I think if we want DASH to move toward the grown up world this discussion - any sort of engagement with the parrots regurgitating same old same old garbage - is moot.

In the grown up world, where you must disclose financial statements, have a business plan, disclaimers, risk factors (check out the FORM U-7, DISCLOSURE DOCUMENT as a part of the SCOR Form, used for private funding offerings; Rule 506 of Regulation D) in order to attract investors to your venture, Evan Duffield, as the Virtual Corporation CEO (or whatever) behind DASH already has a huge advantage: his real name and surname, his working history and ethic, his mind-boggling set of innovations. And Was The Instamine A Positive Thing For Dash? (https://dashdot.io/alpha/?page_id=118) is all that is needed regarding this particular issue. (it also serves as a perfect disclaimer)

His invention also has a market cap value that is multiple of that of any startup begging for angel investments or venture capital and he does have several hundred or thousands of eligible class "A" shares investors (i.e. investors to Masternodes; I can't know how many individuals hold all these MN for many are multiple MN holders)

He is way up on the scale an investor uses to measure a serious business. So whomever supports DASH should start thinking about the real world, outside of our lunatic fringe niche and push toward realization of the greatest idea humanity has seen, when financial world is in question. Let me reiterate, if one reads Debt: The First 5,000 Years by anthropologist anarchist David Graeber (also one of the key figures in the Occupy Wall Street movement, thusly a perfect "target" for any and all DASH related promotional activities) he or she would better understand that all the money, throughout the history, was made out of debt. Money as we know it is essentially debt.

DASH is not created out of debt, on the contrary, it is a math based thingy, inflation free (or at least inflation is predictable) that can function better (safer, on a long distance as well) than cash and therefore, capable of enabling the humans to live more humane life than this one we all live under the tyranny of the Financial Crime Cartel and the war-machine that keeps the FCC alive.

This is, indeed, a grown up game, what we strive to achieve.

However, we can't live in a vacuum of a geek-geniuses limbo or spend our time (energy) squabbling with kindergarten kids spewing garbage here (so-called "trolls") for we want a "real world adoption." Well, the real world is confused and confusing enough without any need for X11, isntamine, wallet, keys or any other crypto geek-speak. People never understood how Netscape worked, and even now, I guarantee you, 99% of the people have no clue what the HTML stands for but are now "enjoying" Chrome (or FF, it does not matter) as they browse the Net anyway.

The underlying genius of DASH technology is here to stay. Well, will it stay in the future tech museum of genial discoveries that never took off onto the real world or not, does not depend, I suspect, on Evan and the developers, it depends on all of us. We were given a unique opportunity to be a part of something big, no matter it flaws, but let us fix these flaws for these are mostly coming from us, the community. We are not as good as the product / invention / genius / token / asset we swear to love and support and have faith in, so we need to step up our work. Fuck these idiots and useless bickering; let us see how to advance this thingy.

I offered several avenues to ponder, from Zoran's art to the IPO and would like to hear opinions, suggestions (like that about key - AHC possibility when resolvign DASH to cash, fiat cash that is, dilemma) and than we can see how to move forward. Evan and the guys might have the money to sustain their work, MN funding would help, but if the price keeps lingering or the DASH would come under a serious attack - no matter who the "attacker" or "attackers" might be - and the price drops it might not survive. That's the nature of the beast.

There are great initiatives already. Ambassadors, Foundation, Virtual Corporation, so let us, all of us, be more concrete in our efforts to strengthen DASH. So, I pledge 50 DASH (at today's price, so $120.00 toward the Zoran Art - Evan's (or a reputable surrogate) trip to Croatia DASH / Crypto EXHIBITION if anyone would bother to try do something about it. That's already 10% of the airfare, coming from one person... so let me see Zoran coming back with the plan, dates, space for it and let us move forward. If he cares only about selling his stuff through the lottery, thus using this community for his enrichment (or to put kulen on his table, screw it, splawik knows artists in Warshaw or elsewhere in Poland for sure

Other than that, I propose EXPLORATION COMMITTEES for several venues -- with the approval of the key people - one to see how to go about:

-- ISO 4217 Currency Codes and prepare a document re: what's needed to achieve a status of a currency, if possible at all;
-- A DashPay & DasBase like thingies. When I looked at the last budget proposal (October, https://dashtalk.org/threads/october-2015-budget-proposal.6234/page-2#post-68212) I saw a $2,500.00 for the design. Well, my designer is a genius, a multiple winner of Summit International Creative Award who could do it for $750.00 and save us the money, but the structure of deciding is not prefect yet and I do not want to "push" her talent given how we humans are but that side, I think we'd have to have a set of proposals (for building such structure, like DashPay) with several bids, open for everyone to see and offer their opinion etc., etc., etc., because all of this would strengthen the project as it goes toward the grown up world.

