#valueplan

Value Plan Q4 2024 - Q1 2025 Bridge Proposal and Discussion

^{Hive Students Hub shirts at the Ghana Youth Tech Summit}

We wish to open this post by asking everyone to please submit your 2025 strategy ideas here. Currently we are working on the year-end reports for Value Plan which are still being developed. Several Hive community members who are not a direct part of the project but have niche professional expertise are assisting.

We were hoping that the Q4 budget would eliminate the usual bridge, which is this proposal, but due to new opportunities that did not happen. We prefer to underestimate expenses and optimize all budgets (save and cut) rather than overestimate them and be more flexible with the budgets.

As always, your Value Plan project managers are @lordbutterfly, @guiltyparties and @crimsonclad. The key holders are @theycallmedan, @smooth, @guiltyparties, @crimsonclad and @blocktrades.

This proposal seeks 105,000 HBD for the 2024-2025 bridge.

Key Financials

Rally Car

The original rally car was sold last week. The funds from the sale are in Euro and will go primarily into Monaco in order to avoid any conversion costs.

To use a limited budget in the most economical manner we are looking at three races for the year. These races have months between them, allowing for due preparation. This discussion is best for the 2025 planning post that will come out next month, after feedback has been gathered and processed in conjunction with organizational planning already underway. The considered races are Monaco (Monte Carlo), Italy/Portugal (only one), and the CER.

Monaco - This is the flagship of all WRC rallies and the main one to attend. A Hive promotional side event is in the works. This race takes place at the end of January but is set up towards the end of November. This is the race that is covered by the sale. The costs of the side-event remain unknown at this time due to ongoing planning with a partner. Since the side-event is a pilot project, they are to be kept as low as possible.

Krolestwo

Krolestwo is the first VP-related activity that, due to its maturity and high level of professional organization, became suitable for its own proposal which included the additional cost of salaries (under VP all operations are volunteer-run). The Hive community so far has declined that level of investment. Krolestwo promotional activities will continue at the reduced costs with volunteers as usual.

Hive Legal Opinion

This is documentation that supports listings, partnerships and Hive's success in promotional events, primarily in the US market. It is four separate components which are all part of the general legal opinion package that we are presently lacking.

The cost of the documents, which are mandated to be professionally compiled, audited and notarized, is a known sum of 55,000 HBD. This bill was already expected to have come out earlier in the year but has been delayed due to the scope of work. Due to the shift in timing, the funds that were earmarked for it in prior months were repurposed for pilot events, including the Miami Art Week opportunity. Both initiatives are geared towards re-opening the US market for existing and new Hive members. This is a tremendously-challenging undertaking that will open up new opportunities that were denied to us due to our decentralized nature.

The funds for this initiative have been earmarked as part of the previous budget but repurposed for the Miami Art Week initiative (which had to be paid with urgency, see section below).

Upcoming End of Year Activities

Smaller and ongoing activities are not listed at this time due to the fact that they are subject to change, being completed or being cancelled depending on various factors beyond our immediate control. Static activities such as Vibes will continue as usual.

We are supporting the main activities below with some organizational facts. Please let us know if you find these helpful. Note that some of these costs have been filled already due to timing needs/vendors/partners.

Hive Cup

This is an annual event that is carried out in conjunction with a co-sponsor who donates the physical space and set-up costs to it, Los Aviadores in Maracay, Venezuela. This year the event will have a B2B focus, particularly when it comes to onboarding businesses in the mall, as it gives us an opportunity to directly engage with them.

Contract: Yes (non-monetary) Audience: Local, Public, 1500 Partners: Yes Co-sponsors: Yes

Miami Art Week VC Event

A pilot event for the end of the year, the Miami Art Week will hos a very specialized and exclusive side-event aimed at investor and partner engagement. The activity will highlight VSC and generally focus on B2B and Hive defi/investment opportunities.

Contract: Yes Audience: Local, Private, 250 Partners: Yes Co-sponsors: NA

Hive Community Well Project

By popular demand and request from Ghanaian communities in need following HiveFest, one new well is projected to be installed in the Ashanti Region of Ghana. The well has an expected static cost due to prices being known ahead of time and will deliver access to potable water for approximately 1000 people on a daily basis.

