Q: What is new with DNotes 2.0?

A: DNotes 2.0 is a major improvement on the original DNotes blockchain. The new blockchain will allow DNotes and its partner company DNotes Global to achieve its objective to connect DNotes to the modern world of finance and commerce. The new blockchain is faster, more secure, and consumes only a fraction of the electricity. It also allows custom invoices to be created and attached to transactions, and changes the economic incentives of the network to one that encourages savings with the switch to the Proof-Of-Stake algorithm, and paying 0.5% interest on balances that haven’t moved from a wallet address in a 30 day period (~6% per annum).

Specifications

POS
2% Annualized Staking Reward
Individual blocks reward will be Current Total Coins 525,600 * 0.02
60 Second Block Target
0.005 Transaction Fee
Source: https://github.com/DNotesCoin/DNotes2.0
Download Wallet: http://dnotescoin.com/#Download
Directory DNotes2 (C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Roaming\DNotes2 on Windows)
CONF dnotes.conf (all lower case)

DNotes 2.0 Features
Switch to PoS
CRISP Reward - 0.5% interest every 30 days. Awarded by address. Calculated on a 30 day cycle.
Automated Invoicing (First Phase) - Integrated blockchain invoice number

There will be a soft deadline where DNotes mined after that block will not be redeemable for 2.0 coins:
4/16/2018
Block# 2180897
133,574,552 Will be the total swappable amount of DNotes we create
+20,000,000 Allocated to DNotes Global, Inc for Development & Growth Fund
153,574,552 Total DNotes 2.0 Created

The next update (TBD) will include:
Deferred Staking

Q: How do I swap my coins? (after April 16th)

A: Please fill out the following form: https://goo.gl/forms/MlbfqvAQilLglnHZ2

We will be performing post April 16th swap investigations beginning May 16th. Please do not send your DNotes anywhere after April 16th unless it is your own desktop wallet.

Please note DNotes v1.x mined or purchased after April 16, 2018 will not be eligible for the swap.

Q: I have a paper wallet. How do I turn them into the new coins?

A: You will need to download the DNotes v1.2 software (email us at contact@dnotescoin.com), and then use the importprivkey command in the debug console.

https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/5941/how-do-i-import-a-private-key-into-bitcoin-core

Once your wallet is updated, you will be able to send out your DNotes.

Q: What is the cutoff date for mined DNotes that can be swapped to the new DNotes blockchain?

A: We have set April 16th as the soft deadline. No DNotes mined after this date will be eligible to be swapped to DNotes running on the new blockchain. We will continue swap DNotes after that date, however the process will not be as easy and will take more time. Any DNotes 1.x purchased on exchanges after the 16th will not be eligible for the swap.

Q: Will DNotes 2.0 be listed on new exchanges?

A: The DNotes team are working to get DNotes listed on new and larger exchanges.
Here are a few DNtes 2.0 listings:
https://bitebtc.com/trade/note_btc
https://www.nlexch.com/markets/notebtc

Q: When will Cryptopia relist DNotes 2.0?

A: Cryptopia was scheduled for relisting DNotes 2.0 on May 12, 2018. However has been delayed:
https://bt.irlbtc.com/view/1924858.msg36988814#msg36988814

Q: Are the new DNotes 2.0 coins worth the same as the old coins?

A: Yes, they are worth exactly the same. However we can not predict what price movements will occur at exchanges once DNotes is relisted using the new coins.

Q: I have DNotes on the exchange, do I need to remove them from the exchange?

A: Yes, as soon as possible. Please see “How do I swap my coins?”

Q: I have Mac or Specific Linux OS, will there be wallets for these?  

A: Yes!
We currently have Windows Mac Linux Mint Ubuntu Desktop wallets at DNotesCoin.com. If you need something else, please let us know.

Q: Where is the block explorer?

A: https://chainz.cryptoid.info/note/

Q: I am trying to swap my coins from Cryptopia and I am getting Invalid Address

A: That address which begins with an "S" is your new DNotes 2.0 address and your coins on Cryptopia currently are DNotes 1.x. If you like to participate in the coin swap, you can click on the "HISTORIC" tab in your DNotesVault account, create an address, and deposit to that address which begins with a "D". We will take care of the rest, and swap your DNotes for you within a few days.

If you have any other queries, please email contact@dnotescoin.com



Staking

Q: What is Staking?

A: Staking your coins helps to support the DNotes network, and the network currently pays out roughly 5 DNotes every minute to one address on the network based on a probability that centers on how many coins the user is staking with as a percentage of the total number of coins being staked on the network. The DNotes network pays out ~2% of the total number of coins per annum. If 100% of DNotes were being used to stake on the network, then by probability each user could expect 2% growth in the number of coins they have. If only 50% of coins are used to stake, then those users could expect approximately 4% growth that year.

Q: Can I stake my coins on the DNotesVault?

A: You cannot currently stake your coins that are on the DNotesVault, you will need to withdraw your DNotes 2.0 to a local wallet and stake your coins from your local wallet. We will in a future release incorporate cold staking, which will allow you stake your coins while they are safely tucked away inside the DNotesVault. However, we do not have an ETA, it will be one of our highest priorities for next upgrades.

