[Passed] Authorization for Phoenix to disburse and allocate B&C Exchange funds

B&C Exchange
#1

Motion hash to place in the B&C Exchange client: cf6bbe0283ae44c842b8083cf605e658f9079548

This motion is stored on GitHub. To verify the RIPEMD-160 hash, the GitHub version should be copied using a RIPEMD-160 calculator like Browserling. When verifying, please ensure there is no white space before or after the body of the motion. The text is included below for convenience.

-----Begin Motion-----
Phoenix, which should be understood as a brand providing a variety of services for Nu, shall be paid 180 US-NBT per hour for work performed for B&C Exchange and invoiced to the Manager of Liquidity Operations for NuBits, effective as soon as this motion passes. The type of work invoiced for is at the discretion of Phoenix. The limitation is work must be calculated for the benefit of BlockShare holders. The nature of Phoenix’s role at B&C Exchange is to facilitate work as needed in other areas of endeavor, including, but not limited to, development or marketing.

Compensation of other people, contractors, companies and entities is at the discretion of Phoenix and arrangements can be made without specific shareholder involvement. This is designed to remove bureaucratic obstacles and permit nimble solution of shareholder problems.

All transactions will be publicly transparent. Most organizations do not publicly release information about which contractors are being paid what, for their privacy. Consistent with this common practice, we will not publicly release information identifying which contractor or entity receives particular payments. This still allows the quantity of funds remaining and funds spent to be publicly audited. However, both Phoenix and the Manager of Liquidity Operations will have complete information about who has received payments from funds under their control.

The Manager Of Liquidity Operations for NuBits shall hold BlockShare holder funds in the immediate term, which is expected to consist mostly of 237 million NSR initially (a separate motion on the Nu blockchain is expected to establish this shortly). BlockShare holders are encouraged to replace the Manager of Liquidity Operations for NuBits in this role as possessor of B&C Exchange funds with a multisig signer groups as soon as practical. Both the Manager Of Liquidity Operations for NuBits and any multisig groups appointed to replace him shall be subordinate to Phoenix in the matter of how funds are spent and allocated. Phoenix has full discretion in how to disburse, spend and allocate funds (such as to assets other than NSR). This discretion is expected to be restricted as the organization grows, but any restriction on Phoenix’s discretion in spending and allocation must be passed by BlockShare holder motion.

If a custodial grant is passed on the B&C Exchange blockchain, it shall be understood that the custodian of those funds shall be responsible to BlockShare holders for the allocation and spending of those funds. Phoenix will have no authority over how subsequent custodial grants to others are spent, unless the custodial grant contract specifically states Phoenix has authority.
-----End Motion-----

#2

Just going to repeat myself (as a BKS shareholder this time) that I believe reporting is good principle of good governance and will be underpinning the success of the business in the future. With Nushares motion I mentioned categories as an example for reporting methods. It can be just a simple monthly or bi-monthly post of what has been done or achieved for the money spend, not even asking for timesheeting. Is this really too much asked for?

4 Likes
#3

@Cybnate I support periodic reporting in greater detail.

When I first became Chief of Liquidity Operations for Nu more than a year ago, I stipulated that I would not be responsible for reporting beyond publicly exposing the addresses at which funds were held at and spent, which is a complete but very basic form of reporting available to the public. The reason for it is two fold: accounting isn’t a professional competency of mine and I don’t want to be obligated to spend the time on it. Remember, our spending was typically less than $10,000 per month, so given the very small scale I think the position is reasonable. In a passed motion at that time I encouraged shareholders to hire someone else to do this work. I honestly thought someone would step forward to offer more detailed reporting and accounting services for a fee, or that shareholders who wanted the reporting would recruit someone. That hasn’t happened yet. I will clarify I still support this for both Nu and B&C Exchange.

On the subject of publicly reporting the exact payments to each contractor and entity: there are a lot of benefits to that, we can agree. Contractors in general don’t like it, so it provides a disincentive for some contractors and entities to work with us. It is possible the policy may change in the future. I am not categorically opposed to that. However, I think our established approach of publicly reporting all transactions while keeping some details of those transactions available to 2 or 3 trusted people (currently myself and Esko) provides the right balance of accountability and contractor privacy right now.

It is just a question of who will provide extra accounting, define the details and the fee for that. Like marketing, I support it, but won’t be responsible for it, because it is outside my areas of core competency and interest. The time I can devote to Nu and B&C Exchange is very limited, and this takes time.

#4

How did Dash manage to recruit those contractors that turned the network into a multi billion dollar business? Every single transaction is transparent to its fullest detail. You hide contractor payments and built one of the tiniest networks existent as of today in the crypto space. Why not reconsider your approach?

#5

Demand for our product and the NuShare price is volatile, but has growth rates of about 1000% on an annual basis. That is a remarkable affirmation of what we are doing. We are not larger than we are because of the contraction caused by the multisig signer failure in June 2016, which contracted the share price and demand for our product by 80% to 90%.

I had no direct role or responsibility in the multisig signer failure, although I spoke very loudly and verbosely about what should have been done at the time. Events since then have made it very clear my advise was incredibly sound, but it is equally clear my advise was ignored by the majority of multisig signers.

#6

Could you please, @Phoenix ? We know the fairytale about multisig failure, it’s boring.

#7

@MaVo, Sigmike dislikes to expose his reward from programming for Nu/B&C. Is that right?

