This thread dragging on for a few months makes the conversation hard to follow - even though it’s a meager 20 posts long.
I feel like quite a few of the initial questions were addressed above.
Maybe, @bruno could restate the unaddressed questions for clarity? Or could copy paste the bullet point questions in the op adding in answers where provided and blanks otherwise?
There seem to be several issues being addressed simultaneously and perhaps not everyone has been able to stay on the same page… I’ve found that even a quick reread of everything above leaves things less organized than would be ideal.
(I’m just off a 20 hour flight or I’d post a reorganization with initial questions and provided answers myself.)
This is a recap and revival of the thread, so it’s easier to consume. Start here if you’re new.
Status is planning a new fundraise. This was mentioned around November (I heard it in a town hall) but possibly earlier, though no details were given at the time. Some time later I asked some questions and got some answers, but there are still some unknowns that I think SNT holders deserve answers to. The answers were promised to arrive by the end of Feb, but that time has some and gone and the top echelon remains silent.
Here’s a recap of what we know so far. I will exclude any knowledge I have that was not publicly disclosed, to present the situation in the most “outsider friendly” way.
Status will be selling a stash of the organization’s SNT in order to increase runway which seems to be running thin. Apparently, the majority of the money they raised in 2017 is gone, and some is held in reserve for “user acquisition”. Whether this means that users will be paid to join, or that it’ll be spent on marketing etc. is unclear but still worrying - it indicates that Status still, after 3 years, does not have an appealing selling point. Furthermore, it is unclear why the remaining stash cannot be spent now on producing a working product and reviving the public’s faith in this project, and then using that faith to fundraise for the actual user acquisition.
This extreme drainage of funds is also particularly interesting in light of several facts:
Status is planning to DAO-ify, and fund projects built by the org through outside contributors (see Assemble). One project which was already funded through this is Dap.ps.
Some projects are funded by external actors - notably, Nimbus is funded almost entirely by EF grants, and some pocket change from Gitcoin grants.
Keycard is working on being profitable on its own
Vac started only recently despite having known that Whisper does not work more than 2 years ago. (Corollary: one wouldn’t be in the wrong to assume that had Status hired Dean 2 years ago, more things may have been shipped by now).
To an original investor, this cannot be non-worrying as it indicates that the majority of money was spent on bikeshedding and Clojurized React Native.
Now regarding the sale, there are many unknowns here which I urge the top of the Status hierarchy to answer as soon as possible:
what kind of discount will SNT be sold at? How do you protect the current SNT holders from an inevitable price dump because of this? Will you vest the sold SNT?
what kind of target are we looking at?
when (approximately) should this happen?
in a previous answer, Carl said that additional funds will “provide stronger governance and accountability over the GmbH” which a) does not make sense and b) indicates that the GmbH is strengthening and the DAOification (see Assemble above) isn’t a serious long term plan on a large enough scale. This needs to be clarified.
why was the initially raised money not enough, can the community see a detailed report of where the previously raised 100 million went, including payrolls and to/from fiat conversions?
The last question specifically is the one that’s most interesting. Note that financial reports produced so far were unsatisfactory and do not even closely approach these numbers. As an organization which allegedly prides itself in transparency (and maintains this image through public town halls and meetings), the SNT holders and the community in general deserve a more transparent and specific report.