Proposal for Standardizing the Distribution Rate of Dev MSC via the MSC Protocol

[ripper234]

I'm working through my email overflow, I will post a more detailed response later.

However I just want to say this:

We need to maintain a healthy budget that is split between BTC and MSC.
This is not related to "attracting people interested in either BTC or MSC". Everyone can convert one to the other, and we can do it ourselves before paying.

This is related to making sure our budget and funds are balanced and hedged correctly.

Going 100% MSC right now is irresponsible IMO. We need to decide on some percentage that we strive for between these two currencies (and perhaps add a little bit USD into the mix as well).

I'll write a more detailed response later (in the meantime, please don't commit to any particular plan until I had a chance to review). Thanks.

[djohnston]

J.R.,

When an investor or executive has a significant share of stocks, the way this is commonly handled is for the executive to contractually agree to a certain schedule for the sale of his stock to be executed by a third party trust.

With this mechanism in place there isn't any appearance of "conflict of interest", given the amount and timing of the sale are predetermined and publicly known and the actual sale is executed by a third party.

Its your personal funds, and there is no MSC company, and you aren't an executive in this non-company. Plus you were the biggest funder so its perfectly fair, but this type of mechanism might help again establish a predictability in the market about the amount of MSC that will be in the market at any given time.

I know you have already publicly said the amount of MSC you want to sell and the price at which you are willing to sell them and so this is a similar public discussion mechanism, just less formal than how they typically work.


 

[dacoinminster]

J.R.,

When an investor or executive has a significant share of stocks, the way this is commonly handled is for the executive to contractually agree to a certain schedule for the sale of his stock to be executed by a third party trust.

With this mechanism in place there isn't any appearance of "conflict of interest", given the amount and timing of the sale are predetermined and publicly known and the actual sale is executed by a third party.

Its your personal funds, and there is no MSC company, and you aren't an executive in this non-company. Plus you were the biggest funder so its perfectly fair, but this type of mechanism might help again establish a predictability in the market about the amount of MSC that will be in the market at any given time.

I know you have already publicly said the amount of MSC you want to sell and the price at which you are willing to sell them and so this is a similar public discussion mechanism, just less formal than how they typically work.

Interesting idea! I bet we could build something like this into the protocol - some way of locking up my MSC so that I CAN'T sell them quickly?

Of course, there are dozens of other huge investors in MSC, and I doubt they would agree to have their funds all locked up like this . . . or would they?

[dacoinminster]

J.R.,

When an investor or executive has a significant share of stocks, the way this is commonly handled is for the executive to contractually agree to a certain schedule for the sale of his stock to be executed by a third party trust.

With this mechanism in place there isn't any appearance of "conflict of interest", given the amount and timing of the sale are predetermined and publicly known and the actual sale is executed by a third party.

Its your personal funds, and there is no MSC company, and you aren't an executive in this non-company. Plus you were the biggest funder so its perfectly fair, but this type of mechanism might help again establish a predictability in the market about the amount of MSC that will be in the market at any given time.

I know you have already publicly said the amount of MSC you want to sell and the price at which you are willing to sell them and so this is a similar public discussion mechanism, just less formal than how they typically work.

Interesting idea! I bet we could build something like this into the protocol - some way of locking up my MSC so that I CAN'T sell them quickly?

Of course, there are dozens of other huge investors in MSC, and I doubt they would agree to have their funds all locked up like this . . . or would they?

Actually (to answer my own question) this is already possible under the current spec. I could set up a savings address which is rate limited, and make the guardian address for removing the rate limitation something like 1fakeaddressblahblahblahnotreal

That would provide absolute confidence that those MSC would not be dumped (and it would be pretty good security, too)

[hmmmstrange]

I think perhaps it is time to convert more of our BTC to MSC. I'd rather have MSC in a rainy day fund than BTC anyway. As you say, giving away BTC attacts people more interested in BTC, and I'd rather the foundation hold MSC than BTC.

