This is my first proposal, and I would just like to say – I have no idea what I am doing. But due to feedback and conversations I have had with the community, I am going to give my best effort to describe my role in the Hive Launch and ask for compensation for those contributions through the DHF, rather than see my posts be over rewarded on Hive.
This is a new frontier we are in and trying to find a balance for rewarding valuable contributions to the ecosystem through both the rewards pool and DHF will be important going forward. We have many individuals contributing to the ecosystem, and we should reward that.. but I also see the value in having other ways to do so that does not rely on content. This is my attempt to take a step in that direction.
Proof of Work
Due to this being a unique proposal, not having to do with code or development, I felt the only way to show my work as well as full transparency was to detail my contributions in each aspect, I was a part of. It is a bit long, but felt it was important to include.
Communications
A short time after the purchase of Steemit by Justin Sun was announced, I was brought into a group to discuss options and possible future plans. I immediately took on the role of a “Head of Communications” of sorts and started building a cohesive way to tell the Community’s story. I then used my personal contacts to ensure this story was heard. This resulted in the initial coverage in Coindesk as well as additional articles after.
Detailed Work:
When SF 22.2 launched, I worked personally with CoinDesk and helped to write the initial article that was posted about the situation. Including getting them up to date on the basics of the chain and what was happening, as well as helping to ensure they told the community’s story truthfully.
When 22.5 Hardfork happened, which became the Steem Hostile takeover and overthrew the governance by using exchange funds, I immediately went to work with CoinDesk again to ensure the story was covered. As well as reaching out to many New orgs - setting up interview for witnesses, stake holders and dApp owners to ensure our story was everywhere. I hit social media and every personal contact in the space I had to ensure it did not get buried, like past Tron questionable actions.
I started the Hiveblocks twitter, manned the official email (getting information to relevant parties) plus started running other forms of communication in Telegram and elsewhere, carrying out the goals of the group building Hive.
This resulted in many articles covering the situation, including the announcement of the upcoming Hive chain, the community and it’s story took over from there.
When Hive was announced I worked with CoinDesk again, as well as other influencers and journalists I knew in the space to set up interviews and news articles.
I believed that ensuring we told our powerful story and established hype around it would be vital for initial success of the project, as well as Exchange listings of HIVE. I believe we achieved this, without question.
Overview:
- Started and ran social media account communications.
- Responsible for, or contributed to, over 20 articles covering all aspects of the Steem Takeover to the Hive Launch which formed our powerful story and ensured it was heard.
- Managing multiple Hive Telegram groups.
- Being main point of contact through email and other communication platforms.
CMC listing
I contacted CMC and filled out the application for listing HIVE and HBD. This included gathering legal, technical, and relevant information. I then worked with the team to formulate a description for the project as well as helped the CMC team correct errors, answer questions, etc through back and forth communication for the weeks following.
Exchange Work
Exchange listings were an interesting aspect of launching Hive, as we are a decentralized community and therefore have no legal entity or company - which most exchanges “require.” In fact, we were told early on that it would be impossible to do anything without such an entity. We even had an individual who had done the work before state repeatedly that without a legal entity and paying for listings, we would not see HIVE on any exchanges. But with some ingenuity from the group as well as showcasing the power of the community and our story, we were able to satisfy legal requirements as well as show why no centralized company was needed.
I am also glad to report that we did not pay for a single listing, even though some started out asking for 150K plus, which the above-mentioned individual advised us to pay, as this was the “norm.”
I learned a lot during this time period and really tried to stick to my guns on not accepting any deal I did not feel was best for the community. Rather, we used the story we had built, the hype we had created and the active community to constantly put pressure on them with the demand ... and hold our line on what we would and would not do, even when some advised me not to.
We had a small group working on different aspects of the exchange listings. Some doing technical support or guidance etc. I would say I played the role of “point of contact” for lack of a better word and will try to put in as much detail my part of the exchange work below for each listing.
