I am thinking what most of us are thinking and are not just coming out and saying it so here goes. For those of you who have no idea what the Value Plan is it is a fund used to help grow HIVE through marketing. If you think you have an idea that would benefit HIVE you then forward a proposal to the @valueplan team for judgement. This Value Plan is seriously important for everyone of us as it should be used to help grow HIVE adoption and awareness and at some point the hope is this would boost the token value.
In the last 12 months @valueplan has paid out 1,013,743.05 HIVE and 686,957.64 HBD which equates to around 5.2 million HIVE. This is not a problem if it was benefitting HIVE and some of the spend does.
There has been a few posts of late with @blanchy who I think needs to be thanked doing his monthly updates and last night I spent a good few hours looking into some of these projects. The deeper I dug the more worried I became because there are some that just do not add up. I do not blame anyone or point fingers for what has happened, but I beg you please can we just hold back on certain payments whilst this can be assessed. This is more about certain sponsorships that I would say have serious question marks hanging over their heads.
I have not gone though all of the @valueplan payments and I dare say there are some good projects amongst them. I have written to various companies and I am waiting on quotes for another sponsorship that the numbers make no sense. I just do not want HIVE to be take advantage of and this is more about looking out for the community. The question is do they benefit HIVE and that is how each one of these has to be judged. There are some that I am seriously confused about and my gut instincts tell me we need to halt some payments to some projects immediately.
Look At These Numbers
I am going to highlight one which became two because they do over lap and this account is involved with both sponsorships.
$20.087.00 as a cost to HIVE so far in the last 12 months for bicycle racing?
Did you know HIVE doesn't only own a rally car, but they also bought an MTB bicycle for $6500. I had no idea as I have not seen any posts about this and you would expect to see something. I am always curating the sports posts and have seen zero thus far. For those that aren't sure what an MTB bike is it is an off road mountain bicycle. Unfortunately you will see the problem with this sponsorship as to why I am questioning this and opens up more questions on a few other projects.
As you can see the costs add up and I have not included all of the payments either as it does paint a picture and that is not my aim here. What I find worrying is so many events yet we have had no updates on HIVE with this account. The obvious question did they buy a bicycle for $6500 and did they actually participate in the race because I have no clue if they did or didn't. A post when doing these events would be the least we should expect and that cannot be asking too much as HIVE is funding this. No post and I automatically think red flags or is this too unreasonable, I think not.
There are so many questions as why so many components and repairs being charged out on regular intervals? I ran a bicycle assembly plant and know my costs on items and why I do find this so hard to believe. Surely you can service and repair your own bicycle like many cyclists do. Maybe @victorwallet is the unluckiest bicycle rider in the world, but these questions need to be asked. Does Victor have another HIVE account that he uses to update the community on his cycling career? I think these are valid questions and not being unreasonable.
The other cost factors including the design of the merchandise billed at $20 per hour noticing the 6 hour ($120), 19 hour ($380), 12 hour ($240), 19 hours ($380) plus others. Is this @victorwallet designing this or someone else? Obviously no expense is spared or savings found it seems.
As you can see this is one of the Street Workout Crew members who has this bike which also raises questions about that other particular sponsorship.
The SWC spent $2428 on a medical first aid kit and I know how much a top of the range first aid kid with all the bells and whistles costs and it is well under $1k. It is actually nearly 4 x cheaper than what was spent here.
The Street Workout Crew is another problem area that I am seriously struggling with. They have received over $77K in the last 12 months and I was wondering for what exactly. Are they building these training areas but no they are already in site for public use.
Apparently it is for branded merchandise and advertising gear plus transportation. Venezuela where the SWC is based has 11 street workout sites according to Google which have been built by the local government. I actually like this idea, but not at $77k again where is the benefit for HIVE?
These two sponsorships equate to $100K for the 12 months and I am kind of a little shocked and disappointed at the same time that this was even considered a viable project to support. We can and must do better and I am asking the HVE community can we get more involved because we are all to blame and not just those over seeing this at @valueplan