When NF was first created, wallets were set up to support regions. Regions expanded quickly and didn’t always have proper vetting, nor policies put in place in a timely manner, nor the right ongoing support. This led to all kinds of challenges. There weren’t funds coming in to replenish the funds going out. This has always been a challenge for the way the Foundation was set up in 2017. It still is a challenge and it’s why we created the CRO position and Revenue team to help solve for this. It’s also why we moved to a more centralized structure and became product focused.
US had the most XEM in reserve (because resources were never allocated to US before late-2018) so as the Foundation was low on funds, regional funds were moved around from US so we could solve for staffing, projects, partnerships, etc.
US consulting entity originally had a team of 7+ consultants (remember all regions except EU and SE Asia were independent entities.) US team included a full stack dev, Lead PM/architect, 3 technical/content writers, social media manager, trainers, lawyer, and an accountant. Now this team works for Foundation with the exception of lawyer and accountant. US entity officially kicked off in October. Elections happened in Nov/Dec. So as far as results from the region, it didn’t have proper time to move beyond just getting set up.
US region had some good partnerships and projects in the works (before financial issues with NF forced us to move to non-regional organization) including:
As for the future of regions - the newly formed Business Development team is taking over contracts, partnerships, MOUs, and regional support. We’ll have more on this in an upcoming update.
Earlier funds for US in late-2018 also went to law firms. US has a ton of potential in blockchain space but hasn’t always been the friendliest toward crypto. I’m thankful for our legal teams as they’ve been a tremendous support for Foundation and if all regions had brought in legal support earlier, it would have made for a stronger Foundation in 2018 with regards to how regions were set up, operated and teams vetted.
Another thing to note is that salaries are vastly different in all regions. This is based on many factors including local demand, cost of living, experience, etc. There wasn’t a standard salary rate for the Foundation. Some regions were (and are) paid less than others. So US salaries (as well as regions like EU and Japan) are going to be higher than regions like PHL.
Operating funds from previous regions have been pooled together to continue operations of 2019 Foundation. Cilla (CFO) also set up new accounts per new org model – so we have one for Tech, one Business Development, etc. As of right now, we are purposely under budget for operations. We’ll be announcing an update in May on what you can expect moving forward.
Per the question “didn’t they know how much was in their wallet” – yes. The choice to continue regions until funds/operations could be audited was necessary. It’s not possible to stop all activity in a region without also having to pay severance (due to regional laws), work with current contracts/agreements and even break leases, etc. There’s also invoices that come in from previous months that have to paid… and expense reports. There are also legal costs. These have to be paid some way… so it was done through US budget by choice to get us where we are today and not get into legal issues.
There are some people that disagree with this strategy and that’s their prerogative. There are some people that are angry their claims were denied or their jobs made redundant. It’s not possible to go through a reorg with 150 people and not have people feel this way.
There’s easily a lot of assumptions made about operations and reputation assassinations that come from a decentralized organization because there isn’t a single person to blame – it’s a collective of moving parts that don’t always work together as it should.
The Council makes decisions based on data/information – data/info from 2017, 2018 and 2019 financials. Data from whistleblower policies… data from partnerships and contracts and yes, data from employee performance when performance is poor. This has led to some of the huge changes which will result in a stronger Foundation. It also has led to putting in place stronger oversight by core team and that’s a good thing that I 100% appreciate.
We’re working on the May NF update. I think that update will help the community better understand where we are today and what NF looks like in the future.
Thanks, Alex