Here's my crazy proposal:

1) Keep only the 1000 BTC we've already moved into offline wallets
2) Use the remainder of our BTC to purchase MSC over the next few months on the distributed exchange
3) Pay all future bounties exclusively in MSC
4) Keep half of our MSC money for a rainy day and/or future distributed bounty system
5) If our rainy day fund becomes excessive, we can always vote to lower the ratio later

I realize that this would potentially make all of our existing investors absurdly wealthy, but, well, the stated purpose of the Mastercoin Foundation is to serve the holders of Mastercoins, and I'm having a hard time seeing this course of action as anything but a huge positive for them, as long as we do it transparently and over a long enough period of time that nobody who wants to sell to us is left out.

Also, MSC prices would probably go up to the point where I'd sell 1% and quit my job to work on MSC, which I hope would also be in the best interests of our investors.

Brutal honesty: As an Exodus investor I love the idea, BUT.. it really gives me a weird feeling. Could this not be easily misrepresented as a huge pump and dump by outsiders and contrarian?

This proposal gives me a horrible feeling. This is too large of a deal to leave up to the board members. I'd prefer to take is slowly and delay and decision until we can vote on it. Or vote on alternative proposals. I believe a balance between msc and btc holdings can be found and potentially "managed", ie actively balancing a 50/50 position between btc/msc.

[Kyune]

I think perhaps it is time to convert more of our BTC to MSC. I'd rather have MSC in a rainy day fund than BTC anyway. As you say, giving away BTC attacts people more interested in BTC, and I'd rather the foundation hold MSC than BTC.

Here's my crazy proposal:

1) Keep only the 1000 BTC we've already moved into offline wallets
2) Use the remainder of our BTC to purchase MSC over the next few months on the distributed exchange
3) Pay all future bounties exclusively in MSC
4) Keep half of our MSC money for a rainy day and/or future distributed bounty system
5) If our rainy day fund becomes excessive, we can always vote to lower the ratio later

I realize that this would potentially make all of our existing investors absurdly wealthy, but, well, the stated purpose of the Mastercoin Foundation is to serve the holders of Mastercoins, and I'm having a hard time seeing this course of action as anything but a huge positive for them, as long as we do it transparently and over a long enough period of time that nobody who wants to sell to us is left out.

Also, MSC prices would probably go up to the point where I'd sell 1% and quit my job to work on MSC, which I hope would also be in the best interests of our investors.

Brutal honesty: As an Exodus investor I love the idea, BUT.. it really gives me a weird feeling. Could this not be easily misrepresented as a huge pump and dump by outsiders and contrarian?

This proposal gives me a horrible feeling. This is too large of a deal to leave up to the board members. I'd prefer to take is slowly and delay and decision until we can vote on it. Or vote on alternative proposals. I believe a balance between msc and btc holdings can be found and potentially "managed", ie actively balancing a 50/50 position between btc/msc.

Likewise.

Is the purpose of the Foundation really just to "serve the holders of Mastercoins", or is it something broader such as shepherding the protocol so that it gets developed and adopted?  This proposal might accomplish the former by bumping up the market price of Mastercoins in the short term, but I think it sacrifices the latter.  It seems shortsighted as a bounty structure moving forward. 

Right now in the main Mastercoin thread there is a parallel discussion about how devs with spouses/kids/mortages find BTC bounties scary enough.  Isn't shifting to pure MSC bounties -- an even more speculative form of remuneration -- counterproductive? 

Or, to put it another way: so many startups lack the kind of funding that the Foundation has acquired, by accident AND design, through its deep BTC reserves.  Trading away too much of those BTC reserves for MSC is sort of like putting the Foundation back into the position of the disadvantaged startups that have to say: "sorry, can't pay you a real salary right now, but if we make it big some day your stock options will make you rich!"

Whatever the actual motivations, the optics are just bad.   This smells like a decision motivated by greed.

[dacoinminster]

Likewise.

Is the purpose of the Foundation really just to "serve the holders of Mastercoins", or is it something broader such as shepherding the protocol so that it gets developed and adopted?  This proposal might accomplish the former by bumping up the market price of Mastercoins in the short term, but I think it sacrifices the latter.  It seems shortsighted as a bounty structure moving forward. 