#8

I’ll support this motion because as far as I know other BKS shareholders did nothing contributed in the last year.

#9

If I remember correctly, @sigmike himself does not really have a problem with full transparency. There are two people having problems with transparency: @Phoenix aka @JordanLee and @jooize. @woolly_sammoth was fully transparent in one of our last discussions about contractor payments.

You support this motion because you don’t have a choice. Be honest to yourself. It doesn’t matter whether you own a dead project or one that is going to be revived and killed again. So why not vote for temporary revival?

#10

So why not vote for temporary revival? Just join me, I don’t care the power consumption of my minting rig.:grinning:

#11

This motion has a certain urgency to it, because it needs to pass so we can disburse funds for critical B&C Exchange work, like paying @sigmike for his development of the 6.0.0 fork. Therefore, I am finalizing it and commencing voting. Based on my communications with major shareholders, I am confident it will pass as is.

I have heard the dissent by several people who want more public accounting committed to. I strongly support this as well, just like I have consistently done in the context of the Nu network. However, I won’t commit to implementing the details myself and I believe the matter is best addressed in a separate motion. I won’t be raising or composing that motion, but I will certainly support a well written motion that addresses the desire for more detailed periodic accounting. The task is outside my core competency and I believe there are more fruitful activities for me to spend my own time on. If you aren’t willing to do anything yourself to make more detailed accounting happen, you don’t have much right to complain about the matter, in my view. Due to the decentralized nature of B&C Exchange, literally anyone can present a motion or custodial grant request to meet the need and be compensated for their work. There is good reason to think shareholders will support and fund a credible plan presented by a credible entity.

Please vote for this by entering hash cf6bbe0283ae44c842b8083cf605e658f9079548 in the Motion dialog on the Voting tan of your B&C Exchange client.

Despite the incredibly irresponsible destruction of the B&C development and marketing fund by Nu multisig signer in June 2016, I have managed to lead an effort to restore the fund. The restoration isn’t finalized yet, but I hope and expect it will be in a couple weeks, complete with about $400,000 in NuShares as funding. That is a larger development and marketing fund than B&C Exchange has ever had.

Things are really turning around for B&C Exchange. There is a long road ahead of us. B&C Exchange is certainly experimental blockchain technology. There is no reason to think its implementation will be either quick or smooth. We should expect setbacks going forward. I’m proud to be a part of such an innovative effort, even if more money could be made quickly by making a clone coin or a fluffy ICO with a slick and empty marketing campaign.

The multisig group failure in 2016 in the Nu network is certainly foreboding, given B&C Exchange’s utter dependence on multisig groups. Still, I believe it can be a success. Soon I will talk more about how we can mitigate the very substantial risks B&C faces as we implement.

#12

Those who would do the reporting will require full access to all details to be able to provide a meaningful report. Are you prepared to provide that to right person(s) with the assumption they don’t provide contractor details.
It is also likely that person would like to keep a level of anonymity at least towards the forum and other shareholders. This type of business is still in its legal infancy I would say. Would that be acceptable?

#13

Dear @jooize, do you know about BarterDEX?
https://www.supernet.org/en/resources/updates/tag:decentralized%20exchange

This is also a project of a decentralized exchange.
Does your project have advantages or qualitative differences? How do you win the race, if you only have one development team and little community, when the supernet team have a big strong development team and a huge community?

#14

The BarterDEX whitepaper states:

B&C Exchange is uniquely positioned to obtain liquidity from Nu, which has both the motive and means to provide tight spreads and reasonable depth on many pairs.

BarterDEX plans to use a 2 of 2 multisig transaction between the two trading parties. This implies that every trader will need to not only run a thick blockchain client for the DEX, but a blockchain client for every blockchain asset they wish to trade (Peercoin, Dash, Litecoin, etc). This is far from convenient or simple. In contrast, B&C Exchange will utilize a web client that will look and behave much like traditional cryptocurrency exchange web interfaces. Getting started as a trader only requires storing and securing a single private key, which is no more difficult than storing and securing a password on a traditional cryptocurrency exchange.

We have learned that a loosely connected community often works against the interests of stakeholders, as it tends to be mostly composed of individuals who either have no stake or a very small stake. The interests and motives of these individuals is frequently out of alignment with customers and stakeholders. Nu once had the fourth largest blockchain community, behind only Bitcoin, Litecoin and Ethereum. We thought the large community was a good thing. Time showed us it was clearly counterproductive. Tether’s market share is much larger than Nu’s, and part of the reason why is they didn’t have a community at all from what I can see. What is needed is stakeholders, professional contractors to implement, and partnerships. A forum community is not an asset, but a liability.

#15

Tether is a registered company that’s why they don’t need an online community while Nu is a DAO. An active and friendly community is helpful for us.

2 Likes
#16

This has passed, with over 70% support. Thank you for your confidence in my leadership.

Soon I will propose a motion to restore the B&C Exchange development and marketing fund in the amount of 237 million NuShares. We will use the fund to pay 2 C++ developers working in Vancouver, who will split their time between Nu and B&C Exchange.

As I reminder, any one is still welcome to play whatever paid role for B&C Exchange they believe BlockShare holders will support outside the context of what I am doing for B&C Exchange. Our protocol is still peer to peer, decentralized, and anyone can request a grant to provide a service. This passed motion specifies that anyone who receives a grant from BlockShare holders is accountable to BlockShare holders directly, and is not accountable to me. I would like to see others involved in this way.

2 Likes