There are currently three public to do lists without a super clear idea of which will come first. If anyone wants to be added to the Swarm slack let me know or feel free to directly add issues to Github.

These places are:

https://github.com/citizencode/swarmbot/issues

Commands listed here:

https://github.com/citizencode/swarmbot/blob/master/src/bots/dco.coffee

Other to dos:

https://github.com/citizencode/swarmbot/blob/master/doc/scratch.md

I think I'd like to converge on github issues, but very open to putting together a coherent roadmap as well.

Some of the Swarm delegates will be maintaining and updating the previous code base and frontend.

Once the bot codebase is established I'll invite additional contributions, possibly as soon as next week.

https://github.com/citizencode/swarmbot/commits/master

Good progress today. Slackbot now includes possibility to interface with all existing DCOs.

Feel free to add or comment on existing github issues.

Inaccurate.

Here are the notes from the Swarm council that was held this morning https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qEOqkZGrYgw

Here are the minutes from the last several meetings:

https://discourse.swarm.fund/t/swarm-dco-minutes/245/1

Definitely not. Agents are gathering in the swarmroom to decide what to do next.

Is Swarm dead?



https://medium.com/@Swarm/meet-the-swarm-skeletons-83fb0627f438

That's a good idea.

Let's try to address that concern this week as we plan next steps.

I think the same principles apply that have always applied:

[1] SWARM holders will be able to choose new delegates after the present implementation cycle is complete.
[2] Value of the network and SWARM will be established as business value is established
[3] SWARM holders get the Swarm basic income as projects launch

Any other ideas?

Here is a set of updates in no particular order:

[1] I was always extremely interested in the possibilities of a fully developed smart contract platform. I only got seriously involved in Bitcoin/Blockchain after I read the Ethereum whitepaper and wrote several whitepapers immediately following, including this (https://github.com/fractastical/distributed-governance). I also co-ran the EtherCasts channel (https://www.youtube.com/user/EtherCasts) which continues to be active. I've advised several Ethereum related projects and always believe that the ultimate "swarm" would require some sort of smart contract capable platform.

[2] Although I initially made the decision to adopt Counterparty, I've been rather seriously disappointed with Counterparty as an option at several points in the history of our project. Although I created and curated several of the main channels, including both the main Skype and Dev skype channel and partially bootstrapped the Counterparty developer community via my own efforts, I was pretty disappointed with decisions made internally.

The primary problems we've had along these lines have been:

(a) Too much downtime and breaking changes released into the core protocol
(b) No consistently reliable APIs
(c) Weird decisions made re: initial Counterparty Foundation board
(d) Not enough efforts made to cultivate a positive developer community / too much hostility

Consequently, I decided not to run for the Counterparty board and I removed myself from the Counterparty promotional channels I created.

[3] I think in general we've had a larger problem with the legal sphere, particularly in the United States. In general, the crowdfunding projects we've been most excited about have been the most legally problematic, and we've spent a lot of time working on our own internal legal details around this DCO model. This has taken an enormous amount of time and been very frustrating. Among other things, we've had very favorable responses from other countries but have had an incredibly difficult time figuring out what we can do in the U.S.
 
[4] Although we've stayed away from the traditional venture pathways, we've started working with incubators that are very progressive on the blockchain front. These folks are taking an active interest in pushing together a better version of the software that is cross-chain compatible. To do so, we have had to innovate on several layers:

  (a) permissioned blockchains
  (b) crosschain compatible identity systems
  (c) distributed reputational systems
  
Due to the inherent technical difficulties, I think it's probably a 6-8 month timeframe before this next wave of innovation is fully complete and release ready, but there should be interesting things to test out along the way.

[5] We've also implemented the fullness of our new DCO legal model internally, which has led to the provisional appointment of several delegates which ostensibly represent the will of the members of the Swarm and decide what to do with the funds and IP generated by the Swarm. These delegates have been working hard to expand our developer team and make sure that there are more regular updates.

[6] The Swarm Fund, which we've setup in order to take stakes in projects and apply the "wisdom of the crowd," has been running in alpha status. The main barriers here are regulatory but they are moving forward slowly.