Right now in the main Mastercoin thread there is a parallel discussion about how devs with spouses/kids/mortages find BTC bounties scary enough.  Isn't shifting to pure MSC bounties -- an even more speculative form of remuneration -- counterproductive? 

Or, to put it another way: so many startups lack the kind of funding that the Foundation has acquired, by accident AND design, through its deep BTC reserves.  Trading away too much of those BTC reserves for MSC is sort of like putting the Foundation back into the position of the disadvantaged startups that have to say: "sorry, can't pay you a real salary right now, but if we make it big some day your stock options will make you rich!"

Whatever the actual motivations, the optics are just bad.   This smells like a decision motivated by greed.

That's a really good point (about the devs wanting something stable). However, they will be able to immediately sell their MSC for BTC and cash out to fiat if they desire, which is not true of startups paying stock options.

What it comes down to is that if the foundation is going to hold money in a wildly unstable crypto-currency, I'd rather it be MSC than BTC. If we want stability, it should be USD in our bank account, not BTC.

[hmmmstrange]

Likewise.

Is the purpose of the Foundation really just to "serve the holders of Mastercoins", or is it something broader such as shepherding the protocol so that it gets developed and adopted?  This proposal might accomplish the former by bumping up the market price of Mastercoins in the short term, but I think it sacrifices the latter.  It seems shortsighted as a bounty structure moving forward.  

Right now in the main Mastercoin thread there is a parallel discussion about how devs with spouses/kids/mortages find BTC bounties scary enough.  Isn't shifting to pure MSC bounties -- an even more speculative form of remuneration -- counterproductive?  

Or, to put it another way: so many startups lack the kind of funding that the Foundation has acquired, by accident AND design, through its deep BTC reserves.  Trading away too much of those BTC reserves for MSC is sort of like putting the Foundation back into the position of the disadvantaged startups that have to say: "sorry, can't pay you a real salary right now, but if we make it big some day your stock options will make you rich!"

Whatever the actual motivations, the optics are just bad.   This smells like a decision motivated by greed.

That's a really good point (about the devs wanting something stable). However, they will be able to immediately sell their MSC for BTC and cash out to fiat if they desire, which is not true of startups paying stock options.

What it comes down to is that if the foundation is going to hold money in a wildly unstable crypto-currency, I'd rather it be MSC than BTC. If we want stability, it should be USD in our bank account, not BTC.

Why not have a vote where each msc holder determines where their portion and in what proportion of the boards holdings gets held?

If you wished a 50/50 split, you could split up your msc into 2 equal portions and vote accordingly......

[Voodah]

Likewise.

Is the purpose of the Foundation really just to "serve the holders of Mastercoins", or is it something broader such as shepherding the protocol so that it gets developed and adopted?  This proposal might accomplish the former by bumping up the market price of Mastercoins in the short term, but I think it sacrifices the latter.  It seems shortsighted as a bounty structure moving forward. 

Right now in the main Mastercoin thread there is a parallel discussion about how devs with spouses/kids/mortages find BTC bounties scary enough.  Isn't shifting to pure MSC bounties -- an even more speculative form of remuneration -- counterproductive? 

Or, to put it another way: so many startups lack the kind of funding that the Foundation has acquired, by accident AND design, through its deep BTC reserves.  Trading away too much of those BTC reserves for MSC is sort of like putting the Foundation back into the position of the disadvantaged startups that have to say: "sorry, can't pay you a real salary right now, but if we make it big some day your stock options will make you rich!"

Whatever the actual motivations, the optics are just bad.   This smells like a decision motivated by greed.

That's a really good point (about the devs wanting something stable). However, they will be able to immediately sell their MSC for BTC and cash out to fiat if they desire, which is not true of startups paying stock options.

What it comes down to is that if the foundation is going to hold money in a wildly unstable crypto-currency, I'd rather it be MSC than BTC. If we want stability, it should be USD in our bank account, not BTC.

I think the dev salary discussion is completely out of scope. This is a project built on top of Bitcoin, funded entirely by Bitcoin, and thus, salaries are paid in Bitcoin. If you don't like that, you can instantly cash out to USD as soon as you get paid. What currency you end using is not one of the Foundation's concern, and nor should it waste time accommodating for the desires of devs who don't believe in BTC ( ffs, am I still on Bitcointalk ?? ).

Also, I don't follow your reasoning on why we would rather hold funds in anything other than BTC. Everyone here knows BTC is the fastest appreciating currency of the three discussed (of all, for that matter..).

What would we gain by getting out BTC that will compensate for the (probable, given the btc rising trend) loss of total value ??

I can only think of a little stability as the answer for that, which brings me to what Ron said a couple posts ago: I agree when he says we need some kind of hedging, but still, given the current trendline I wouldn't go 50/50 MSC/BTC but maybe a bigger stake in BTC instead.

[nanobit]

What an interesting suggestion! One general question raised to mind regarding governance: Did the Board discuss this suggestion among themselves beforehand, or was J.R.'s post the first time members of the Board heard about this?

Regarding the proposal itself, I might support it, if the facts show that the change would motivate highly-skilled devs to commit more time for developing Mastercoin. Hopefully the board will gather feedback from the lead developers before making any decisions?
The fact that this would enable dacoinminster work with MSC fulltime is a huge upside from my point of view.

Regarding voting, this should either be asked from people who verifiably own considerable amount of MSC, or decide it within the Board after collecting feedback. What I wouldn't like to see is that random +1 comments affect the decision. Naturally good comments and viewpoints need to be gathered from everyone.
Listing e.g. top 50-100 wallets (as the status is today, when the suggestion was published), and gathering votes to a public thread wouldn't be too difficult technically.

I'm very interested to see what group of people the Board decides should be part of making the decision.

[dacoinminster]

I think the dev salary discussion is completely out of scope. This is a project built on top of Bitcoin, funded entirely by Bitcoin, and thus, salaries are paid in Bitcoin. If you don't like that, you can instantly cash out to USD as soon as you get paid. What currency you end using is not one of the Foundation's concern, and nor should it waste time accommodating for the desires of devs who don't believe in BTC ( ffs, am I still on Bitcointalk ?? ).

Also, I don't follow your reasoning on why we would rather hold funds in anything other than BTC. Everyone here knows BTC is the fastest appreciating currency of the three discussed (of all, for that matter..).

What would we gain by getting out BTC that will compensate for the (probable, given the btc rising trend) loss of total value ??

I can only think of a little stability as the answer for that, which brings me to what Ron said a couple posts ago: I agree when he says we need some kind of hedging, but still, given the current trendline I wouldn't go 50/50 MSC/BTC but maybe a bigger stake in BTC instead.

Ah . . . wut? BTC is appreciating faster? I think you are extrapolating on way too short of a timeframe. MSC is WAY up against BTC since it launched.

[dacoinminster]

What an interesting suggestion! One general question raised to mind regarding governance: Did the Board discuss this suggestion among themselves beforehand, or was J.R.'s post the first time members of the Board heard about this?

Regarding the proposal itself, I might support it, if the facts show that the change would motivate highly-skilled devs to commit more time for developing Mastercoin. Hopefully the board will gather feedback from the lead developers before making any decisions?
The fact that this would enable dacoinminster work with MSC fulltime is a huge upside from my point of view.

Regarding voting, this should either be asked from people who verifiably own considerable amount of MSC, or decide it within the Board after collecting feedback. What I wouldn't like to see is that random +1 comments affect the decision. Naturally good comments and viewpoints need to be gathered from everyone.
Listing e.g. top 50-100 wallets (as the status is today, when the suggestion was published), and gathering votes to a public thread wouldn't be too difficult technically.

I'm very interested to see what group of people the Board decides should be part of making the decision.

I've been trying to get the board to agree to do this for awhile now. Now I'm trying to leverage a bit of community pressure

[nanobit]

Regarding the proposal itself, I might support it, if the facts show that the change would motivate highly-skilled devs to commit more time for developing Mastercoin.

