Haveno UI CCS funding proposal withdrawn after community objections

The Haveno¹ team has decided to withdraw² their CCS³ funding proposal for building the platform’s user interface after several objections were expressed by the Monero community:

The feedback from the community gave us some good ideas about how to improve Haveno in a way that makes it more decentralized and that doesn’t need to rely on a third party running the operative platform.

Objections

• amount proposed is too high:

1564 XMR. Probably one of the highest CCS amount request I’ve ever seen. (I’ve been a lurker for many months). (@sigwait)⁴

We haven’t even discussed how we are supposed to cover costs for more than $240k to hire a third-party company and deploy a brand-new UI/UX when there is Bisq, even though you mention it is slow and old. (@rottenwheel)⁵

What a joke! 154k and 231k USD for 4-6 months of work. That is 38.5k / month! (@BB)⁶

Raising 250,000 USD dollars is not impossible for this kind of healthy and strong community but putting this kind of money into failed project will deter community from funding any future DEX attempt and make us a lot far away from dream to have Monero based DEX. (@MajesticBank)⁷

you’re asking us to fund a crazy amount for some one else’s for-profit business venture? are you fucking kidding me? (@r4v3r23)⁸

• allocating excess funds to GDPR analysis is not necessary

Why is a GDPR analysis needed for an exchange that won’t be ran by you? This should be assessed with the team that will be transform Haveno into a for-profit. We dont need to pay “legalese” guys. (@sigwait)⁹

And great that at that stage you are considering legal counsel. What do you do if it turns out that its not possible to run that DEX without KYC? Just add KYC and f**k the XMR community once again? (@BB) ¹⁰

[..] I don’t really see how this is necessary or a good use of funds. Gettin a lawyer to sign-off on GDPR compliance for Haveno is only applicable in the EU, and technical compliance has done very little to help Monero avoid regulatory pressure in the past. Spending 10k EUR for this analysis, IMO, would be much better spent building in tools to the code and architecture of Haveno that would make it resilient in spite of regulatory pressure (that will inevitably come), instead of attempting to get a seal of approval that will likely have no benefit. (@sethforprivacy) ¹¹

• asking for community donations (as a for-profit organization/startup) and not offering any returns is not normal

I am worried about startups raising donations from the community when in my opinion they should be looking for investors. Haveno is a software startup that needs to raise money, so that they can earn money from trading fees later on. Haveno is like every other Ethereum DEX startup out there. But instead of raising money from investors like everyone else, they’re asking for donations. [..] people generally donate money to a for-profit organization with an expected return. (@sgp) ¹²

CCS system is acting like a seed investor for your start-up, you should definitely give some back, be it a company, or a community. In this case, you should feel even more compelled to do so, since it is “us”, not a for-profit company that does not care about “us”. (@rottenwheel) ¹³

Since this is a for-profit venture being 100% funded by the community (still appreciative of the work this entails at or lower than fair market value), why not make the community a direct shareholder in the venture? (@entry1-)¹⁴

• lack of transparency (operators)

I think there should be some level of transparency [..] (@rottenwheel) ¹⁵

• questionable model: why would an exchange operator be needed for a decentralized and P2P exchange?

Why would an exchange operator be needed? (@delorbak) ¹⁶

• no guarantee that such a large project won’t die (like Kovri for example)

Who can guarantee the project will not be dead as Kovri? (@sigwait) ¹⁷

• censorship fears over centralized operation mode
• platform should not require JS on Tor
• the community does not want a KYC exchange

[..] that makes Heaveno use centralized point of entry prone to seizures and enforcing possible legal restrictions ( possibly KYC ) on the Exchange that should be decentralized. Seems a little contradict to require javascript to use Tor based exchange powered by Monero, We believe those 3 shouldn’t go together. (@MajesticBank) ¹⁸

We don’t need another KYC exchange (even if p2p), and you’ve made it clear that’s not what you want either. (@sethforprivacy) ¹⁹

To read all the feedback from the community, consult !284²⁰ on Gitlab.

We can expect a new and improved CCS proposal in the near future:

We are discussing things internally at the moment, but soon we will ask feedback to the Haveno community at large. We’ll open another ccs once the new structure will be decided. Thanks everyone for the inputs :)

Update: added reference links and quotes.