Contract: No Audience: Local, Public, 4000-5000 Partners: Yes Co-sponsors: NA

2024-2025 Mixed Activities

Mazer Gaming

Digital promotions are already taking some serious steps this year with our marketing partner Mazer Gaming working to design an engaging multi-phase Twitch streaming promotional initiative for Hive games. It is designed to show a selection of Hive games that can be picked up and played by a streamer without advanced set-up. Note: Crypto Shots and Splinterlands are already selected so far but there is opportunity for other games. A timeline can be developed based on when a game reaches maturity. Games must have a Hive account creation mechanism within them or a landing page set up for the promotion to allow for this. Please reach out to plan out for your game.

Contract: Yes Audience: Global, 1,500,000-3,000,000+ (impressions) Partners: No (Hive dapps only) Co-sponsors: No

Monaco Investor Workshop

This is a side-event that is actively being planned as a pilot project and a template for future side-events. This event is to have a highly-vetted invite list. This is an activity that is in its planning phase only and its viability is still being discussed as we are working in a new geographical area. This event has ties to the Rally Car.

Contract: UK Audience: Local, Private, 10-30 Partners: Yes Co-sponsor: Yes

Hive Film Premiere

The Hive-made film 'Water Direct' is to be shown in a European cinema at a special event in the next few months (date TBD). This activity is projected to have a large impact by demonstrating what Hive has achieved through the unique opportunities it presents. It is directly tied with onboarding efforts, Krolestwo, and the Community Well Project.

Contract: UK Audience: Local, Public Partners: No Co-sponsor: No

Administrative Discussion

^{Water Direct, the film that outlines the impact of Hive in rural Ghana}

Indicators

You may have noticed that we have been trying out different categorization methods and indicators for the VP proposals over time. These are all designed to help evaluate their success and support metrics. The promotional initiatives launched through VP are not stand-alone projects run by unique teams - they are all cross-functional and are by design operate as a cohesive unit to market Hive. What this means is that multiple organizers and team members will contribute to an activity. It also means that we will borrow assets from one project and bring them to another as needed. Most initiatives have 2-3 different team inputs into them.

Maturing and developing our process further supports the primary goal of Hive - decentralization. A professional process is one that can be replicated, sharded, or shared across verticals within Hive irrespective of what they are. The purpose of this process is optimization. We want to ensure all work done is value-added work as VP has a valuable donation of time that our community members dedicate to it. VP also has the input of communal funds through the DHF, which demand efficiency and effectiveness of use.

DHF Compatibility

Many have asked why Hive promotional projects are handled by the VP budget rather than being part of the standard DHF proposal voting system. The above section may have answered part of your question but if it did not, here are a few points to consider:

Promotional opportunities often come up fast, sometimes 48 hour notice, which does not leave enough time to write up and get sufficient visibility on a proposal.
The actual costs are not known at the time of engagement as we negotiate down and adjust the scope.
Many events are cancelled during negotiation if the organizing company refuses to respectfully cooperate or treat Hive with the same level of consideration as its centralized competitors. For example, if competitor speakers are offered complimentary speaking spots but we are not. Sometimes, exigent circumstances beyond our control prevent our participation. For example, if Hive cannot deliver a presentation on the main stage, we will not find value in paying for a sponsorship.
Activities drastically change mid-activity fairly often due various circumstances, such as inclement weather.
Fixed costs projects are ones with contracts signed; once a contract is signed we are mandated to pay. These are typically conference sponsorships or other initiatives where documents are necessary and are outside of our control. Payment is mandatory upon signing and all deliverables and responsibilities of both the organizing company and Hive are clearly listed.
Financial disclosure is often not publicly permitted by vendors prior to the event taking place. This is typically because Hive has negotiated a lower price than what other exhibitors are paying.

