Q: To what extent has block reward reallocation been discussed/considered?



A (Ryan): One of the questions that emerged following the introduction of ChainLocks is does it make sense to continue spending as much as we do of the block reward on hash rate given that ChainLocks essentially adds another layer of security and in many respects a much better layer of security to the network than proof-of-work. I think that it is an excellent question. It's obvious that that the right answer is not to continue to spend as much as we have in the past on that. I believe that there can be significant improvements made to the cost efficiency of our network without sacrificing security. So we are going to be engaging in a process of evaluating those options and presenting a proposal for discussion to the community. Ultimately a change of this magnitude would require not only a significant discussion, but probably a vote in order to facilitate it. But we are actively working on a proposed change in this regard. It's really an opportunity for us to do a more comprehensive view of how all of the economics and security of the network works. We know that we can make this more efficient. So I think the answer is an unequivocal yes. It makes sense for us to evaluate it. There's a lot of technical questions to be resolved surrounding it and and broad input needed from the team to make sure that we're putting forward a very logical solution to this. So stay tuned - I would anticipate introducing something for discussion before the end of the year.



Q: Where is the demand for what Dash Platform does?



A (Ryan): Dash Platform basically extends the capabilities of the network and enables completely new use cases. We are seeing demand from businesses in particular that want to do much more than simply facilitate a payment. This is coming in the form of logistics: being able to attach data to the network along with payments, i.e. the ability to send information through the network beyond the payment itself. An example here is making it easier for consumers to check out. A lot of the payments industry best practices that we want to introduce into the network are dependent on this capability. Just last week at the Cipher Trace conference in San Francisco that Glenn mentioned earlier, some developers approached me and had many ideas about how they planned on utilizing Dash Platform, and had wanted my input on on the ways that they might be able to use it. We have no less than half a dozen launch partners that are eagerly awaiting the capabilities of Dash Platform, and those are the ones that we've largely filtered down to supporting as launch partners. So we know that there's demand out there for this. Another example is one of the prominent Bitcoin payment processors had a conversation with them at Money 2020 and they expressed a lot of interest in how they might be able to utilize this. The short answer is there's a lot of demand for this type of capability and we think that it's gonna be a game changer for the network. That's the reason we're pursuing it.



Q: Have we tried spending money to advertise our proposal system to expand awareness? Would this sot of advertising get around the crypto ads ban on Facebook, as it's not really advertising a cryptocurrency, but rather a job opportunity?



A (Fernando): First, it's worth noting that Facebook has softened the limitations on cryptocurrencies a lot. Right now, as long as you are not trying to sell coins, you are mostly okay. Although some certain things require previous approval, it's still possible. However, we have not advertised the proposal system ever, and I don't think anyone has done it. But there has been some discussion in the community about how we could bring in good partners and projects to the proposal system. But I think most of the people agree, and I definitely agree, that broad advertising would probably not be the way. We would need to develop some kind of RFP (request for proposal) system, and then chase the appropriate format partners for each of these RFPs. That would probably be a much better approach than just advertising as a job opportunity. Because we need to first establish what are the needs, not just bring people in to the proposal system to search for money.



A (Ryan): I would add that if others feel differently, there's nothing stopping the community from putting a proposal up to do exactly this. Or at least having a discussion publicly about whether or not the masternodes would vote for such a proposal. So that's one of the advantages of our open system - it's not dependent on whether or not Dash Core Group takes action on it.



Q: What marketing activity is Core currently pursuing and what marketing activities are planned for the future?



A (Fernando): The marketing function within DCG is working to bring Dash to the market and gain adoption. Obviously we can't do that just by ourselves, so we do work through different multiplier groups. On one side, we work with community and media to put out the message about Dash. These are the three topics which we mostly pursue:

- product adoption

- integrations

- education



We create content around that, and we also do some brand work. We put that through the channels which we build and maintain. This is mostly the website that we maintain and update. We also have the user-facing documentation hosted at docs.dash.org, all our social media channels and the conferences we attend. We don't do as many as we would like these days, but we still get some offers. We sponsor a few, and we attend many for free. But we are very careful which ones we choose. We produce some events, like the open house we are throwing in December. And we also do PR work through the PR firm that the network selected. Sometimes we do direct outreach and try to keep the media informed about what does.



The other big part that marketing is busy with is supporting our partners in getting Dash into the hands of their users. Sometimes this happens through business development, and we support them in the promotions we do with partners when they integrate, like the promotion that was launched yesterday with Binance US. In other cases there is no integration, but for different reasons, the partners which have to also reach out to them to do things. An example of this is Abra with their new wallet and promotional activities we are going to be doing in the next few weeks. Other times this activity with partners comes through other funded organizations in the ecosystem. We work very closely with all the embassies and Dash News, Dash Turkey, Dash Thailand, D-A-CH to also provide support where possible with the communication around all those integrations.