[7] In general, I will let Thomas post the specific near-term development updates since he is basically managing progress on that end and has promised weekly updates. We had some setbacks here due to the sickness of one developer who was in the middle of refactoring some key services, but my understanding is that he is going to have that ready soon.

I'm expecting this to be fully automated within the next week so that every time anyone issues assets there will be an automatic distribution. This may happen when the asset is created or when someone clicks the "start crowdfund" option our interface.


Yes.


No. Participation is restricted to active Swarm agents at the moment.

Yep, we've had over 70 projects adopt this model so far. So far it seems to be best suited for community projects with a wide base of appeal and funds that are structured as partnerships. We've sort of already done the first so we thought we would also do the second.

Happy to announce that our first project launched on the DCO model (Swarm Fund) went over 100% of its goal in under 24hrs. Stay tuned for more upcoming distributions (i.e. Swarm basic income).

There's no reason why a project can't run their governance through us and crowdsale through another platform. Among other things, we don't have the tech to support all asset issuances, but we welcome the listings.

btw, our forum members have started to produce some very interesting and high quality content, such as this:

https://discourse.swarm.fund/t/suggestions-for-the-swarm-community-on-basic-income-voluntary-basic-capital/183

Although some here have just pointed out some similarities between DCOs and traditional corporate vehicles, I think this illustrates how DCOs can be utilized as a more general purpose tool that solves existing problems around public goods and intellectual property. I've actually never fully reported all of our research there (the history of the swarm was already long enough, but I have a large legal database at this point on the various potential applications of this type of new model.

We've started to see some of them pop up on our projects page, but I think there are a lot of things to be added soon. I'm also planning to write another longer piece on the power of programmable governance.

I'd suggest reading the whole working paper if you haven't already.

I found your own strategy very interesting and would be very happy to discuss it further, perhaps via email.

I think people mistake that that this is only about crowdfunding. There are a lot of uses for this type of technology.

In general with a new project you want:

   1) Formal statement of who is in charge
   2) Budget
   3) Stakeholder distribution to existing folks
   4) Ability to raise funds
   5) Ability to go back to stakeholders for continued input

Sometimes you don't need all of these, but we now provide all of these services in an end-to-end package. Also, our fee structure is basically free. We do a 1% distribution on the coin when it is created, and then charge a bit of a premium ~30% extra past the miners fees whenever you do a distribution or a vote.

There may be a use cased for other types of fees but in general I think this is a very low cost way to bootstrap a network and since we aren't exclusive there's also no reason not to list on our page even if you are doing a crowdfunding campaign on a platform that we don't support.  If you haven't tried yet I'd suggest creating a sample DCO through our CMS on www.swarm.fund to get a feel for the process.

Nothing has changed from the preliminary design up until now. Ideally the Swarm is able to launch as many projects as possible that exist in different categories. As noted in the original manifesto, this will be as the legal framework is established. Since it's a freely traded token, the market will decide the value of that token over time.  

It's up to each individual person to decide whether or not to purchase based on the factors described, which would include their own assessment of the market response to the projects, the value of individual project tokens received, and the general desire to be aligned with Swarm and see its network succeed.

Of course the "basic income" idea that we've described explicitly involves  "making money," or at least something of value that can be distributed throughout a network and incentivize the network to see the network succeed. My general feeling here, however, is that exclusively focusing on the "money making" aspect of it actually makes it a much less powerful idea and so I don't like to place my focus there.

The Swarm includes that but is ultimately much bigger than that.

Same basic principle applies there as applies now. You can have any type of token distribution programmatically re-distributed. This may be slightly more expensive in an ethereum context.

It's partially a matter of rights, partially a matter of technology. The reality is that 'common stock' in a classic context is secured via the existing legal system instead of the blockchain, which means that any sort of voting needs to be run through lawyers. This makes it extremely expensive to run a stock holder vote, etc., which ultimately leads to less involvement from stockholders. Also, as I'm sure you know you only have the possibility of having public stock holders once you are on a public market (i.e. post-IPO)

So the difference may not be so much a difference in intent, but a difference in result due to better technology. New technology allows better and more granular control from more participants.