February 3 - Questions for the Tezos Foundation

If you have a question for the Tezos Foundation, please include below and we will do our best to answer during the week.

The most frequently asked questions will be added to our FAQ .

Any member,

Are there any reasons that the TF wouldn’t convert their BTC holding to to tzBTC? Not asking in terms of “giveaways” but simply to move those funds the the Tezos chain. There have been some ideas thrown out that it may project strength in TF trusting their chain as well as increase the amount of funds stored on chain.

Second question added: Any member/All Members: I know each of you is working hard to accomplish goals. I also know that, for most of you, the Tezos foundation role is secondary to your primary rolls in other companies and projects. Is there anyone willing to speak about their experiences? Are you able to handle both effectively? Do you think rolls of the TF members should be paid more and possibly be filled as a full-time position? In hindsight, do you enjoy furthering the Tezos Ecosystem and do you feel appreciated?

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Created an account just to reply to this… Please realize that the more Bitcoin is locked inside of Tezos the more valuable Tezos itself becomes. Like harnessing the power of PoW inside PoS…

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I had assumed the foundation was already holding all BTC as tzBTC. I actually find it a bit disconcerting to learn that they are not. If I recall correctly, Bitcoin Suisse is the tzBTC custodian, so I wouldn’t think there would be any institutional concerns as they custody the native BTC and then issue tzBTC. This is disturbing to learn.

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Why would it matter if it was in tzBtc or BTC? Based on all these threads, one would assume there are other more pressing concerns than whether TF holds their BTC in BTC or tzBTC.

Tezos is the most advanced and developed blockchain in existence, and the foundation doesn’t even use it for its most basic use case? Doesn’t promote confidence or send a great message. If the CEO of Boeing refused to fly in a Boeing plane, people would wonder.

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In the end of the day tzBtc is still btc. Once again, is this really an issue you want to focus on or do you want to focus on other things that are more pressing?

Yes, it’s a valid question.

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Yes, let’s waste more time in addressing why TFs holdings of btc is not in tzbtc. It’s clearly a valid and important question and the reason why we are in the state that we are currently in.

What state are we in, Barry?

Well, for starters, how about you just read through your own thread posts to figure that out.

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Gentleman,

Let’s try to keep this post more for questions. With this being an AMA thread I feel like people entering to ask a simple question may end up having a slightly skewed tone in their questions if anything in here gets argumentative. I love the fire and I’m certainly not parenting… but this might belong under discussion of philosophy and economics. If I’m wrong please feel free to tell me to shove it.

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Barry actually there is no more pressing concern than this. Tenderbake is a necessity but everyone knows that’s already coming so no need to ask about that. Notice know one else has brough up any other questions so realize the importance please.

Murbard rightfully complains that giving away grants or spending on advertisement is a waste of money; therefore converting BTC to tzBTC is a zero-cost way to increase the value of Tezos by many fold. People want BTC and if it is locked inside Tezos they will have no choice but to interact with Tezos therefore raising the price. It is a war against Grayscale GBTC and we have to make sure the war isnt lost before centralization takes over. The way we win is with more tzBTC than GBTC.

You said “Yes, let’s waste more time in addressing why TFs holdings of btc is not in tzbtc.” So if time has already been wasted on this could you let us know the conclusion please? You said “is this really an issue you want to focus on or do you want to focus on other things that are more pressing?” There are no more pressing issues because if there were more pressing issues you either would have brough them up yourself or someone else would have. I do not understand why you are fighting this, the thread is “Questions for the Tezos Foundation” not fight about questions. It’s just one question and there have been no others so there is no reason to fight about his.

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A recent Reddit post linked to this reminder as to what was promised in the original Tezos crowdfunder. The September 2020 Tezos Foundation Biannual Update lists the substantial progress in many areas (24 fundees in the Infrastructure category, for example). Funding from March 2020 to September 2020 was USD 18.8M, which is certainly in line with what was promised for the Mars Shot (USD 20M+ annually).

Some of the Moon Shot / Mars Shot items may not be immediate goals. For example, can a non-profit foundation hold a banking license? ¯_(ツ)_/¯

But, below are some items that certainly seem attainable. Is the Tezos Foundation planning to move forward in these areas?