When I write any of this I have only one real problem with it. Evan is smarter than me and he - given his background in finance and his deliberate pace forward - might have thought about everything (promotion, adoption, IPO...) more deeply than I ever would, so this would than my own thinking render moot as well. (if he has a set of concrete steps that are coming our way)

But the bottom line is this - let us discuss what we can DO instead of bickering with the morons. It is time to leave the kindergarten behind.

Out of respect for GhostPlayer and his initiative I did not react on that Zoran's art thingy that annoys me greatly. (not the "art" per se, but the whole picture) So I've been thinking and decided that even this initiative can be used as an example how out of box thinking (my ISO 4217, IPO, DASH - CASH, DashPay etc. musings) might help us.

This guy (Zoran) was whining here for no one buys his art. He does not give a damn about DASH (granted, he needs to eat) and as he whined how no one is buying his art he said he'll have to go to Ethereum, Ripple etc. Enters the Ghost (player) and nobly tries to help. Let's say this works. Que bono? A buyer of the art for the lottery gives her or him something for 1.31 DASH instead of a full price. Zoran also profits for he sold something otherwise no one wants to buy.

Would not be a MUCH BETTER to approach this from a different angle (it could also keep the lottery thingy live for its fun) assuming his art is appreciated by the community here, there, anywhere:

-- Zoran organizes an exhibition, devoted to DASH and the "future of money" of his Art in Zagreb or wherever (he's from Croatia, not sure from which city) no matter how small the gallery or the exhibition space. It could be done almost for free, with a help of few friends I am sure;
-- Evan goes to the opening night (we pay, the lottery pays for his trip. Croatia is a beautiful country and he'd could use a respite) and talks about the DASH;
-- the Exhibition is therefore enriched. Zoran talks about his inspiration (crypto, financial freedom), a brief video, stitched, edited out of several we already have introduces the concept and Evan talks more about the DASH.

A freaking event. Journalists in small countries are enthralled by the geniuses from America so it would be covered, trust me on that. A video of the event, if planned smartly would be a welcomed addition to the promotional activities "in Europe." A nice publicity would echo at home and all over the world. Zoran would have his big entrance into the world of art and crypto and no one would call him a whiner, on the contrary. The community's money would be split and go for the Evan's (promotional) trip and Zoran's sculpture or paintings and everyone's happy.

Just my 2 cents. Trying to be constructive even when seriously miffed

As I watched Evan's video on the Virtual Corporation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eEJKZjTx9Bg I've been thinking about an IPO ("initial public offering," for the uninitiated).

DASH could ponder that route also:
-- Each Masternode would be a class "A" share;
-- IPO would issue common shares;
-- DASH token / coin / currency would still be a unit exchangeable for services and products (or other coins, fiat on currency exchanges) not unlike renminbi - yuan distinction (an official name of the currency and its units' denomination).

Therefore, another issue to ponder as we look what is the best route for DASH to be "widely adopted" would be ISO 4217 (currency codes) and SIX Interbank and see how to get DASH classified as a currency. (in the US we're already and "asset" based on the IRS ruling)

Mind you, we would not be the first ones to do so. I have no idea what has happened with their initiative (a quick Google search might reveal more) but bear this in mind: "The Bitcoin Foundation’s Financial Standards Working Group will focus on applying for ISO 4217 approval for a Bitcoin currency code as well as drawing up recommendations for a Bitcoin currency symbol and Bitcoin subunits."

# # #

Edit: a link Tante posted or re-posted https://dashdot.io/alpha/?page_id=118 is already a great document for the "financial disclosures." Anther route for DASH to gain traction would be to consider (Evan's transparency is an incredible valuable asset for such a move) Rule 506 of Regulation D private offering. MN as a share "A" -- and given that Rule 506 D stipulates you can't offer the shares to "non sophisticated investors" (i.e. those who can't afford to lose the money) the offer can and should be private. But the talk about it could be public

I've been thinking a bit about that famous, elusive 'mass adoption' based on what I wrote in my previous post. IX etc., are deemed to be safe. The infrastructure I am proposing can go that far to completely remove a need for a wallet (DASH or BTC) from the equation.