Plug-In Proposals (Update)

This being said, a template for Plug-In Proposals (that were announced earlier in the year) is in the works and will be released soon. If you missed it, Plug-In Proposals are proposals where the promotional initiative is suitable for a separate proposal but it is still meant to follow the VP method. Plug-In Proposals are still mandated to create spreadsheets with individual line items for all expenditures, keep records, and stay within the scope. There are two types of Plug-In Proposals:

A full proposal that collaborates with VP and has shared budget elements but has a project team which handles the funds.
A connected proposal which has VP as the beneficiary (most will be this).

Both of these will be discussed in-depth in the upcoming strategy release. We need your input into the strategy document and if you have a stand-alone opinion on Plug-In Proposals, please add it below. Keep in mind that professionalism, optimization and efficiency are key points to consider when it comes to all proposals.

Proposal

The total of this proposal is 105,000 HBD. Out of these, 55,000 HBD is to be spent on legal documents, as describe above. The bridge amount for other promotional activities is 50,000 HBD.

Thank you for your attention,

The Value Plan Team

Comments · 20

@stickupboys(75)· 648d
lol best cash grab ever, good work!
@edb(66)· 651d
I don't need to repeat that Valueplan is wasting money specifically. But I'd like to add that spending money on brand awareness is useless in general. If advertising worked, Polkadot would be in the top 10. We need to focus, and I'd like to focus on three issues:
1. The name Hive is not distinctive enough. I made a proposal to rebrand without having to rename every piece of infrastructure.
2. We need to give people a reason to remain active. In particular, we need to give people a reason to read Hive, not just to post. I hate Twitter, but it's where relevant discourse about politics and crypto takes place. Then I come here to read a boring fitness report from someone who barely leaves the house, with a photo of some random trash (to use myself as an example and avoid hurting anyone else's feelings). Making Hive worthwhile to read requires less focus on original content and more focus on sharing news and entertainment. I did a trial run of both with @newforyou and @memedump, but don't expect too much - I don't even manage to keep blogging regularly on my personal account. There's someone on dBuzz I don't want to single out who shares multiple YouTube videos every day about gaming and related technology, adding a short comment. That's the kind of posting I find useful, even when I rarely watch the videos. It's an example of useful curation (voting is not curation).
3. We need to onboard organizations which have a lot of content to share from a particular point of view: charities, tourist boards, e-commerce stores, lobby and activist groups, unions, religious organizations, government agencies, sports clubs, etc. There's a beautiful synergy here: they can buy attention here in a more natural way than via ads, while we receive information about social issues which might be ignored by the mainstream media. I've said this before, and did nothing about it because it would require a lot of handholding and people skills.
Finally, there's a lot of talk about the UI as an obstacle, but people will readily use a shitty interface like Amazon.com or Microsoft Excel when it's useful to them. The two top cryptocurrencies are popular despite usability horrors like a 10-minute average blocktime or your tokens not showing up in Metamask automatically. So that's one thing we should not focus on.
@por500bolos(68)· 651d
Alright! the only thing I'm gonna say here is: that I read this post from beginning to end and I have read each & every single comment so far too.

And I'm still here wondering where the freaking hell I and everyone else finally is gonna be able to watch the goddamn Freechain documentary which from three years now, they sold us the idea that it would be a "piece of art" that everyone in the world would see, and after that, undoubtedly it would attract thousands of rich investors, hundreds of skilled developers and millions of new users to the Hive blockchain catapulting its token into the stratosphere and beyond all around the crypto markets.

¿When? ¿Huh?
@deeanndmathews(79)· 652d
I'm going to keep posting this data because it is important ... actual data on where crypto is being adopted says the focus on Europe is not going to get Hive where it needs to go. Chainalysis has published the leaders in crypto adoption, and with the exception of Ukraine, central Europe just isn't on the list. This is the best data in the industry, and any plan asking for hundreds of thousands of dollars over and over needs to work with the data, not against it.

The 2024 Global Adoption Index: Central & Southern Asia and Oceania (CSAO) Region Leads the World in Terms of Global Cryptocurrency Adoption

The rally car may be showing to millions of people in Europe, but WE KNOW that is not the interested audience when it comes to crypto. Hive is only 24 cents in U.S. terms, and in Euro terms it is a bit lower. That's not enough to raise interest while Bitcoin is running wild.

