ACT — a Project Manager’s perspective
ACT is a unique project
ICO
Raising funds through an ICO means that the first phase of the management task relates heavily to the fundraising specifics, smart contracts design, and, in particular, participant/contributor/donator relations.
Three questions hit me more than any others during discussions with those keen to support the project:
- Liquidity — when will I be able to sell the tokens that I am securing?
- Market size — what is the potential in revenue terms for the business?
- Use of proceeds — how will the money raised be spent?
Liquidity. The ACT ICO smart contract will create and distribute ACT Tokens when fundraising is concluded. According to our development plan, the ACT ICO smart contract will be ready for deployment on November 18th, 2017, however, if the project has not raised its cap amount by then (this cap will be decided before the pre-ICO) fundraising can continue until January 18th. The latest that ACT Tokens will be issued is therefore January 18th, 2018 and the earliest date is November 18th, 2018.
Market Size. Take a look at the fascinating video (below) with John Clippinger, and the anchor article by Robert C. Wolcot on Forbes. Clippinger is the founder of the Institute for Data-Driven Design (ID3) and a Research Scientist with MIT Media Lab, and he is a pioneer in the definition of the open sector, a movement challenging traditional, top-down leadership paradigms. “It’s not the public sector, it’s not the private sector, it’s not under a government or the UN…It’s owned by everyone and nobody.”
Not to get too philosophical (you can do more reading yourself), but the potential for ACT is that everyone participates in it. Even if you look at major social change websites, their growth is exponential. Non-profit Avaaz now boasts 44 million members from 194 countries, and social enterprise Change.org claims over 178 million “people taking action”. Forbes reported in 2012 that Change.org had revenues over $15 million with 20 million members. It started charging for petition promotion in 2010 meaning that these revenues grew in just two years. To cut to the chase, ACT will have staggering revenues if it fulfils its potential as a social change engine that many, many people around the world are part of.
Use of proceeds. You can see from our principal contractual document with smart contract specialists Draglet that the cost to build the six main components of ACT is circa €150,000. So, what if the fundraising exceeds, say, $5million, which is not uncommon for ICOs? In the ACT model, 15% of platform revenues will reward curators of proposals (a detailed analysis is available here), and the white paper highlights that between 1–2.5% will fund each of the Daoact Foundation, and Daoact Ltd, which will look after the community and IP, and platform development respectively. In order for them to do so sustainably, ACT revenues would need to exceed at least $1million per annum to run even a modest operation. The question is — as it is with any business — “how long, and what is the plan to get there”? We just don’t know how long it will take because this depends on the growth of adoption of cryptocurrency generally as well as the evolution of the regulatory environment that will govern how citizens use it. That is why ACT will raise significant funding through its donation campaign phases, and use these funds as follows:
The first $830,000 raised over €150,000 (circa $170,000) will be divided three ways between project management, marketing, and legal and audit.
We intend to use all funds raised over $1million as follows:
In this way, we allocate substantial resources to the functioning of the platform itself including funding for proposals, and rewards for curators. This will support the fundamental parts of the ACT platform enabling growth and traction.
Project Management
Four individuals will hold keys to the multisig wallet — two from Draglet and two from the ACT Team. In this way, we ensure that early funds will be allocated to both the developer and the project in line with project goals.
It is the ACT Team’s number one priority to seek to issue ACT Tokens at the earliest possible date. On the project management side this means ensuring that resources are adequately deployed in order to meet deadlines, and on the marketing, promotion and community development side, it means closing all fundraising rounds as quickly as possible.
This is a fantastic journey that we are embarking upon with a fantastic community that is driven to see change happen. The global community that supports blockchain is intensely passionate about the technology, and they feel the potential for cryptocurrencies to be a central part of the transition to a better world.
