From the start of 2019, the new Council faced many challenges (that we will share with everyone soon.) For sure the biggest challenge was regarding getting a better understanding on the financial situation that was handed to us from 2018. During the transition from the 2018 Council to the 2019 Council, operating funds were temporarily inaccessible until the new leadership took office on January 1, 2019. This was due to transition registration problems with our bank. All operational funds were safe and untouched during this transition. When the 2019 Council took office, a financial audit was done and showed the new leadership had low operational funds and therefore could not sustain the burn rate of the previous 2018 operations. Therefore, a new Foundation restructure proposal was created and operations and staff were suspended until additional funding was secured.
Coindesk has gone back and amended their article per our request. There were some misconceptions clearly exaggerated in the article but that’s pretty normal for media in general. Coindesk took a more sensational approach which is NOT the narrative I would have preferred. I don’t know who all they spoke with but the messaging provided to them was specifically around the restructure (in the blog post above.) I believe the 202 members they assumed were to be voting on the new Foundation 2.0 proposal comes from the article posted on how many members participated in the NEM elections in 2018! 
Clearly we have MORE community members than 202 people.
I totally agree. Members like you and me are the ones who have positive feelings and endure bad comments on social networks about NEM…All for Nem.
The difficult part is done. Clearly this issue should have been addressed sooner, but at least it’s on the table now. I can understand why the new foundation needed some time to evaluate the situation, now I hope we will continue to get frequent updates and the chance to offer feedback and suggestions on how we move forward. Everyone is watching us now, so let’s show them our commitment to improve. This is one of those rare opportunities to reset, so let’s make the most of it. As a community, we should be ready to defend the Nem ecosystem, and also to provide support to the foundation in a meaningful way. Now more than ever, the stakeholders and long time holders need to find common ground and convey a positive message to the public. I hope everyone has vented their frustrations, and although it’s natural to place blame, we can’t change what’s happened already. Instead of wasting our energy on blaming and complaining, let’s use it to find solutions. We’ve come a long way, and we’re so close to our next major milestone, it would be more of a tragedy to lose faith now. Thank you Alex, and the rest of the foundation, for taking on a difficult task. Please let us know what we can do to help.
Hi Jelin. I’ve received quite a few personal messages from you in the past and I’ve always done my best to answer your concerns. Please know I understand how confusing things look and we are working to communicate all information to you and the community in a timely manner. Part of this means we have to take extra steps to ensure we are legally and correctly sharing information – this takes time to do. All audits from 2017 and 2018 were sent to the core devs and our legal teams for reviews. Majority of funds in 2018 were spent on marketing, events, salaries, travel and trainings. The results of the 2018 efforts were having an established physical presence in 20 countries, multiple blockchain hubs and 150 employees. The 2018 Foundation and teams secured many meaningful partnerships. The full report of the restructure and funds being requested hasn’t been given to the community yet, but is in its final stages of preparation and will be shared soon. A new Council was elected on the promise of change and so the community seems to be welcoming this restructure. As soon as the core devs and legal teams have time to review the proposal and audits, we will share with the community.
No one is accusing Lon of taking funds. Please don’t spread this misinformation. Lon Wong was a co-founder and the first President of the NEM Foundation which started in early 2017, two years after the launch of NEM. Lon left the NEM Foundation in April of 2018. Since that time he has been focusing on a project called ProximaX, in which is he the President. The NEM Foundation wishes Lon and ProximaX success in the future.
Hi again, Jelin. I have been working with our legal teams, human resource teams, financial teams and core devs to share full transparency coming from the audit we concluded in the past week. A lot has happened in the first month since we took office and as I’ve outlined above, we will be sharing details to the community soon. Before this happens, we have to work with legal and finance to confirm all information.
After this audit, we realized we no longer have enough operation funds since taking leadership on 1 January 2019 and as result are we regrettably forced to suspend the NEM Foundation team.
Again, our first month was spent investigating, cleaning and paying outstanding expenses. We are forced to make team members redundant due to the lack of funds. This is the situation we were given and we are working to the best of our abilities to problem solve for all unanswered questions into operations and how to best move forward in a more transparent and streamlined way.
Thanks, Eddy. All community was have full details soon and we are confident this will help address many pain points and concerns we’re hearing from the community.