Furthermore, I've read through the comments. There are things in here that would give any serious investor deep pause ... so, we're going to sink massive amounts of money on a car, and say, "Oh, we can't get data from the use of that money -- the pump may be because of the car, but we can't prove it." Any serious investor can go find out how that pump happened, and it's not the car. Not at all. There is not sufficient crypto interest in Europe to account for it, and besides: we can check exchange data and know better. At this point, we are running the risk of simply looking incompetent from the point of view of serious investors, because serious crypto investors compare our plans against world crypto data, and serious investors do not accept "We're spending money on things we CAN'T EVEN TRACK IN TERMS OF RESULTS, but hey: we got some attention from Europeans, although we can't track how much either, and although hard data says that's not a market we can convert users in on the very mass level we think we may be appealing to!"

Also this: this thing reeks of dumb prejudice. We already know where Hive itself has the most interest and adoption, and this data from Chainalysis has been out for a while ... but apparently, we intend to go begging to the European mass market because it is the European market instead of doubling down on what is actually working? Again: look at the data. It is clear where crypto projects should be working to get more attention.

The 2024 Global Adoption Index: Central & Southern Asia and Oceania (CSAO) Region Leads the World in Terms of Global Cryptocurrency Adoption

Every day we spend trying to impress Europe is another day other wiser projects use the real data to get ahead of Hive where people are looking for the solutions we are providing. India, Nigeria, and Indonesia, the top three countries in crypto adoption, account for markets of 2 billion people, and Latin America has a ton of representation in the top 20 as well ... so we know where A QUARTER OF ALL HUMANITY wants access to adopt crypto and is putting major action behind it. But we want to keep driving that rally car around because the European market matters so much more ... that's not just prejudice. That's dumb prejudice.
@youloseagain(69)· 652d
Good evening How do these projects actually get selected? I'm curious as I think my @hive-woodpeckers project and my talks at a local college have on boarded more than half these projects that you fund put together. @guiltyparties @lordbutterfly
@bitcoinflood(80)· 652d
The best marketing plan right now for Hive is to DEFUND THE DHF and stop all of this overspending madness.
@empoderat(73)· 652d
As others have said, I too think that we have spent more than enough money on initiatives that over the years have proved to be good for little more than nothing. I think we should cut the race car, ~90% of the conferences (which really only serve to allow a few to maintain a lifestyle at the expense of the DHF) and from what is left demand 100% transparency.

Bills, for and for everything. No invoices? Then no HBD. And for those things that require a larger amount but require a confidential agreement, expose them beforehand (and in any case in a separate proposal).

The DHF and by extension valueplan should be treated a little more like a business (in search of monetary profit) and a little less (a LOT LESS) like an NGO.

Anyway, I feel that it doesn't matter, apparently this proposal will be funded anyway... It's really a discussion if the deal is signed beforehand?
@niallon11(77)· 652d
The rally car needs to stop being funded. It was a nice idea at the time. The team did a good job on the design but it's too much money for where we are as an eco-system. We're bleeding funds and price right now so money needs to be carefully managed.

Conferences and events where we can attract users and devs. Promote individual apps like splinterlands, inleo and peakd. Cost effective ways to promote brand awareness.

This should be the focus of valueplan in terms of getting value for money by marketing efficiently to a crypto audience.

We have a hiveblocks twitter account that could be used for free, has 40k followers and little to no activity. We aren't doing the basics but we are blowing hundreds of thousands each year with no accountability and no return on investment.

Just look at hive.io and tell me that it is good enough to draw in users. We have no presence on socials like facebook, medium, reddit, instagram where we could actually convert users to our alternatives.

I think that valueplan is hurting the eco-system more than helping it and have to vote against funding it anymore as it seems to be a slush fund for a few lucky users instead of being used to bring in users and developers that we really need.

With a few exceptions like crim and mcsamm who are doing great work it's not being used effectively and with oversight.

