Funding issuesSome thoughts in response to recent discussions.
To put things in perspective, let's see what is being done and has been done in the area of funding.
What is currently available for spending:We have over
12 million NXT available at the community's disposal for a very long time. If we include the 5M pledged by Mr 47, we're looking at over 17 million. Bulk of this ammunition has been sitting idle due to problems obtaining consensus. Remember how long the unclaimed funds debate dragged on? That's the price we have to pay for decentralization.
We are now days away from finalizing the various committees. Once that's done, they should, in short order, be able to deploy that sizable stash of reserves to fund urgently needed activities.
What has already been donated and spent:Newer members of our community may not be aware that substantial amounts have been donated by founders during the early days, and some continue to do so till this day. Some prefer to donate publicly, others prefer to do so anonymously. So, besides the 17M currently available, many more millions had already been spent to promote and strengthen the Nxt ecosystem. If you don't see them, it does not mean that donations were not being given.
What about apparently inactive founders?Numerous nasty, and often unfounded, comments have been thrown at founders. These are not helpful, and will only have the effect of turning away these so called whales instead of engaging with them. I wonder if more will be actively engaging if there had been less of these negative attitude. Please realize that one way or another, founders have made a collective effort to help bring Nxt to where it is today. I see 3 broad strategies adopted by the founders to achieve this:-
Strategy 1 (Short term)
Some have chosen to take the strategy of distributing NXT fast by selling very cheaply immediately after launch. Look at the early posts in the
trading thread. Many of you benefited directly from these founders' strategy.
Strategy 2 (Medium term)
Others have chosen to take the strategy of distributing NXT further down the road (after the dust has settled from the early fire sales), by donating through bounties and other means. This group provided the fuel to power the Nxt economy through the stormy days of DDoS and subsequent building of the Nxt infrastructure to the state we see today.
Notice that if all founders had chosen strategy 1, we would not have seen the increase in the value of NXT. This will not have provided the incentive for early adopters to continue working on the project. It would also not have drawn in new investors. On the other hand, if all founders had chosen strategy 2, nothing would have moved and all their NXT would be worth nothing. You can see that there is a very delicate balance between these 2 strategies. They compliment each other, and they have managed to keep this delicate balance in a decentralized manner without having to collaborate like a cartel!. It's market forces and collective wisdom at play.
Strategy 3 (Long term)
All eyes are on a very small number of large founder accounts that don't seem to move. This, I think are founders who are taking a long term strategy. These founders have decided to hold substantial amounts to act as possible network defender of last resort. They provide the ammunition needed to fight off yet unknown threats which may require a large stake to defend or to fund more costly development and infrastructure further down the road. A possible example is Mr 47. If you think carefully (read between the lines) about his last 2 conditions, you'll see how that falls under strategy 3.
If we don't lose sight of the forest for the trees, we can see that free market forces and collective wisdom of all well-meaning stakeholders ultimately work towards the strengthening of the Nxt ecosystem. More engagement and less non-constructive criticisms will certainly help.
Finally.... back to funding for the core dev team, and for that matter funding for marketing & infra. I do not think founders will continue to pile more NXT into the funds if they remain underutilized. Once the committees begin to spend the funds wisely and prudently (showing results), and when it begins to run low, I am pretty sure founders and early adopters will step up to the plate. I will be one of them.
In the long term, I do not think the community should be remain reliant on central funding for building the Nxt ecosystem. While it is essential during these early days (as a bootstrapping measure), the ecosystem should develop in such a way that it will become profitable to build services. Taking Bitcoin as an example, save for Gavin, all other developers (core, client, infra) continue to support the ecosystem through indirect "privatized" means. If we continue to pick up traction, we may be there sooner than we think.