I've been trying to get the board to agree to do this for awhile now. Now I'm trying to leverage a bit of community pressure

I believe the key to community support lies on explaning how this change would "motivate highly-skilled devs to commit more time for developing Mastercoin" and thereby speeding up the build of Mastercoin applications.

[Doron404]

I think perhaps it is time to convert more of our BTC to MSC. I'd rather have MSC in a rainy day fund than BTC anyway. As you say, giving away BTC attacts people more interested in BTC, and I'd rather the foundation hold MSC than BTC.

Here's my crazy proposal:

1) Keep only the 1000 BTC we've already moved into offline wallets
2) Use the remainder of our BTC to purchase MSC over the next few months on the distributed exchange
3) Pay all future bounties exclusively in MSC
4) Keep half of our MSC money for a rainy day and/or future distributed bounty system
5) If our rainy day fund becomes excessive, we can always vote to lower the ratio later

I realize that this would potentially make all of our existing investors absurdly wealthy, but, well, the stated purpose of the Mastercoin Foundation is to serve the holders of Mastercoins, and I'm having a hard time seeing this course of action as anything but a huge positive for them, as long as we do it transparently and over a long enough period of time that nobody who wants to sell to us is left out.

Also, MSC prices would probably go up to the point where I'd sell 1% and quit my job to work on MSC, which I hope would also be in the best interests of our investors.

+1
Great Idea!

[Ola]

I think perhaps it is time to convert more of our BTC to MSC. I'd rather have MSC in a rainy day fund than BTC anyway. As you say, giving away BTC attacts people more interested in BTC, and I'd rather the foundation hold MSC than BTC.

Here's my crazy proposal:

1) Keep only the 1000 BTC we've already moved into offline wallets
2) Use the remainder of our BTC to purchase MSC over the next few months on the distributed exchange
3) Pay all future bounties exclusively in MSC
4) Keep half of our MSC money for a rainy day and/or future distributed bounty system
5) If our rainy day fund becomes excessive, we can always vote to lower the ratio later

I realize that this would potentially make all of our existing investors absurdly wealthy, but, well, the stated purpose of the Mastercoin Foundation is to serve the holders of Mastercoins, and I'm having a hard time seeing this course of action as anything but a huge positive for them, as long as we do it transparently and over a long enough period of time that nobody who wants to sell to us is left out.

Also, MSC prices would probably go up to the point where I'd sell 1% and quit my job to work on MSC, which I hope would also be in the best interests of our investors.

approved +1000

[rbdrbd]

I think perhaps it is time to convert more of our BTC to MSC. I'd rather have MSC in a rainy day fund than BTC anyway. As you say, giving away BTC attacts people more interested in BTC, and I'd rather the foundation hold MSC than BTC.

Here's my crazy proposal:

1) Keep only the 1000 BTC we've already moved into offline wallets
2) Use the remainder of our BTC to purchase MSC over the next few months on the distributed exchange
3) Pay all future bounties exclusively in MSC
4) Keep half of our MSC money for a rainy day and/or future distributed bounty system
5) If our rainy day fund becomes excessive, we can always vote to lower the ratio later

I realize that this would potentially make all of our existing investors absurdly wealthy, but, well, the stated purpose of the Mastercoin Foundation is to serve the holders of Mastercoins, and I'm having a hard time seeing this course of action as anything but a huge positive for them, as long as we do it transparently and over a long enough period of time that nobody who wants to sell to us is left out.

Also, MSC prices would probably go up to the point where I'd sell 1% and quit my job to work on MSC, which I hope would also be in the best interests of our investors.

I do like the "eating your own dogfood" type ethos of this idea, but I share some of Kyune's well-stated concerns as well. This may make sense IF devs are willing to work for MSC (which I doubt, at least at this point, since it's so new and unstable, even compared to BTC).

On the up side, this action would definitely put the price of MSC way up...how much, depends on your buying strategy (e.g. constant, over X months, or managed/strategic where you buy on the dips to act sort of like a market maker of sorts and smooth out volatility, as well as get the best prices for the coins). Depending on the predictability of your acquisition strategy, the other risk is that other traders will front-run you (like exchange traders front run the fed QE/twist operations)...although I'm not sure of the impact in this case, as this is much more of a limited market than the stock market. (Maybe a more knowledgeable trader could comment.)