It could be a great system to attract attention if the funds are spent wisely and everything is documented but for all the money spent i see no posts on hive or other various sites to tell people about hive or the activities. It's just not good enough for a struggling eco-system to be burning funds like this.
@uwelang(79)· 652d
I do have some concerns (think I mentioned this long time ago) but also think it is good to have a team working on marketing. My marketing approach might be different as @guiltyparties is aware of since ages - no bad feelings - we like each other. I come from marketing and do this mainly for big corporates, but also did it for known crppto companies (not commnity driven projects).

My stand here still is:

1- We need a key person to position Hive - people buy people, not tech or so - this is a fct 2 - We should maintain / develop basics of ongoing pr - not only social media 3 - Actually should be no. 1 - we need a clear plan what we wanna achive by what? Do we want to raise brand awareness (not sure that makes sense) or go there where our target group is? So next question: Waht is our target group? Do we wanna acquire users or investors? I see many events - I am biased on events - I only go to events when I know exactly that my defined target group is there and if we have exaclty the right message / solution for the needs of these attending tsrgert groups - not sure we know about the attendee structure of all these evens 4 - Film, nice one but isolated - hoipe it works 5 - Rally Car - that is always on top of all I read but really who cares? 6 - Interesting stories / topics? I see none - we had wells in Africa - that is changing the world but we could have increases this as campaign as series with interview of drivers, supporters, people benfitting from it, local politicians - not just one off stories, we need long-termed campaigns

Hpe I do not make people angry, just my view.
@coldbeetrootsoup(76)· 652d
Why can't we simply hire developers to create useful blockchain-based tools and then market these tools through marketing companies to encourage businesses to adopt them?
@valued-customer(75)· 652d
Valueplan has provided funds that eyewitnesses claim have been stolen by fraud. When @guiltyparties responded he did not offer to provide receipts to prove there had not been fraud. Instead he refused and said receipts would never be provided.

When @lordbutterfly lashed out at me for asking questions, he denied being paid anything other than for 'organizing hivefest', and when the massive payments made to him by Valueplan were pointed out his response was a stream of invective that would make a sailor blush, and ridicule for ever thinking that massive payments made to him could possibly be payments made to him.

Then he also absolutely refused to provide receipts.

I am appalled that any of you are associated with what has every appearance of being massive theft by fraud, and have put @lordbutterfly in a position of responsibility for managing significant funds without any thought to his inability to provide a professional level of representation.

I urge everyone to have a look at my post and @lordbutterfly's behaviour and responses to reasonable questions regarding expenditures. I would also remind ya'll that the DHF is partly your money. Valueplan is spending your money, and put @lordbutterfly in charge of spending lots of it, >$30k last month.

I wouldn't send him to the grocery store for a loaf of bread.

Despite Valueplan spending almost $3M dollars there are no new listings of Hive on exchanges, no big investors buying in, no influx of users excitedly blogging away, and no accounting for expenditures, nothing. What we did get are accusations of theft by fraud, refusal to provide receipts to prove there was no fraud, misleading claims about payments, intolerable insults and abuse, and the rising stench of corruption wafting across the cryptosphere.

Wipe the lipstick off this pig, because we're not dancing anymore.

Please vote the return proposal.
@vaultec(66)· 652d
Supported!

However, rally car needs to be cut
@trumpman(82)· 652d
I think we have wasted enough money on people that have nothing to show in regards to brand exposure or price. If you want to burn money just gamble the dhf money into doge or something. At least there's a chance we profit with that
@namiks(77)· 652d
Not a fan of the rally car stuff. I really do not see how it's still a consideration given the total lack of interest it has proven to bring. I think there should be plans to look elsewhere, that was tried and done and it clearly isn't working. Why fund it more?
@crypticat(74)· 653d
No more rally cars and definitely no private events in Monaco, who is the lucky SOB who gets to attend that on DHF money? I don't care if they are going to talk about hive and wear a hat, Stop wasting public funds!

Los Aviadores in Maracay, Venezuela.

The VP keeps wasting a disproportionate amount of money in Venezuela, by now I think you are tight with Maduro. Freeze it now, not another cent to that country.