-- a DASH CASH platform;
-- an user, a retailer gets assigned its unique # something they understand in a very easy, safe and secure, streamlined process. It can be associated with their e-mail, Tax ID, name, who cares (and on the back-end of D-C platform) it is identifiable as a simple, unique Dash address;
-- their own website or a physical place of business would have the same stuff like PP button or QR code and accept the payment;
-- the payment goes, via its DASH CASH platform, using DashPay, Dashbase etc., to the retailer's fiat account.

And voila!, these advantages - like the credit cards but instead for a 3% fee, only a 0.03% fee - get even to the most dense, crypto-averse in particular or novelty averse in general people and we can approach them with a clear message without all the voodoo. Let them study the voodoo if they wish. If not we have enough geeks and upcoming generations that will be happy with the crypto world, crypto anarchy, blockchain based governance, blockchain based corporations, passports, nations...

Tok, I'm truncating your othwervise (like always) great post for it is just a post or two above. I wasn't clear. "Market cap is irrelevant" meant in conjunction with the pathetic trading volume i.e. so small that is not relevant in the bigger picture (market cap of almost any other asset in the world is multiple of that of DASH)

Let me share something - as a young man I was a chess player, a bit later I was a political columnist - and in both fields I had an advantage of seeing a move or more further down the road than the others. I simple have that talent. I saw Darkcoin potential among the first outside the pure crypto field (I was late to BTC for I simply did not understand the technology at that time, among all the noise) and had my own expectations, based on that potential.

As soon as it was re-branded, the cracks started to show up, in my mind. So, now, is 6 months really that short time to seriously evaluate the progress on the other levels than its underlying genius? Most like is - BUT now, my own expectations are not grounded in anything but my own ideas I can't push. I wonder, if the MAIN advantage, for an AVERAGE user (say an online retailer, say a bar owner) of this thingy are:

- its minuscule fee for a transaction;
- the speed of the transaction (IX);

why don't we push toward the obvious?

A BitPay / Coinbase / credit cards / QR hybrid that would serve DASH exclusively?

Evan is talking about "decentralized corporation" anyway; there's a not-for-profit Foundation established already so the first steps toward establishing a legal framework, for such an entity -- that is a needed first step toward DASH (or any other crypto) autonomy (wide adoption) -- are already in place.

How can anyone hope for any kind of "mass adoption" if you have Bitcoin - that wast majority of people do not get at all - acting, out of necessity, for the lack of our own BitPay / Coinbase infrastructure as intermediary. Try to explain a retailer the chain of events he or she would have to face if they want to accept DASH.

"You get DASH, than you have your wallet (which can be "cold" or "hot"), where your DASH goes, than you have to send it to an exchange, a crypto exchange at that, where you have to buy Bitcoin and than your Bitcoin can be exchanged for fiat etc., etc., etc." - and think of a blank expression on the face of such a person.

The beauty of EVERY SUCCESSFUL project ("mass adopted", that is) is that they are aimed at the end user being an idiot. Think iPhone. Think Netflix. Think Google. How many people have ANY idea how any of these really work? People do not give a fuck. They are dumb. (just take a glance at the idiots they have been voting, for ages, in the respective offices of power all over the world and you'll see how kind I am toward that bunch of feeble-minded, brain-washed idiots I lovingly called "dumb") They want their things / services to work.

So our retailer or a bar owner needs to KNOW that the phantom thingy, a.k.a. DASH, would PAY for her or his service / product (think BitPay) and would, magically, transform into a fiat of their choice (think Coinbase, automatic exchange / transfer) and appear on their account instantaneously (think credit cards, think PayPal) FIRST. Only after this works, he or she will need to be educated about gazillion other possibilities in the wondrous realm they entered.

So, IMHO - this project needs to focus on this and that other think, Masternode usability - i.e. figure out how that wast network of computing power can be used for something useful for the world and the humanity, instead of just spending energy into creating something out of nothing)

If we'd have these two goals clearly outlined I'd see a direction this project is going and will have go back to my insane days of having 90% of ALL my investments poured into it. Like this we, obviously, depend on the others to develop the same but if they don't...

