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« on: December 31, 2014, 09:48:45 pm »
I wanted to provide some transparency on our year end bonuses:
Toast, Nathan, Valentine, Vikram, Stan, and James Caffe, Dan N. (all of whom have 100% pay delegates) have received 3M BTS severance / bonus from Invictus
Ben (Drltc) and Agent86 have received 1M BTS severance / bonus (also have 100% pay delegates)
This ends I3's responsibility to continue funding these individuals whom are now free agents working to support the BitShares ecosystem. I trust each of these individuals to continue contributing to BitShares because they believe in the cause and to get their delegate pay. Each of these individuals also has a large vesting balance that will mature over the next 2 years which should keep them loyal to the project as a whole.
As you know delegate pay is not sufficient to cover their salaries in the coming year. This bonus is an incentive to get the value of BTS up to both maximize the value of their bonus and to ensure they can continue to earn what they need from delegate pay.
Any profits earned by Invictus are taxed at 35%. For efficiency sake we needed to pay everyone in 2014 with at least 65% efficiency.
This means that a large number of BTS that I use to vote with are now distributed among the core developers.
There remains about 67 M BTS that is being held in reserve to cover 2015 expenses I3 may face including any taxes, accounting, legal, fees, or fines we may face in the year(s) ahead. At todays market cap that represents about $1 million held in reserve. Some of those funds are ear-marked for marketing performance-based bonuses. The funds will also be used to provide free office space anyone who wants to come to blacksburg to work on BitShares.
Overall we raised about $3.6 million in AGS donations and now that these bonuses have been paid we have spent $3.6 million in 2014. We had a large capital-loss on our BTC holdings and an offsetting capital gain on our BTS holdings. Of the money we spent, 10% went to China, 10% went to US Marketing (conferences, videos, website, travel), 7% on FMV. Our largest expense category was developer salaries and grants including ~$100K for Toast and ~$100K for HackFisher as well as salaries for over a dozen different developers.
Early next year I will have Stan prepare a breakdown on what categories the $3.6 million in AGS donations were spent on as a final report.
In 2015 we hope to raise the bar in both efficiency, productivity, and transparency.
Anything said in this post are rough estimates from memory and are not official statements. The numbers may be completely wrong.
Just a reminder: the AGS donations had NO STRINGS ATTACHED. I did my best with the funds to further my own objectives of securing life, liberty, and property for all. If you are unhappy with how we managed the money I am sorry, I suggest you focus on how the government is wasting far more than I did. I am a mere software engineer with a grand vision who was learning a lot as I went.
Happy New Years Everyone!
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