Q: How do I stake?

Disclaimer: It is recommended that you properly secure your computer and wallet, as well as make proper backups, before attempting to run your own staking wallet. Failure to properly secure your DNotes may result in loss or theft. If you are not familiar with the process, please start off small and familiarize yourself with the process.

You will need to download the DNotes QT wallet here: https://github.com/DNotesCoin/DNotes2.0/releases/tag/v2.0.0.0

Install the wallet (and we recommend creating a backup)
Go to settings, and then ‘encrypt wallet’. Enter your password twice (and do NOT forget it, or you will not be able to access the wallet and we can not help you).
Go to settings, and then ‘unlock wallet’, enter your password, and select “for staking only”. This will prevent any transfers from being made from your wallet without the password while you stake your coins.
Soon the arrow at the bottom will turn green. This means that your coins are now staking.
   
   You can watch a video of these steps here from our alpha release here:
   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2w9r2LoXM6c

Q: How do I get the most out of my staking efforts?

A: There is no trick to staking efficiently. The factors involved are your coin weight versus the network coin weight and coin weight is the number of coins currently staking. The age does not matter, nor does how you divide or move your coins around.

Q: How much can I earn staking?

A: That depends on how many coins you are staking and how many coins are being staked on the network. The blockchain distributes Current Total Coins 525,600 * 0.02 every block, or every 60 seconds. You may calculate how often you are chosen to receive the block reward by dividing your network weight verse your weight. If network weight is 100, and your weight is 5, then you would be chosen for block reward 5 blocks out of every 100.



CRISP

Q: Can I get CRISP reward AND stake at the same time?

A: Yes, the system is designed to allow you to receive CRISP on a wallet you are staking

Q: What is the CRISP reward structure?

A: CRISP periods are every 43,200 blocks (30 days). Payments start 10,080 blocks (1 week) from the end of the CRISP period.

Q: What do I need to do to earn CRISP?

A: Keep your coins in the same address for the full CRISP period 30 days, set every 43,200 blocks.

Q: When will I receive CRISP payments?

A: The next payouts are as follows:

April 27 - Ends first CRISP period.
May 4 - Payout starts. (Virtually no one will receive this payout)
May 27 - Ends second CRISP period
June 3 - Payout starts

Roughly.

Q: Do I get CRISP payments at the DNotesVault?

A: Yes! You get CRISP inside the DNotesVault, or at any address you control, such as a Desktop wallet. Though I won't suspect you will be able to get CRISP rewards from the exchanges or other online providers.

Q: Where do the CRISP coins come from?

A: The blockchain, these are newly created coins and have now become part of the new coin distribution, just like the staking reward.

Q: How do I earn the interest reward?

A: Our Cryptocurrency Investment Savings Plan (CRISP) payouts occur approximately once per month. All coins that haven’t moved address during that month period will accrue a 0.5% interest, which compounds to roughly 6.17% per annum. If you move your coins during that time, those coins will not receive the interest for that month.

Great explanation Tim! Conflating this concept to company shares traded on the stock market: Profit sharing is often not the most effective way to increase shareholder value. I know it sounds exciting, but what if that 10% profit equates to less than 1% return on investment for the shareholder that year. Or what if the company could have used that money to grow the company's value by 10% instead and make the shares worth 10% more that year.

Thank you, The Cheezzz. Great comments. I share your frustration and can assure you with certainty that we have been reaching out to every single exchange that trades cryptocurrencies multi times. After doing our due diligence, there are a few (some among the largest) we prefer not to do business with but most have not responsive. Further, it is not uncommon to see an asking price of 5 BTC to 15 BTC to get listed. I have heard about significantly higher amount involving ICO coins. Nonetheless, getting DNotes listed on some major exchanges is among my highest priorities. As promised, Cryptopia will get back to us by this Friday and we will share the information immediately.

There are a lot of questionable conducts in our industry that don't always match up with public statements. All exchanges in our industry are under law enforcement scrutiny for trading security as an unregulated exchange. When the dust settled the pure token coins like Bitcoin, Litecoin, and DNotes are among the minority and limited few. When trust, integrity, mission, and purposeful vision are added to the mix, DNotes is a  rare breed. We are verifiable with massive amount of published information.

Thank you, The Cheezzz. Great comments. I share your frustration and can assure you with certainty that we have been reaching out to every single exchange that trades cryptocurrencies multi times. After doing our due diligence, there are a few (some among the largest) we prefer not to do business with but most have not responsive. Further, it is not uncommon to see an asking price of 5 BTC to 15 BTC to get listed. I have heard about significantly higher amount involving ICO coins. Nonetheless, getting DNotes listed on some major exchanges is among my highest priorities. As promised, Cryptopia will get back to us by this Friday and we will share the information immediately.

There are a lot of questionable conducts in our industry that don't always match up with public statements. All exchanges in our industry are under law enforcement scrutiny for trading security as an unregulated exchange. When the dust settled the pure token coins like Bitcoin, Litecoin, and DNotes are among the minority and limited few. When trust, integrity, mission, and purposeful vision are added to the mix, DNotes is a  rare breed. We are verifiable with massive amount of published information.