I'm not quite sure if it would be healthy to wish you to end up a new DASH-illionaire because I do not see your approach as being any different that that of a Gambler. (Dostoyevsky's Gambler http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2197, that is)

But than, it would be unfair. You shared your situation and your hopes and who am I to doubt you? I can only take what you wrote - I am aware this might sound awfully cynical but honest to god I am feeling sad and not cynical at all - as an investment advice. As much as you told your son to buy at $4.00 and caused him a paper loss of 41% thus far, your suggestion to buy now ("if I had...") tells me I have to wait until the price is well below 0.01 BTC before buying more.

DASH might end up being the best financial tool that there is, I don't doubt its potential, but it will not replace any other forms of money that are out-there, not during our life spans. It might end up being co-opted in the overall financial structure of this world or be destroyed. Most likely outcome - it will be one of the many financial tools, alongside the dollar or whatever comes after it, BTC or whatever comes after it, or gold, milk, cell phone minutes or anything else one human is willing to exchange with another...

If you'd want to be both philosophical and productive, think of the origins of the money. The debit is in the very core of the idea of money and its very existence and try to fit the DASH into that wast equation...

WOW -- this is getting really interesting now, since the biggest cheerleader(s) agree(s) with the smarter piece of anti-propaganda thus far.

At this moment, it seems, the DASH's destiny is indeed completely linked with Even and his decisions. (perhaps Richard would be also able to destroy DASH by dumping his masternodes) So, the risk - and with it a potential risk reward ratio - is increasing every passing day. The advances on the tech side were staggering and really revolutionary so I ask myself, what if the "revolution" (IX, Darksend, Decentralized...) arrived too early and there were no people ready to join it? With the world's insanity focus moving from egregious financial crimes toward even worse migrant crisis in Europe and by far the worst, pan-American war(s) against the Middle East that might escalate in more proxy wars against Russia and China, the people could not care less about the "revolution" they do not understand?

On the bad side of this: trading volume is pathetic. Market cap is irrelevant. A long time #4 is now a #6. A delusional idea that "scarcity" (more coins locked in, OK, placed in MNs = increased price) will result in the rise in the DASH's value is slowly being destroyed. Just think:

DATA:            September 27th, 2015       March 19th, 2015 (a few days after re-branding)
Price in BTC         0.0100800                       0.01215272  (17.05% loss since)
Price in USD         $2.35                             $3.11          (24.43% loss since)
Trading volume     50,584                           151,886        (66.69% decrease)
MN coins %          54.20%                          45.27%        (19.72% increase)    
Dashtalk members  3,314                             2,602          (27.36% increase)

When I look at - highly unscientific - correlation in between the six months long price drop and # of MN rise it seems to me DASH has became a "niche" of a very narrow group of people having MN income, increasing the number of MN (coinmine.pl gets 56% of all coins), making even more DASH, selling the DASH thusly decreasing its price in both BTC and USD terms. The rest are dreamers or speculators, all of whom hope for the price to go up. There isn't an instrument of short-selling the DASH so one can't really gauge the real market value of this asset. So, near-term price movement is completely let to the whim of a few people willing to play with a few thousands of dollars.

On the good side, again, the efforts Evan and the development team is putting into this is heroic. A perpetuum mobile - funding via MN income - might be enough to keep this project going for months and months if not longer (unless the price drops below $1.00 when all bet would be off) so, we're back again to Evan. A "young man" (he's 35) seems to have the money to live independently of his DASH holdings (his financial background) and it seems he is totally undisturbed with day to day or month to month price movements (he does seem puzzled over it, though) and his long-term outlook will come into play soon.

Decentralized governance, at the end, depends on a few people: Evan who's the father of all of this, Richard and several other big investors and the influence a few prominent Foundation members are having over Evan's decisions. My own take is still that this project has 40% - 60% chances of a long-term survival and I will be keep nibbling back, but as a cold hearted investor yet again, and not as someone who loved Darkcoin and was ready to fight 'til the end for it, if its idea were to be to change the world, fight for the financial freedom and against the Financial Crime Cartel etc.

As such, as the BTC competitor that DASH in its core is going to be, it still has a chance for huge profits but these chances might be diminishing daily. Only the time will tell. I had to lower my exposure to DASH, as the percentage of my overall portfolio, to the amount I am ready to lose in its entirety.