Moonshot:

  • Hire talented teams of engineers and designers to build direct consumer applications through strategic acquisition of tech companies.

  • Offer competitive salaries to attract experts on formal verification to work exclusively on the protocol.

  • Set up an institution a la IC3 in Europe.

Mars Shot:

  • Deploy and silo several teams of engineers to build different candidates for upgrades. Evaluate empirically the best proposals and merge them.

  • Sponsor a leading computer science department with endowed professorships and extensive grants to graduate students in the field of formal verification.

  • Run a development school with emphasis on functional programming and safe smart contract construction.

Thanks for your thoughts.

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Is there a website or portal where we can follow the progress of grants?

(For example Web3 Foundation recently announced they reached the 209 grant milestone:

and this is where you can follow the progress of grants:

)

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  1. How many people are working at TF as a daily full-time job? which roles?
  2. How many hires have made TF and TQ in the last 3 months? which roles?
  3. How many people are working on marketing and promotion as a full-time job?
  4. Why do you need 6 months to release a presskit?
  5. Why do you need 4 months(and counting) to start a marketing campaign?
  6. When will the monthly reports start to roll out, that should start in this year?
  7. Why don’t board members promote Tezos on social media? Are they ashame?
  8. How does the TF explain the lack of interest for tezos from investors and Devs?
  9. Why do you need 6 months to overhaul a webpage?
  10. Can you put Charles in charge of promoting Tezos? This is a joke question and also a reminder that he alone has PWNED the whole TF and created a product that has no function yet, but is worth almost 9x more value than Tezos.
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In the last two AMAs it was asked about the Executive Director. What about it? Why can’t the Tezos Foundation appoint also a Marketing director like other Crypto Fundations/Organizations?

Thanks Rob, you are doing a great job

So, the Dexter thing happened… (Dexter Flaw Discovered; Funds are Safe).

@NomadicLabs thank you for discovering and helping guide this flaw to a solution which doesn’t involve losing user funds. And thanks to @tyler and his team for even taking on this gargantuan effort with your team considering the funding and timing issues.

This incident brings the attention squarely back on @tezosfoundation funding and decision making. The decision to under fund this effort from the start really set it back. Something was bound to happen with a team spread so thin.

Instead of focusing on STOs, more resources could have been given to decentralized tech that people are actually excited about and use daily. Generally speaking, it doesn’t help to have 10 billion dollars in funding if there is a real painful choke point in the decision making process of who to fund and how much to fund them. Judging by the results we all see, it’s fairly obvious there is a problem with: 1) deciding who is worthy of funding 2) deciding how much to fund them (“Should we REALLY give them what they’re asking?”) 3) going through proposals in an expedient fashion.

@tezosfoundation you have done a stellar job in investing the Tezos monies. You have done an atrocious job in leading the project from a technological funding perspective. On the latter, it seems like you don’t know the difference between a hammer and a banana. You are entrusted with fostering and growing the Tezos ecosystem. I’m not saying I have all the answers, but with your resources, you simply MUST find a way to get into a higher gear of performance. If nothing else, it’s darn embarrassing for yourselves (people in Zug) to see other foundations and community trusts do 10 times more with 10 times less funding in 1/10th the amount of time.

Shape up! It shouldn’t be all left to the unfunded community at large to do everything. We step up, YOU step up, that’s the deal.

It’s time to improve the logistics of the grant processing & approval process and to form a technical committee with well known community developers to solicit the tools our ecosystem actually needs so that grantees can get a damn clue and stop putting in proposals for grants that have no chance in heck of getting approved. It’s quite common to have spent 200 man hours coming up with a proposal with a high standard of rigor just to be denied, or worse, get lost in the paper shuffle that takes months just to get a response back. How painful do you really want to make this choke point while also relying on it to give life to a vibrant ecosystem? This is a you problem, you need to look into fixing it. I promise you, get this fixed and the community (and outsiders) will roar back in support and to laud you like you’ve never seen before.

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Regarding Dexter bug we ask again a competent Executive/Technical Director on the Tezos Foundation, checking that all grants are used as expected and taking initiative (not only waiting people coming to ask grants and spend them in anyway).

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