.

[cryptog]

POS and anonymous ownership

Well I would argue we have the same with PoW and Bitcoin.
We do not know how much Roger Ver has exactly only some speculative estimation.
I am sure if Nu gets bigs that someone will take the time to really investigate and come up with a reliable estimation though

[Cybnate]

True, the tools are there (it is just the cost) and controversially we might actually consider start voting with multiple clients on different addresses at different times to prevent people from guessing ownership based on the voting profiles. I noticed that it is likely this is already happening with less interesting motions. The open source motion was great for research work as almost everyone eventually threw their shares in…

[cryptog]

The open source motion was great for research work as almost everyone eventually threw their shares in…

You mean you managed in a way to approximate the number of shares of each shareholder by seeing their immediate influence on the open source motion vote evolution?

[creon]

3- who are the employees of Nu (that receive a monthly salary)?

I don’t care about their salaries, but I would also like to know exact responsibilities, because I am never completely sure who to tag here in the forum if someone has a particular question.

[tomjoad]

who are the employees of Nu

but I would also like to know exact responsibilities, because I am never completely sure who to tag here in the forum if someone has a particular question.

It’s a minor point, but it should be clarified that the Nu network has no “employees”. There is no legal organizational structure or governance in place anywhere in the world for Nu. Rather, there are multiple “contributors” who help develop certain aspects of the network as their time allows.

The core team of contributors that I’m aware of are (and correct me if I’m wrong on any of them):

Architect - @JordanLee
Core Development - @sigmike, @erasmospunk
QA & Misc. - @Ben, @CoinGame, @pennybreaker
NuBot - @desrever, @benjyz, @woolly_sammoth
Communications/Marketing - @tomjoad

If so is able to veto any motion vote by just minting and not putting the motion inside the votes, that would be not secure from a blockchain’s decentralization perspective and dictatorial from a management perspective.

Jordan Lee was very strict with initial share distribution to ensure that the network was properly decentralized, to ensure both maximum robustness against seizure and optimal decision making by shareholders. I’m very confident that no one shareholder could veto a vote single-handedly. We aren’t the United Nations thankfully.

As mentioned in previous threads, it would be a severe breach of shareholder trust for Jordan to publish any data regarding share distribution that might identify individuals’ identities. As long as sufficient decentralization occurred in the initial distribution of shares (which appears to be the case), all the network really needs to care about is maintaining the peg of NuBits. NuShares can be valued on the open market according to a combination of factors - including future planned dividends, share buybacks, and overall network effects - and as such there is no need to identify individual shareholder data.