The newly elected 2019 leadership team is optimistic about the future of the NEM Foundation and it’s why the restructure was important. There is a new laser-focus on our mission-critical goals and as result we are positioned to remain an industry leader and support through this ‘Crypto Winter.’
We believe the upcoming launch of Catapult on the public chain will revolutionize blockchain’s future, and we are grateful for the community’s support in the next steps of this journey as the NEM Foundation pivots to better support the commercialization of Catapult.
Three things we expect to see in 2019:
1.) Expect to see more enterprise adoption utilizing Catapult.
2.) Expect to see more public and private chain transactions when Catapult launches.
3.) Expect to see stronger leadership, solid governance and more service to the community, partners and the world as we hope for a brighter future.
Hi there. I am hearing your frustration loud and clear. I want to share with you that the burn rate is 9M XEM per month but at the rate of 4.5 (so roughly $405,000.00 USD.) Operational burn rate dramatically changes based on the price of XEM.
From the records we have from the audit we concluded this past week, the results of last year’s spend was spent on marketing, events, salaries, travel and trainings.
As a reminder, we are a completely new executive team and as result of our findings from the 2018 audit, we have chose to completely pivot to a new org structure. The NEM Foundation’s new structure lead us to be product-focused, revenue-driven and community-oriented. This proposal will be shared with the community shortly.
@Inside_NEM Since you entered our forum chit-chat, I would like to ask a few questions.
- Is there something going to be done about the Telegram? Most things are posted there, but it is not that easily accessible as other platforms. I haven´t even heard about it until I found NEM. And not many people are going to give away their Phone No. and register just to see the NEM chatroom.
- Is there something going to be done to the NEM Subreddit? It is in catastrophical state. A lot of misinformation, unrelated posts & spam. This IS VISIBLE to people browsing CMC, not like the Telegram. That Subreddit can be a strong weapon in attracting potential investors… Why would I buy a token and create some liquidity, when I see completely unorganised Subreddit full of stupid unrelated articles & spam. And that is THE FIRST thing I see when browsing potential cryptos. Especially, in these times I would do something about it, since normally moderated healthy PUBLIC forum is a MUST.
- How couldn´t more than 150 employees deliver CATAPULT in a 2+ years time. I heard so many ETAs but none of them were true. With 150+ employees the NEM Ecosystem should have made a scientific breakthrough. Average Joe had nothing from the last 2 years of “development”.
- NEM Android Wallet is pain for my eyes + STILL no possibility of seeing Mosaic tokens - How couldn´t a team of more than 150 members implement a core function of the NEM Blockchain into a Mobile Wallet in more than a 2 years time? I see no support/updates from NEM Team for Mobile Wallets.
Take an average Joe for an example… what updates could he see? There haven´t been any changes. Wallet is the same, functions are the same, speed is the same. Maybe the only difference he could spot is the decrease in transaction fees and the change of NEM Android Wallet theme from Green to Blue.
You want to be leader in the industry? You have to do something about it. When the idea of CATAPULT was brought to light it was something groundbreaking, but until you will have released it, it may not be that groundbreaking anymore.
Hey, everything has its priority and seeing @Inside_NEM hustling here as the ONLY representative of the council, may speak something about her character. The new NEM Foundation President is Hustling… It’s not the strategy of previous Leaders, to hid and put the responsibility on previous overseers. It’s taking full responsibility. And I think many people see that and will be supportive of Alex.
I am not the part of NEM community anymore, but I think the Foundation leaders should be picked in the democratic, POI voting before anyone will even decide if the proposals are valid or not. From my perspective, all those council members are previous LEADERS of Regions, they are part of the problem with high burn rate. And now, having a position of power they want to keep their asses safe and throw the people THEY HIRED THEMSELVES under the bus.
People who decided that burn rate is too extensive and layoffs are needed:
Steve Li - NEM China Leader
Pedro Gutierrez - NEM Latin America leader
Anton Bosenko - NEM Ukraine Leader
Hiroki Koga - NEM Japan Leader
Dona Rinon - NEM UAE Leader
Jason Lee, Nelson Valero - NEM Australia Leader
Alexandra Tinsman - NEM NA Leader
Jeff McDonald - advisor
^How many employees related to the development of NEM Project those people hired in 2018/2017? How many of them are even slightly educated in anything software-related? (3) How people can take those decisions seriously?