On that note, no more wells, this isn't a charity. Give with your own money, then you can write it off. Which brings me to a point, how do we know you aren't writing it off against your private income?

Financial disclosure is often not publicly permitted by vendors prior to the event taking place. This is typically because Hive has negotiated a lower price than what other exhibitors are paying.

Convenient excuse. Disclose it after the event. With the receipts or any other excuse can be interpreted as a cover up for fraud and attempting to hide the identity of those who partake in fraud. @valued-customer had something to say about this a week ago. While I personally don't think you are engaging in fraud it's understandable that other people can come to that conclusion as you remain anonymous and refuse to provide accounting details to 'protect' people's identity. Redact their name unless they're a business, then too bad.
@cmplxty(78)· 653d
I appreciate the added information in this particular proposal but I still see NO receipts, budgets, costs or any financial backing behind the hundreds of thousands of HBD you come begging for every few months.
- What are your operating costs?
- What are your costs per event?
- What are your funds left over from the last round?
- What do you have in reserve for unexpected expenses or events?
All of this information is CRUCIAL to provide people for us to have any semblance of an idea what you are doing. There are plenty of “ideas” but very little evidence of these absolute basics.

The other thing this really speaks to the heart of - how the hell are we supposed to be taken seriously by corporations and exchanges if the people who are supposedly doing the most marketing and promotions activities can’t provide a detailed budget plan, expense report and operating costs? These are finance 101 guys. You are absolutely wasting your and our time if you can’t provide us financial information from your activities. It borders on money laundering, no joke at all. You have NO hope of doing anything in the US if you can’t provide these basics. The people in the US are extremely savvy in terms of sniffing this shit out.

I want us to succeed, but this will never succeed if you continually ignore the people who are asking you for evidence where the money is going.

You don’t have to provide names and doxx people but what the fuck is so difficult about giving us financials on hundreds of thousands of dollars every few months, coming out to several million dollars?

Putting it in “DM” is absolutely unacceptable if you are publicly asking for these obscene hands outs. If you won’t be public about it, then don’t submit a proposal. You’ve already got the backing of blocktrades (which I think is absolutely wrong given the lack of accounting) so this seems a charade.

Help us all understand what you are doing!
@kevin1273(58)· 653d
😊👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻
@nathen007(73)· 653d
After spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on the rally car, I don't see what benefit it has brought to Hive. Why not simply turn the 40000 Euros recouped from the previous cars' sale, back into Hive to put back in the fund and then admit it was a good try that didnt work out before moving on to something else?

A quarter of a million spent on targeting Crypto users and gamers with Google ads, advertising PeakD and Ecency rather than Hive.io might have a much better prospect of creating new users than sponsoring a car in the lowest level of WRC. Even at grassroots sports, you could sponsor literally hundreds of teams around the world who in total, would probably have created far greater eyes on brand than the rally car.

I would also ask the name of the law firm who is preparing the legal documents please and if the quote is fixed and contractual, may a redacted copy be publically posted on the blockchain for everyone to see?

As for the Water in Ghana project. Excellent. Not just because its a fine charitable cause but because one day, it may be picked up by the world's media as a sterling example of how blockchain technology and alternative funding methods can create positive impact in the world.

Do we have an official press officer at Hive who can make this happen? If not, perhaps employing one on a part-time basis and ensure members of the media are at the screening maybe money well spent.

Finally. Promotional pens cost less than a dollar each. People use pens all the time. They dont walk around wearing pink plastic bracelets.

As well as marketing the blockchain and the ecosytem exclusively, which is good to attempt to draw major investment, market the DApps themselves as individual brands, for it is they that create users. No one joins Hive. People join Ecency or Splinterlands. The DApps in turn, also need to use some of their funding to market themselves individually. Marketing and advertising is wasted if no one has a clue exactly what the product is or does thats being pushed at them.
@themarkymark(81)· 653d

$2,749,999.35 dollars wasted by Value Plan so far.

What's another $105K? Hive is thriving we got plenty to throw away.
@igormuba(72)· 653d
Would be really nice to have links of receipts and evidence of performance. The text is well written but needs backing, specially for people who don't follow the project closely.