As for the future, resources are limited but we would expect to keep improving on all these areas of work, because there are many things we would like to do that we are we need to prioritize. So we have a big backlog of things we would like to do. Only if all these things were covered to our satisfaction would we tackle new areas like paid media advertising and things like that to a significant degree. If not, we'll limit our activities so we can do them to a more complete extent.



Q: Has DCG considered changing the CEO title to avoid confusion in the press? Would Ryan Taylor consider the role of General Manager?



A (Ryan): I know there's a lot of concern within the community when whenever a journalist shortens a headline or misquotes my position. A lot of the suggestions are can you change it to General Manager, can you change it to President... I think whatever you change it to, this mistake is likely to continue. Changing it to President or some other title would still result in the same root problem which is: "Ryan Taylor, President of Dash". So I don't think that's actually a solution. Probably a more practical solution would be having a very different name for Dash Core Group - in the case of Zcash, they have Electric Coin Company - and that might allow that distinction to be made much more clearly as opposed to a title change. I think that there's been a lot of noise on this. What we continue to focus on is correcting it whenever we see it, and hopefully continuing to clarify. Whether or not a change of entity name is warranted, that's not a serious discussion we've had, but I'd be interested in what the trust protectors are hearing from the community as a whole and whether or not they feel it needs to be addressed. Personally I don't think that it holds back a lot, but my point of view may be may be different than the community as a whole. I'm open to suggestions on that front.



Q: Would DCG take out a "key man" life insurance policy on Ryan Taylor with DCG as beneficiary?



A (Glenn): In the past we hadn't considered taking out key man life insurance for Ryan. I think it's actually a pretty interesting idea. So we should bring it to the board of directors for our next meeting to consider it. I think it's also important to consult with the trust protectors on the subject. But I think this is one of those questions where we'll go back, take it as homework, and make a decision based on a number of factors.



Q: What has been done to address the presentation setup for online interviews?



A (Ryan): A lot of this is directed at interviews that I did, particularly over the summer. I think there's a lot of confusion over the timing of some of the criticism that I got and what I fixed and when I fixed it. I did see the criticisms of the lighting in my office, and unfortunately I've done about four or five interviews in a very short period of time. The first one came out, the criticisms resulted from that, and I ordered some lighting and things. Over the course of the next three to six weeks, the remaining interviews continued to come out, and a lot of people continued to criticize those videos. And not only criticize the lighting, but now criticized me for not listening to the community and fixing the lighting issue. So I think there were some timing issues there where it's like, well, I can't control when the videos come out. Subsequent to that, I did get some additional feedback that it wasn't sufficient. I switch to actually taking all of my interviews from the office if video was to be used on any of those, including when videos were being recorded from other time zones - I've gone in as early as six o'clock in the morning to the SkySong offices to take those. We don't have a studio at the office, it's just a one room office. There's not a lot that we can do about the arrangement of the furniture which is in the room and attached to the walls.



So we did get some feedback from Tao recently on this issue. He did a video on the poor quality and had some suggestions for us. He sent over a list of equipment, and I've been working with him on exactly what the setup of the room is and generating ideas. There are some limitations, but I'm going to take further steps to address this, including ordering of a backdrop that we can set up in the middle of the room so that you're not looking at a wall behind me. Some additional equipment around lighting as well as microphones in order to get rid of the headset and things of other nature. So I have been listening to the community, the timing of the videos doesn't always work in my favor, after I fix something and then more videos come out. But I am listening to you, I am trying to fix it within the limitations that we do have. So Tao has been very helpful on that, I thank him for the help, we're ordering the equipment and hopefully this addresses the community's concern about the professional presentation issues.



Q: What progress has been made with Shift PR?



A (Fernando): The six months that were included in their proposal that was approved are ending this month. The proposal was made at a higher Dash price but then it went down and was cashed out at a lower rate. So in the end both effects have canceled out and they've been able to provide service for the full six months. They are doing another proposal - I think it's going live today, so there will be a lot of information in there with all the Dash Watch reports and all that. But as for the key achievements nearing these months, one good thing to talk about is they've successfully established a full network collaboration. It's not them working with Dash Core Group - we are coordinating that work - but they are also working with the other funded organizations that are doing outreach. Dash Next, D-A-CH, Dash News... in some capacity they usually attend the meetings we have so that's been a good improvement for them to really be the PR firm of the network, not of DCG. Also they've managed to finally open CoinDesk to Dash. We've had a series of positive articles in the last few months. Also in other crypto media, but CoinDesk was probably the most desired by all of us. They have also managed to put a few pieces in more mainstream media. But in any case, I'll just ask everyone to examine the proposal they make and see the Dash Watch reports and with that make a decision. I think we would be good keeping some PR support for the upcoming months, but that's for everyone to decide in the same way in which we decide everything at Dash.

This thread lists questions and answers from the DCG Q3 2019 Summary Call. The first posts contain transcribed answers from the call, and remaining questions will be collected and posted here over the course of the week. Questions are as follows: