[Q&A] Counterparty Foundation Election 2019 Q&A

General Announcements
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The 2019 Counterparty Foundation nomination period has concluded and the 8 candidates running for a CP Foundation Community Directory seat are listed below

Candidates

Nominations

Voters can review the nomination process and basic candidate bio information available in the forum post linked below.

Questions

Please use this thread to ask questions of the candidates about their positions on various topics and how they feel they could best help move Counterparty forward.

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XCPelectionnotice.com reveals several things. Most concerning is the blatant disregard for cooperation. It seems that this users insists that all voting capabilities will be for himself. With this level of self importance I was concerned that any effort made as a foundation member would be out of self interest. However I was reassured by the selfless gesture promised:

IF Nominated : I will start with funding all the bounties to open up freewallet for all to use (approx 2000xcp). I will also donate 1000 xcp to future CIP funding developments.
-source

Now that this user has nominated himself, I look forward to the fulfillment of this statement in the near future. It would show such great character and leadership, not to mention faith in the community, to follow through with this declaration. I would ask everyone to stand behind such a leader who is willing to sacrifice half his holdings in such a selfless act as to finance work from his pocket for the betterment of the system. This is the bestest no brainer choice yet! How dedicated this leader must be who is willing and able to better the community if he is in charge or not!
@Titanium when can we see these transaction IDs on the network?
I know Jdog deserves the reward

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The few things to note about your reply. First regarding xcpelectionnotice.com, if this nominee believes his 6,000 votes is best spent on himself so be it. I just hope he fulfills his duties and actually contributes considering heā€™s got a vested interest. I plan on using the majority of my xcp to vote for myself as well as a few others I believe deserve a roll.

Regarding my pledge:
I also recognize the efforts and contributions made by Jdog. I feel like heā€™s done a lot of work and has paid a lot of maintenance fees and server costs keeping xcp alive over the years. He also has one of the best wallets and interfaces for the dex. Opening it up for all to use will not only help Jdog but it will also help the average user grant access to important feature sets in FW. Confirming my nomination via broadcast means I will be following through on my pledge of donation. I will confirm the donation publicly, once completed, before the voting period so Jdog not only receives the donation for his hard work but also has more power to vote for those he chooses.

I will announce the donation when itā€™s completed. Long live Counterparty.

Thank you.

Ryan Peters

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thank you for your valiant effort! Although I was the source, Iā€™m very glad that you took the time to clear this confusion. Sorry about the mix-up. Thank you for your dedication. I am most delighted that you managed to reply in a professional manner. This level-headedness is the marking of a good decision maker, imho

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For what it is worth, I am not comfortable with any personal or CP donations for freewallet.io at this timeā€¦ I think all donations should be held until after the CP foundation is electedā€¦ then all donations should be sent directly to CP and the foundation can best determine how to spend the fundsā€¦ while I greatly appreciate any donation, me opening up freewallet has an ongoing monthly cost of operating xchain.io and the APIs, so I would like to setup some sort of arrangement with the CP foundation or a private individual to cover these operating costs before I consider open sourcing the wallet and allowing everyone access.

I am sure that your 1000 XCP donation to the CP Foundation to fund CIP Bounties will go a long way to help developmentā€¦ but please withhold any donations until after the election takes place (we have no general fund/donation address on the site at this time by design).

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Make sense. My donation still stands, whether or not iam elected. Please once the foundation is established, let me know where to send my donation.

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How do you plan to appeal to the Bitcoin community to promote Counterparty and ultimately raise money for the foundation?

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Your character and mindset is a true asset to this community. I follow this same notion and plan to do the same. I have funnded many assets for the community that drives for bring solid project to the community for everyones benefit. The main thing we need as a community now is proper marketing. And the beginning of this new solid foundation I see we are establishing for a great future for us all.

Best regards,
World Chaplin
Hon. Larry Shelton.

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Since I began my adventures in Counterparty my main approach to promoting counterparty has always been through wallet set ups, giveaways and just generally trying to educate and set up anyone willing to listen. If youā€™ve ever been a newb in projects such as Rare Pepe or Bitcorns and you asked for help or expressed interest in ā€œwanting to get startedā€ youā€™ve probably received at least one, if not many, free tokens from me.

The Bitcoin community remains relatively niche, yes perhaps the number of ā€˜investorsā€™ has grown, but the amount of users that have set up ā€˜realā€™ wallets, ones that are similar to those suitable to interact with the Counterparty ecosystem, is still few and far between. I vow to continue to ā€˜spread the good wordā€™ about Counterparty, and its features, in any platform I am given. I have exhibited my willingness to do this with my track record for example attendance of events such as Rare AF (1&2) and Tab CONF where my primary goal was to discuss and promote Counterparty.

Furthermore, if elected not only do I plan to both fulfill my duties to the best of my ability on the foundation but also plan to use the tile of ā€œCommunity Director | Counterparty Foundationā€ as a platform to establish myself as an ā€˜authorityā€™ for any type of press I can get for Counterparty, be it; conference lectures, panels appears, podcast slots, etc. I hope this expansion of Counterparty visibility, and consequently user base, will lead to increased fundraising sources whether it be angel investments from VCs, writing grants to various organizations, or merchandising. Iā€™m all in on Counterparty and want nothing more than the project to succeed, and the foundation to be prosperous.

In short, I aim to shill, and I aim to do it shamelessly to anyone who will listen.

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I would be curious to hear how candidates perceive the role of a foundation. What does a foundation enable you to achieve that you cannot achieve today without said foundation?

Good luck with your ambitious endeavor!

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I see the foundation roll as a combination of symbolic ā€˜leadershipā€™ and proactive development. However, the beauty of the space is even if the foundation chooses to actively fund a specific change to the Counterparty protocol (i.e. CIP) that does not mean the change is guaranteed to be utilized or even included in the majority consensus running/utilized software and/or nodes. Thus, the activity of the foundation is intended to represent the consensus of Counterparty users (or more specifically XCP owners) but cannot override the most widely used and accepted version of the software.

The foundation would allow individuals to present as leadership to the press/wider ā€˜blockchain communityā€™ with at least some reliable credibility that at some point in the near past there was at least a semblance of consensus that, that individual was agreed as representing the mission statement or ā€˜visionā€™ of the project. Itā€™s not perfect but itā€™s better than being headless when our community is at a schism and participation is dwindling. Furthermore, this appointment is reassessed within the next year, so if the actions of an elected individual are questionable and/or objectionable to the majority of participators they can be removed.

Essentially, I donā€™t see a downside in having one, so why not even if it accomplishes very little or nothing.

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Hi Accountability!

As your name suggests, you are holding me accountable.

Now, yes! I did say I will vote for myself!

&

I purposely let everyone know of my plans.

The reason why is exactly as told! Iā€™m fair, honest, and trusting! If I wanted to sneak my way into the foundation, I wouldnā€™t have announced it! That wouldnā€™t be smart.

I encouraged others to apply and vote! I even tried to get Devon on board who would be steep competition for everyone, including myself.

I honestly donā€™t know how more upfront I can be about it.

If I wanted to be selfish, I would of said nothing until the last day of voting and would of casted my votes like a snake to myself.

Instead, I took the opposite side of the road and encouraged the best and brightest to apply :grinning:. I even went on a Twitter hunt to try to convince others to apply.

I promise you, if I had alternative motives, I wouldnā€™t have told everyone that every vote counts and if they donā€™t vote, my votes could swing the election.

If someone is trying to rig an election, you donā€™t announce it. Plain and simple.

Iā€™m voting for myself if others donā€™t cast enough votes because I truly believe in what I can do for CP.

If thatā€™s not passion, I donā€™t know what is. CP is too important to me! If you can trust anyone, itā€™s yourself. I trust that I can really, really make a difference. Not just for me, not just for you, but EVERY kind caring sole on this :earth_americas:.

My name is Ryan Baptiste.

As far as Ryan Peters is concerned, I think itā€™s a terrible idea for him to donate 1/2 his XCP to the foundation.

While itā€™s a noble cause, that I do respect, it will lesson his incentive to make XCP grow.

I believe many crypto chains go bust because the developers end up selling their coins and have little to no incentive left to work.

I think Ryan Peters should keep his coins, however it is his choice.

We are not going to win with a 1,000 XCP donation. We need to do way more than just that.

Ryan Peters, donā€™t donate your coins. Keep them for yourself.

Iā€™ve continually praised JDog publically for his unselfish actions. The only reason we are here is because of J keeping the servers going!

John also, mad props to John. :pray:

Iā€™ve argued against changing the CP name a few days ago when suggested. Why? Our founders created CP, not us. Their creation, their name.

I only want the best for CP and elected or not, I will work 24/7 365 to make CP the greatest crypto in the World!

Please learn more about me on Twitter @ryanavenue .

Iā€™m a nice, caring, guy. I promise you, I will bring passion to this project like never seen before.

Also, I just want to make point. I didnā€™t wait til the last day to apply to the election. I did it fairly fast and quick. I have no time to waste. We need to get to work!

Please feel free to ask me all the questions you want.

TY Ryan Baptiste :grinning::us:

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Jess,

Iā€™ve been navigating my Twitter account to make top connections in the tech world.

I will raise and I wonā€™t stop!!

What we have to do is too important.

If you vote for me (Ryan Baptiste), I promise I will not let you down!

My twitter handle is @ryanavenue.

Please feel free to ask any more questions of me!

&

If you have Twitter, follow me so we can be friends!

:grinning::us:Ryan Baptiste

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Dan,

The foundation will not let me achieve anything that I canā€™t already.

CP is a permission-less protocol.

I encourage all proprietors to operate and profit from the CP protocol assuming the activity you are performing is of legal standing in your jurisdiction.

I DO NOT believe the foundation should compete against any proprietors on the network.

The foundation is to support and improve the protocol. That is it.

Not profit.

I know we may have gotten off to a rough start, however, I cannot stand for allowing illegal election interference.

Itā€™s very important that we follow the laws of the land.

Decentralization does not mean laws do not need to be abided.

If we are going to win, we will need to do it legally or we will never win at all!!

Ryan Baptiste :us::grinning:

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There are many issues surrounding the current state of affairs. Many users feel that by doing certain things, there will be a quick fix. From my experience in altcoin projects the usual statements of futility revolve around exchanges, redesign of the website and so called marketing. As a student of marketing I learned that there is so much more to this buzzword than can be considered at face value. This is especially true when taking into consideration the scope of our community supply chain as a business directive. While appealing to the bitcoin community at large is one market to address the bigger potential is found by outreach activities in ways that are intelligible and inter-reliant, not incomplete and uninformed. Frankly, I have a proposal specifically for outreach that I am intending to launch officially, or not when ready. In order to enable onboarding with simultaneous tasteful product placement to generate awareness effectively, this effort needs reinforcement by specific service providers in our community. Yet, it has the potential to raise funds and awareness. Iā€™d rather have both go straight to the foundation than me personally, so Iā€™m sitting on it until I can share it with them before making it public.

Two things that I would like to address have relevancy as well. One is that I believe that the foundation should explore the idea of using the platform to create microreward bounties and incorporating them to systematic gamified participation affecting the protocol for actions beyond the formal CIP system. The second is that mid-level agency should be encouraged. Case in point that if not directly commissioned, community contributions that are open and replicable be rewarded in kind.

To bring this all together, it is my understanding that: Varied marketing efforts need to be tailored to the demographic being reached for each CounterParty usage. Open systems that can be modified, yet present a unified education to outsiders facilitates the awareness needed to facilitate the social capital which will inevitably be linked to the ability to generate financial capital on a need-to-ask (CIP) basis in harmony with the current not-for-profit structure.

From a business standpoint, it appears that there could theoretically be a class of continual CIP that is a for-profit endeavour with clear intentions and requirements including oversight by the board. Similar to separating the accounting into different departments, this compartmentalization could even be a mutual-fund type structure depending on authorization in the current jurisdiction of Deleware unless otherwise amended. [ttbomk, afaik]

Thanks for the tough question, please let me know if I managed to answer it, or make more :smiley:

Shout out to J Scrilla and his outreach table at the Bitcoin Conference last month. This is the kind of stuff that grassroots are made of

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(post withdrawn by author, will be automatically deleted in 24 hours unless flagged)

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In the context of recent CounterParty history, one of the most relevant of the myriad of conventional explanations is the ability to sign contracts. Once the Foundation is established the organization as a whole will be less vulnerable to deplatforming by major crypto organizations following best practices. Getting onto exchanges, or more importantly, staying up on the intellectual arms race that is legal compliance in order to stay relevant are not achievements accomplished as actors working alone. For that matter, as far as I currently understand, it seems that the Board has the power to even grant an agent with the authority to be an official exchange outreach spokespersonā€¦

for additional info please see #ARTICLE V - BOARD OF DIRECTORS ##Section 5.1 Powers

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Iā€™ve got a couple great ideas to help spread awareness to the counterparty protocol. Through awareness will come donations towards the project.

Iā€™d like to help rebrand counterparty website to give it a modernized look and feel. Having the website refresh will give us something to brag about to the BTC community as most in the BTC community have given up on xcp. A rebranding of the website will blow fresh air into the CP environment and create a tailwind to help spread awareness about xcp and new features coming out through CIPs.

I also have a few ideas to help on board new users whos contributions weā€™ll go directly to CIP developments and foundation efforts. Hosting lottery and contests will not only help with promotion and awareness but will also help with funding the foundation wallets.

Another idea I have that I would like to implement once elected would be to run a mock election around the 2020 US Presidential race. Since our platform can also be used as a voting tool, itā€™d be interesting to run a mock vote inline with the 2020 elections. promoting this to the BTC community could lead into an influx of users interested in casting a BTC blockchain vote for the 2020 election. Iā€™m in a rough draft state for this idea some more details will be forthcoming. Any input would be greatly appreciated on this.

I think many have given up on xcp and my goal is to flip that narrative and show the BTC community that we are alive and well, still growing and still relevant as ever.

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Really the foundation as I see it, is just a group to help unite the community and raise funding for potential marketing and development costs. Having a group interested and dedicated in leading xcp to gain more users and awareness creates a unity between users, developers and investors. The foundation is just an organized effort help spread awareness and raise funds for future development and promotional costs. With a few good ideas, and a team ready to implement, the foundation will help move counterparty back into mainstream consciousness.

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Marketing is not our problem.

We continue to advance the protocol and make the best product in the :earth_americas: and it will work itself out.

No reason to spends funds on marketing. We hold onto our funds for CIPs and future CIPs.

If we do our job right, we will have way more funds in the foundation than we could have ever imagined.

The website is good, nothing wrong with it.

Our founders built that website and they are clearly smarter than all of us.

Now, a little revamp, ok. But to change their content or anything of that sort is not a good idea IMO.

They are the geniuses, probably not us.

XCER
Ryan Baptiste :us::grinning:

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