Taking to account this situation it looks like crypto-downshifting is the best option
May be a good idea to move head office from Singapore (which is expensive city) to another location
There are already many questions in this thread, so I won’t add more
Yes, that is right, that will be one of the options. Thanks for looking into this.
Hello. I thank you for this honest and clear communication. As a finance professional I would like to as the following questions:
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Do you need any help in managing your financial leadership / control aspects of the organisation? I can help since this is what I do for almost 15 years (Incl. analyses and strategic partnering with stakeholders / leadership teams).
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Do you report financial statements as in a P&L statement, Operating Cashflow, Working capital, financial ratio’s etc.? I know you are not bound to deliver this kind of transparancy since you are not stock listed, but I am sure this will help in terms of building trust the same way this is the case towards shareholders of a stock listed company.
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Point two would only be useful with providing contect to numbers with some comments related to historical numbers, but much more focus on future outlook and plans. I know this is quit difficult in this market, but you would not have to provide a budget or forecast numbers, but community is more interested in the strategic outlook and how that potentially could impact the numbers.
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Are you open to share your (monthly or quarterly) leadership packs (which include performance of the different business units in the regions of the world) in a sort of summarised version with the community?
From my experience these kind of topics help a lot in terms of supporting a strong corperate governance system and transparent information flow within organisations, no matter how big or small they are.
Thanks, hope to hear from you.
Hamid
Thanks for answering questions Alex, it’s a stressful time for everyone and the transparency and candor is much appreciated.
I’m hopeful that the new leadership will take NEM onto new heights and that all your hard work will reap dividends. Best to you and the council.
L
Hi everyone. Since the elections some of us pointed different problems Nem Foundation (not the technology) was struggling. I was happy when Alexandra and the majority of the council were elected because I knew that they would do everything possible to solve the problems.
So now for me it is not a surprise that Alexandra and the council are facing the changes NF need to be more efficient.
Mistakes were made in the past and also a lot of good things happened. Personally I resign to my salary last year, months ago.
I want NEM to succeed so I don´t want to waste time talking again about the past and point fingers. It is time to look what we want for the next years.
I hope everyone in the Foundation and the community understand the huge changes NF need. The less we need now is negativity. If you believe in NEM TECHNOLOGY (it does not matter if there is a Foundation or other entity) stay with us and help and support Alex and the council, core devs and community.
Time will say if the new changes are the correct way. I´m very confident. I´m not afraid about our competitors.
Blockchain massive adoption is going to take years and other protocols are not better than us, even if they are in a better position in the market cap I don´t think some of them has better technology than us.
Thanks for your support and specially to Alexandra and the Council for the hard work last weeks.
Hi all, please see latest update from NEM Foundation in response to the CoinDesk article and more:
So are foundation memberships open now to join and potentially vote / run for these new positions?
I understand that the Foundation is not NEM, however it seems to have an uncanny ability to cripple most parts of it - whether that is through infighting, unprofessional behaviour by representatives of the council or just lack of direction for NEM as a whole, I appreciate that things are changing, and I don’t deny that streamlining is a good thing but with the mess of the last election i really hope any future ones are more transparently advertised in the future with everyone given enough notice to be able to join up well in advance of any hidden deadlines!
<edit - missed the response to the coindesk article>
So this money is coming from NEM’s slush fund? What determines that NEM has access to this money? Is it done via a vote? If these truly are discretionary funds for use at NEM’s whim are you going to be transparent about their former usage?
Thank you for your words, your clarity in speaking with the community and responding to hundreds of messages in the forum one by one and to each message in the Telegram chats, I admire you, you are Nem and what we needed to see the light after the darkness of 2018. I will continue to support you and be one of the members with the most support for the team. Greetings from Spain. All for Nem. President @Inside_NEM goooo gooo.
Maybe we should make Xem a stable coin, take a loan for development or find a large investor, and the coin holders will receive a reward at harvest. Release your stock exchange, and earn commissions, sell blockchain solutions by industry, etc. Sorry for the oldies. The community is hard, but everyone hopes for the best …