I think we've established that it's rising prices that attract press (at least with Bitcoin), not the other way around. In that event, it may very well kick off a virtuous cycle in Mastercoin's favor. However, we have to remember that most people are risk adverse, non-strategic momentum-chasers that will get in on a trend near its peak and cash out at the smallest sense of danger...mainstream media caters to that mania because it appeals to, well, the mainstream. This means that any raise may be short lived, similar to the earlier cycles bitcoin went though... Mastercoin will very well have a similar path of peaks and crashes along the way.

The other risk is that Mastercoin could be canned for manipulating their own market by some. Also, if the foundation favored MSC too much to BTC and the value of MSC plummeted in one of these fear-induced reactive sell-offs  (as JR said, it could randomly go down 90% on its way up, like bitcoin has), then the foundation would find itself in that "impotent startup" pickle that Kyune raised.

[W2014]

I think perhaps it is time to convert more of our BTC to MSC. I'd rather have MSC in a rainy day fund than BTC anyway. As you say, giving away BTC attacts people more interested in BTC, and I'd rather the foundation hold MSC than BTC.

Here's my crazy proposal:

1) Keep only the 1000 BTC we've already moved into offline wallets
2) Use the remainder of our BTC to purchase MSC over the next few months on the distributed exchange
3) Pay all future bounties exclusively in MSC
4) Keep half of our MSC money for a rainy day and/or future distributed bounty system
5) If our rainy day fund becomes excessive, we can always vote to lower the ratio later

I realize that this would potentially make all of our existing investors absurdly wealthy, but, well, the stated purpose of the Mastercoin Foundation is to serve the holders of Mastercoins, and I'm having a hard time seeing this course of action as anything but a huge positive for them, as long as we do it transparently and over a long enough period of time that nobody who wants to sell to us is left out.

Also, MSC prices would probably go up to the point where I'd sell 1% and quit my job to work on MSC, which I hope would also be in the best interests of our investors.

This is an interesting idea, and I applaud J.R. for his transparency and for sharing his ideas with all interested parties. I do, however, have some concerns:

1.) If it is perceived that the Mastercoin Foundation is artificially inflating the value of MSC it may discourage people from investing and thus have the opposite effect. This is the danger of unintended consequences: i.e., that people will perceive the price of MSCs as artificial and not reliable.  I think it would depend on how the MSCs were purchase by the Mastercoin Foundation - a small amount over a long period may mitigate this perception. (Keep in mind also: companies buy back stock in limited quantities when they perceive that it is undervalued.)

Similarly, people are attracted to MSC because of its development funds -- it is well funded in an established currency, BTC. If you take that away, MSC may be a less attractive investment for some.   

2) The Mastercoin Foundation already has (or will have) a massive amount of MSCs vesting over the next few years. Selling the majority of BTCs for MSCs makes absolutely no sense from a risk management standpoint. The Mastercoin Foundation has massive exposure to MSCs already.

3) If anything, the Mastercoin Foundation should be taking measures to control for the volatility of BTCs by, for example, proposing bounties such as BTCs or MSCs worth at least $50,000 USD. Or by announcing hybrid bounties: part USD/BTC/MSCs. Or by some other means. Whatever it is it should mitigate the risk of over or underpayment to the developers for work done.

[tlewis]

I think perhaps it is time to convert more of our BTC to MSC. I'd rather have MSC in a rainy day fund than BTC anyway. As you say, giving away BTC attacts people more interested in BTC, and I'd rather the foundation hold MSC than BTC.

Here's my crazy proposal:

1) Keep only the 1000 BTC we've already moved into offline wallets
2) Use the remainder of our BTC to purchase MSC over the next few months on the distributed exchange
3) Pay all future bounties exclusively in MSC
4) Keep half of our MSC money for a rainy day and/or future distributed bounty system
5) If our rainy day fund becomes excessive, we can always vote to lower the ratio later

I realize that this would potentially make all of our existing investors absurdly wealthy, but, well, the stated purpose of the Mastercoin Foundation is to serve the holders of Mastercoins, and I'm having a hard time seeing this course of action as anything but a huge positive for them, as long as we do it transparently and over a long enough period of time that nobody who wants to sell to us is left out.