Thanks for the question wiser! I had to delete two words in the article and replace another to clear up some of the meaning.

The first part to say about your question, is that there are a wide range of ICO structures, so i'll just answer for probably the most common (which do sometimes vary depending on the application being built - say exchange or retail businesses etc).

The second part is that most ICO tokens that I've seen are not actually 'profit sharing', but rather 'income sharing' -- I'll explain.

In a profit-sharing scenario, the ICO would need to be generating significant revenue, and be running an operational surplus for ICO tokens to ever receive a 'dividend equivalent' payout. The business that ran the ICO would take their total income for the year, subtract all their expenses, then decide how much they want to reinvest back into their business for improvements, and the leftover is the 'profit'. Dividends to equity owners in traditional businesses are paid based on profit, which is determined after the company decides how much it wants to hold onto (retained earnings) for business upkeep growth. If the company wants to grow, it just holds onto all the earnings for the year. This is a luxury it wouldn't have when it comes to ICO payments that are generally based on gross income, rather than profit (i'll get to this).

So in a hypothetical example, say my ICO business turned over 10m for the year, had 8m of expenses for the year, and I decided to reinvest 1m of the remaining 2m into the company to improve its services. That would leave 1m in profit. If my ICO token promised a 10% return from all profits, there would be 100 thousand dollars paid out to the ICO token holders, and then the equity owners would get the rest in dividends (as they are lower than ICO tokens in the capital structure).

But the way that many ICOs I've seen are set up, is the token is used as a voucher to pay the fees to use the ICO's network, where a certain percentage is paid back to token holders -- which functionally makes them a drain on total income. The funds are automatically forwarded to the token holders, so they are potentially never recorded on the ICO's income statement, but the final resting places of all funds involved in the transaction remain the same. Me giving you $20, and then you giving 10 of it to someone else is exactly the same as me giving you $20, and your software automatically giving that $10 to that other person.

So with Tim's ICO of 10m turnover with a 10% return of network fee to token holders, there would be 1 million dollars paid out to token holders, rather than just 100k in the above 'profit' model. One of the 'payment processing' coins out there has a functional draw from its network equivalent to ~25% of what would be considered its 'net income' from fees. That would be a draw of 2.5m out of the 10m turnover in Tim's ICO, which would suddenly see Tim's ICO making a loss: remember that regardless of the way you play trick accounting, a 10m turnover, less 2.5m ICO dividend, less 8m expenses = 0.5m loss, is exactly the same as a 7.5m turnover, less 8m expenses = 0.5m loss (not accounting for ICO income in turnover, nor as a dividend drain).

There are four main ways that I can see this potentially hurt an ICO business:

Firstly, the drain from income occurs regardless of whether the ICO company is making an operational surplus -- meaning it could make it stay in the red longer, and at worst accelearate losses that force it to go broke if it can't turn profitable by the time the ICO money runs out.

Secondly, The above scenario could scare investors away from putting their money into the ICO business (or save one) that had such an automatic drain on its turnover, because:

Thirdly, sustainable operational surpluses are required to reinvest surplus capital back into the business that allow it to grow (and equity investors care about growth). Investors only tolerate perpetual losses for so long. Once a business runs out of money,  and nobody wants to invest, it dies.

Fourthly, and last, the fee structure places the startup at a competitive disadvantage to other projects that don't have, say, a 25% income drain sent to token holders. A hypothetically otherwise 'identical' competitor (No ICO) could eliminate some of this margin to attract new customers, yet still remain profitable and grow.

i.e. Baseline (using everything recorded accounting, and assuming expenses are fixed):

Tim's ICO  = 12.5m turnover, less 3.75m ICo dividend (25% of network fee), less 8m expenses = 0.75m operating profit to reinvest.
Competitor = 12.5m turnover, less 8m expenses = 4.5m operating profit to reinvest and grow.

And if engaged in a price battle:

Tim's ICO = 10m turnover, less 2.5m ICO dividend (25% of network fee), less 8m expenses = 0.5m loss, disgruntled equity investors.
Competitor = 10m turnover, less 8m expenses = 2m operating profit to reinvest for growth.


As you can see, an equally competent competitor without income-based ICO will easily win a price war. While the ICO model will see greatly reduced growth in the business even as turnover rises. The ICO token in this model anyway, becomes a parasite on the economy that constrains its growth. And the only way to draw more investment in to remedy the situation is to attract more investors -- but again, why would they want to bail out a business where they get reduced growth, and where ICO token holders still get paid even when the busienss is making a loss? That investment could be the difference between many ICO businesses surviving or failing. And as each ICO business dies, so too does its token.

Note: there are lots of different ways ICO's can look, and not all ICOs are prone to all the downsides in ever case. Models are illustrative only.  




      

Interview with Alan Yong - School for Startups Radio

Great stuff Alan. It's great having your wisdom shared on radio to complement the book and video formats available.