Bittrex
The Bittrex listing was fully due to the work done and relationship built by Gandalf previously. He, in my opinion, was the only reason Bittrex took the chance on us so quickly and really helped us be seen as a legitimate project right out of the gate. My part in this one was simply helping with communication of the “how”, gathering needed documentation or information, answering questions and coordinating marketing etc. After listing I also worked to help add the additional USD/USDT pairing.
Overview:
• Helped with comms, gathered relevant documentation, organizing marketing etc.
• Additional USD pairs assistance
Huobi
Conversations with Huobi started shortly after Hive announcement in March. We had a group telegram chat set up after the story broke on twitter and secured they would participate in the airdrop. I then went through the application process and gathered technical and legal information needed.
There were a few issues that occurred with the line of communication, and it was very hard to get all on the same page. We were requested to pay a large fee (over 100k) and when we said no to that then it was requested, we do a large deposit to list (80k), among other things. We made it known we would not be going along with these ideas and would not be paying for listings.
Finally, we removed our initial “point of contact” who seemed to not be working to carry out the goals of the group or what would benefit the community. We reorganized and after doing so things started to flow better. The head of their listing department was brought into the group and the process began to take shape. This took many weeks of work, and endless back and forth conversations, but we finally came to a listing agreement and began to plan the AMA.
Overview:
• Completed listing application and compiled legal documentation
• Was main point of contact 24/7 for over 3 weeks
• Negotiated the fee from 150k to a free listing
• Helped plan and run the AMA
• Handled joint communication and marketing
Binance
My work with Binance started on March 6th 2020. I had a former contact at Binance reach out for guidance about their role in the Steem Hostile Takeover. After the story broke and they were mentioned in many articles as well as on twitter, they wanted help to move forward as they seemed to have no idea what they had done. There was some heated discussion, some explanation and essentially them realizing the gravity of the situation. We advised them to immediately remove their votes in governance (which was currently voting for Justin’s sock puppet witnesses) and start a power down immediately. It became clear very quickly they were not familiar with the blockchain and required a bit of help with every step.
We then set up a chat with them and a few devs to help them with any technical assistance needed and started to work towards trying to repair the relationship between the community and Binance.
When Hive was announced, they committed to the airdrop and we started working towards a possible listing. We were advised we would have to go through the same process as all other coins and sometimes that took months. I filled out the complex application, trying to somehow gather legal information as well as have them excluded requirements for a legal entity etc. The process took quite some time.
After that there was constant communication about when their withdrawals would be open, as well as some unfortunate communication from their support team which included incorrect information. I worked alongside them to correct this along the way.
Then there was a discussion of security deposits, listing fees as well as decentralized bug bounties. I worked to negotiate this down, and eventually they waived those aspects and listed HIVE on Binance with no fee.
Overview:
• Initial contact to stop voting in governance on Steem and power down.
• Set up communication with Devs for technical assistance
• Completed listing application and compiled legal documentation
• Was main point of contact from March to current
• Handled communication aspects and joint marketing
• Negotiated a free listing
ProBit, MXC, WazirX, & HotBit
Helped with communication, listing and legal documentation as well as AMA planning and execution.
Upbit and BitHumb
While no listing has been announced for these at this time, I have worked with them to fill out applications and gathered legal documentation as well as handled communication to work towards possible future listings. I will continue working towards listing HIVE.
Kraken, Shapeshift & Coinbase
These exchanges are considered some of the harder ones to be listed on, especially as STEEM had not even been listed previously, but we have done many things already that STEEM could not, so why stop now.
I have used some of my contacts in the space to get initial conversations going. Only initial contacts have been made for these, but hopefully it plants a seed for possible future listings. I will continue to work on these in the coming months.
Continued Work
My plan is to continue helping with these aspects of Hive until we have the proper structure to hand them off to the community. I am already working with some individuals to start turning over some aspects, as the tasks being taken on by many would be better in the future imo.
Main focuses will be listings on the major exchanges listed above and helping with communication, until I am no longer needed.