Also, MSC prices would probably go up to the point where I'd sell 1% and quit my job to work on MSC, which I hope would also be in the best interests of our investors.

This is an interesting idea, and I applaud J.R. for his transparency and for sharing his ideas with all interested parties. I do, however, have some concerns:

[snip]

2) The Mastercoin Foundation already has (or will have) a massive amount of MSCs vesting over the next few years. Selling the majority of BTCs for MSCs makes absolutely no sense from a risk management standpoint. The Mastercoin Foundation has massive exposure to MSCs already.

My concerns are echoed in #2 as a good reason to consider the implications, but I'm not sure it's really material. Increasing exposure to MSCs may seem noble and aspirational, but it's not prudent financial risk management which may require increased flexibility in times of extreme volatility. However, if the securities are highly correlated (BTC with MSC), this point is pretty much moot and any issues related to MSC exposure will also be reflected in the value of your BTC holdings as well.

[Tachikoma]

I think perhaps it is time to convert more of our BTC to MSC. I'd rather have MSC in a rainy day fund than BTC anyway. As you say, giving away BTC attacts people more interested in BTC, and I'd rather the foundation hold MSC than BTC.

Here's my crazy proposal:

1) Keep only the 1000 BTC we've already moved into offline wallets
2) Use the remainder of our BTC to purchase MSC over the next few months on the distributed exchange
3) Pay all future bounties exclusively in MSC
4) Keep half of our MSC money for a rainy day and/or future distributed bounty system
5) If our rainy day fund becomes excessive, we can always vote to lower the ratio later

I realize that this would potentially make all of our existing investors absurdly wealthy, but, well, the stated purpose of the Mastercoin Foundation is to serve the holders of Mastercoins, and I'm having a hard time seeing this course of action as anything but a huge positive for them, as long as we do it transparently and over a long enough period of time that nobody who wants to sell to us is left out.

Also, MSC prices would probably go up to the point where I'd sell 1% and quit my job to work on MSC, which I hope would also be in the best interests of our investors.

I do like the "eating your own dogfood" type ethos of this idea, but I share some of Kyune's well-stated concerns as well. This may make sense IF devs are willing to work for MSC (which I doubt, at least at this point, since it's so new and unstable, even compared to BTC).

This, right here. I wouldn't even feel comfortable getting paid in BTC let alone a currency that's just a few months old.

I have a feeling that we sometimes forget how fragile MSC still is. There are so many things that will or could happen that will have a great influence on the perceived value of the coin itself. It would be seriously irresponsible to use most of the Bitcoins from Exodus to buy more Mastercoin.

J.R., if you want to leave your job, do you really need to sell Mastercoins to do this? I'm sure a part of the 3000 BTC currently sitting in Exodus could be exchanged for non-internet money so your family has the security that for the foreseeable future they don't have to worry about anything while you work on Mastercoin. Having you on board as a developer would solve a lot of problems and speed up the process. I'm currently often waiting on votes on the way how the spec should be interpreted before continuing on. Having you in the trenches would surely speed this up.   

[Rampion]

I don't understand the discussion about the devs being worried about being exposed to the volatility of crypto.

First, this is what it is - it has enormous potential but also risks. No great fortune/opportunity comes without a risk.

Secondly, if a dev wants to reduce his exposure to crypto he can immediately sell his MSC for fiat, in the very moment he got paid. What's the problem?

Thirdly, the more I think it the more I'm with dacoinmeister. This is an "all-in" kind of project. Did Satoshi paid devs with fiat? Why is the board pushing to keep BTC and do not purchase MSC? It would look like they are very comfortable sitting on a pile of BTC and do not believe that much in MSC.

For me it's a no brainer, let's go 100‰ MSC, alluding to "instability of cryptos" to justify holding BTC against MSC is ludicrous.