I am very, very curious to see how this will develop... for I have no clue

Fascinating. I wonder will the nodes crash...

Or is this just a normal fluctuation, some MN owners are selling their MNs? I know I sold mine... (but that was well before this bleeding took place; now I am a reluctant buyer)

"Etherium casino" - with its 30x times higher volume - has been played out already. I think the volume / price movements point to an underlying weakness in this project, something I hammered on so many times before, that no one seems to be willing to mull over.

And if the price goes to 0.015 everyone will forget about it and yell "to the Moon" and similar nonsense. IMHO - it is perfectly clear, since the demise of Darkcoin and its potential, DASH has only one avenue and that's fighting Bitcoin with a goal of replacing it.

A far cry, granted, but unless Bitcoin is removed from DASH - BTC - fiat (fiat - BTC - DASH) equation we'd linger in the cyberspace as a toy of dozen or several hundred members of a lunatic fringe and only the stamina of the development team will define the project's future.

Don't you think such "a precise and consistent action" would draw attention and create a further drop of the investor(s) (dropping the assets) value?

If I'd want to get rid of thousands of anything I'd try to hide my actions in order not to lose even more?

Tok, I'm curious about your chart tech analyses:

a) do you really think charts make sense given such a thin trading volume?
b) if so, what the charts are telling you? Can this thing really go down to, say, 0.0065? (it was around December 2014 when the price was at that level, with BTC at about $340.00)

Don't worry, I'm not looking for a trading / investing advice. I simple can't see a thing in the price movements, no pattern... (but a long, long decline I do not understand either)

they are now https://wesellcrypto.com/

The beauty of your post also lies in the fact that it brings a breeze of a real life encounter of real, multi-dimensional human beings into this, mostly anonymous, one-dimensional space.

Thanks.

Yeah, I see how well this new bland detergent name was received by the investors and these famous "big retailers" and "big exchanges" since March when the name change occurred.

But I've said all that I had to say on the topic a long time ago. DASH has a bundle of perception problems no one seems to be willing to tackle...

Thanks for your tech analysis Tok. However, this concerns me most:


See, I do worry about it.

I am - like 99% of the people - a n00b. I have no clue what all all these fancy terms mean, mining, whining, you name it. I hear that an asset, a network of some strange "Masternodes", a crypto environment I am (the n00b) consider investing into but am hearing about something "malevolent" in the eco-system of this esoteric investment at the same time the value of the potential investment is going down.

So I, the n00b, will stay put for I do not understand what's (really) going on.

Before the smarter of me start with even smarter remarks, allow me to remind all of us that we're talking abut that famous "adoption" that should come from the n00bs that have no clue about the tech behind DASH and only want to use a useful, SAFE substitute to cash / currencies / money. They might think someone is stealing the very investment they consider investing into. They have no clue about differences in between "honest" miners and "malevolent" miners...

This does worry me greatly.

Again, all very valid points Tok, thanks. (what Tok wrote is above, so no need to quote big blocks of text)

To clarify - I am not "rattled" by Otoh's selling or buying. Don Corleone teachings: "It does not matter to me what a man does for living," is an approach I agree to. So, in order to celebrate your optimistic view and sober evaluation of what's going on I am going to make the biggest mistake an investor could be making and am back, based on your words. And I will not even blame you if this thing goes back to 0.003  

/ being "in" again makes me more comfortable in voicing a non-complacency views, once I have a stake in an asset I comment on /

Thanks for letting me know Slawek.

So there are some manipulative speculators out there after all I for one am for sure glad you're not one of these...

Great post, thanks.

I have zero problems with semantics. If "strategic positioning" is the best way of describing that one particular investor's play, be it. But, while I have zero reasons to doubt him (and I do not doubt him) isn't it naive of anyone to believe in anyone's benevolence?

Whatever is going with the price, whatever is the reason behind -- strategic positioning of one investor, intended manipulation of another, dropping of illegals obtained, hijacked DASH you fill in the blanks -- this points to an intrinsic weakness of the whole project, something I've been hammering about many times before but do not feel a need to repeat any of this and suffer abuse ))))))

The KEY question for me at this moment is - why DASH is not getting any real (venture) investment from the outside to keep it going if it is so great as many of us, cheerleaders, think it is?