I then will be contributing to a project focused on solving the content discovery issue and other aspects of the platform I feel need to be improved to ensure long term success.
About Me
I joined Steem in January of 2017 and helped to establish the now Hive Blockchain. I have been involved with establishing or working on many projects and communities over my time here including: C-squared, Helpie, Curie, as well as the founding chair and project manager behind the initial Steem Alliance Foundation. My main role has been behind the scenes helping where needed and have been involved with countless projects just as an advisory role as well. My focus has always been on finding a way to empower the community and help it to see its full potential.
Funding
I am asking for 500 HBD a day for 60 days, as this is for work already completed as well as that which will be ongoing. So the proposal is covering 4 months worth of work, both past and future. I calculated the price based on time spent so far (30-40hrs/week since March) and amount saved in getting free exchange listings, versus the suggested 150k-300k that would have been spent from either stake holders, or the DHF (which is what our previous exchange rep had suggested would be the only way to accomplish listings).
I know this proposal is unique, as it is not for development aspects as well as for work already completed. But I believe what was accomplished speaks for itself, as we were able to achieve more in a short time frame than anyone thought was possible. I believe the above detailed proof of work description outlines my contributions in making that happen.
Voting
You can vote for my proposal here: Hive Signer
or
https://hivedao.com/proposal(#100)
https://peakd.com/me/proposals/100
Final Thoughts
In the past we have always depended on Steemit Inc to handle all aspects covered in this proposal. With this now decentralized chain of ours, we will have to figure out how to do this as a community. Having the Decentralized Hive Fund gives us the ability to fund many different aspects of the work done to further the Hive ecosystem as well as empower our community.
This aspect is all very new to me, please feel free to ask questions or for more clarification. Much of my work can be vouched for those individuals involved in the core aspects of the Hive launch, as I have no code to show in that regard. So, I welcome all feedback and questions.
Thank you,
Justine
Edit
Due to some questions about the breakdown of “hourly” wage as well as committed work, I wanted to copy and paste a comment I made to answer that elsewhere.
Funding Breakdown
original comment
“This, imo, is more of a contract style job proposal and not a hired hourly worker but will break it down the best I can:
I started full time work on the things described in my proposal on February 20th. I was actively working on the aspects listed in my proposal everyday since that time, every single day including nights and weekends. Some days may have been 4hrs.. others were 10+. I did this everyday. So let’s just go with 8hrs a day on average to get a baseline.
Past work completed
Feb 20th through now = 74 days x 8, 592 hours.
Committed Future work
Now until July 8th = 63 days x 8, 504 hours.
Total = 1096 hours total / 30,000 HBD (if fully funded and IF hbd holds its peg) = $27.37/hour.
Now for the sake of fairness I originally just estimated the work put in at 40hrs a week even though it has been more up until this point and I assume will continue to be. But If we just go with 40hrs a week instead to get a baseline for the whole time period worked and that which will be (through at least July 8th):
19 weeks x 40hrs a week = 760 hrs/30000 HBD = $39.47/hr
This of course only is factual if the whole proposal is funded and never falls out of consensus and of course the “hourly rate” depends on HBD staying pegged at $1, as we know is not guaranteed.
At anytime (if it’s approved) it can fall back out of approval and perhaps just be partially funded. This is an option if stakeholders feel that perhaps they do not agree with the full amount asked for.
Is it a decent amount of money? Absolutely. It’s also a skilled job that involved high level negotiations with large corporations as well as many other aspects. I do feel this hourly wage is inline with the work being done.
I do not feel entitled, but I feel it’s an overall fair assessment considering the community funds saved due to the work put in. I do think there should be a better way to track such hours and work and am working on a way to do that.
Hopefully that helps answer your questions.“
Additional Questions, clarifications, and conversation concerning this proposal:
@justineh/clarification-and-questions-answered-about-my-proposal-in-response-to-a-post-by-belemo
*All rewards are being sent to the DHF.
Image Source