Damn it.
I didn't want to get into the Decentralised Hive Fund discussion at all. Yet here I am .
For those that don't know what the DHF is:
The Decentralized Hive Fund (DHF) is an on chain decentralized autonomous system that allows users to submit proposals for funding and vote on which proposals should be funded.
There is an FAQ link available there also.
There is also a lower limit of support required in order to be funded (and stay funded) called the Return Proposal. This ensure that a funded application has enough staked support in order to get funded in the first place. Staked support isn't how many people support, but how much stake the supporting people have on the blockchain. This is not a 1 person 1 vote democracy, this is a Proof of Stake platform, with staking HIVE giving weighted powers of governance on the blockchain, as well as the benefits of up and down voting for curation.
Reminder: Curation is a "yes" and a "no" process.
Anyway, without going into too many specifics, the higher the return proposal is (which is also voted by those with stake), the harder it is to get an application funded, because it requires attracting more voting stake for it.
The current vote support requirements is around 36.5 million. That sounds like a hell of a lot, doesn't it? And then when @blocktrades voted the return proposal and pushed it up over 60 million and defunded all of the projects bar one, it made the fund look centralised. But, is it really?
That is how much Hive there is vested (staked) on the platform. That means that around 150 million HIVE POWER isn't voting for the return proposal currently. And, after BT voted, there was still 120 million not voting for the return proposal. This means that if in a hypothetical where all of that HIVE POWER was engaged on the platform, it could easily outvote BT. I am not saying that outvoting BT is what is wanted, it is just to illustrate that even with the largest stakeholder by far on Hive, it is possible to overrule him.
And then there is this.
That is how much Liquid HIVE there is that isn't staked. This is in wallets as liquid, but mostly, it is held on exchanges. The number one current holder of HIVE is...
Previously Upbit.
Would be a shame if they lost their keys.
That is 137 million (or about half) of all the liquid HIVE in one wallet. But my point of showing this is that the HIVE on those exchanges is user HIVE that isn't staked, and therefore not governing anything on the blockchain. It could of course come back and make a difference if the owners chose to, but that is not what is currently happening.
Back to the DHF
My point of this post is firstly to remind people that Hive has a fund that can help with development, but also that it requires more than a vote. I believe that any of the funded projects there should have regular and clear updates, outlining the timelines, what has been accomplished, expectations, hurdles and any other project related information that is required for people to decide whether to keep funding or not. This shouldn't be delivered consistently, whether it be for a community project, or an individual developer who is working on some aspect of the Hive code. There should be a high level of transparency on what exactly is being paid for and when expected delivery is to take place.
There should be accounting, and accountability.
Sounds like work.
It is work!
Anyone who is interested should be able to easily find the latest information on the proposal and, any historical information that might be pertinent to add or remove support. The default position should be "not to support" a proposal, no matter who is making it. And then, once the various criteria are met, then support can be added. At any point that criteria isn't being met, then the default position should be to remove support.
Perhaps @peakd could on their interface help with this by adding a "project notes" section where simple updates at least can be viewed reverse chronologically with the latest update showing directly on the proposal with a link to the full list.
At the very least, each proposal should have a repository of project documentation that shows the evolution of the project and has transparency on what is actually happening in terms of meeting goals. Some of the developers are getting well above a daily dev salary, even though it might be on par with hourly rate. The difference from a business doing it and on Hive, they aren't accounting for it, they aren't tracking their hours, they aren't meeting with a supervisor to keep them on track and on time, they aren't a business. A dev salary and what a company charges hourly, are two different things.
It is strange that the Hive blockchain is all about transparency of activity, yet we have a brilliant development fund but require no transparency of activity at all. But, the transparency isn't just to keep people interested in where the money is going satisfied, it is also to create some excitement around the development that is taking place. People used to get excited about an upcoming hardfork and talk about it for months prior, yet I don't even know if one is planned now, let alone what is included and what to expect. Having visibility and discussion At the community level helps people like me feel engaged with the platform and the development direction, as well as helps me plan my future as an owner, operator, contributor, participant.
I think people are looing at the recent activity around the fund in the wrong way. Instead of questioning the decentralisation of it, people should be questioning why more people aren't engaged with it, and why there is no transparency from the projects or devs who are funded. It shouldn't be a political game played in Discord, it should be an open process of discussion and information flow directly on the platform itself. And I think that even if the community doesn't demand it right now, the funded proposals should be taking responsibility and creating that transparency in the interest of good faith, for now and in the future.
I have a lot of goodwill for @blocktrades, not because he is a whale that has been around since the start, but because of the professional way he has always engaged with people, including the ones he probably doesn't like that much. He has often taken the time to be part of large discussions and shown support for a lot of small discussions too. His short-lived move on the DHF doesn't fill me with fear, but I hope it fills the projects there with some to the point that they up their game and start working like an actual project, holding themselves accountable to a transparent standard and timeline. I also hope it wakes up some of the people who have stake and are interested in the future of Hive, and gets them active in its governance mechanisms.
This is my rant for today.
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]