Question about Operating Budget and Funds of BU and BUIPS

[reina]

Hi!

I am trying to get a perspective on the funding amounts asked within the BUIPs vs the operating budget of BU, to put it into perspective. For example, If someone is proposing a workshop that costs $50k (one of the BUIPs actively voted on now), how much of that is of the yearly budget or total treasury? Does it possibly prevent the funding of something else this year if it starts to reach a yearly budget (if there is one) or there are no funds left? Just trying to get the context here.

I could not find the operating budget of financials of BU. Is there any info somewhere about the budget for BU? @solex

Is there an annual budget decided each year based on the donations received and overall treasury?
Do members get to see the address that holds the treasury and it's status?

I also looked up the donation addresses:

BTC address has only
0.19203721 BTC
https://blockexplorer.com/address/36XTMVtgJqqNYymsSvRonpUsbZRGkm1jvX

BCH address has only
0.54478363 BCH
https://explorer.bitcoin.com/bch/address/bitcoincash:pq6snv5fcx2fp6dlzg7s0m9zs8yqh74335tzvvfcmq

 

[Roy Badami]

This is the last financial statement I'm aware of - I'm assuming the next one is imminent.

https://bitco.in/forum/threads/bitcoin-unlimited-financial-report-1-january-2017-30-june-2017.2534/

It should be clear from that that BU has significant financial resources at its disposal. Of course, these have to be well managed (a significant chunk of this comes from a large one-off donation a couple of years ago, and of course there can be no expectation that future donations will be forthcoming of similar magnitude). But personally I'm confident that the BU Officers are managing the funds wisely.

That said, I fully agree that it's difficult to evaluate proposals to spend $50,000 (say) without knowledge of the financials of BU. In the case of the zeroconf workshop, though, the proposal is from the Secretary of BU, so it should be reasonably clear, I hope, that this is a sum that the Officers are comfortable with.

But I wonder if more could be done in future to make things clearer to Members who are voting on such proposals. FWIW, I believe most (all?) BUIPs to date that involve expenditure have been proposed by one of the Officers, and Members have generally been happy to trust their judgment.

 

[AdrianX]

Here is the last Bitcoin Unlimited Financial Report I recall. https://bitco.in/forum/threads/bitcoin-unlimited-financial-report-1-january-2017-30-june-2017.2534/

@Peter R has put these together in the past.

 

[solex]

All, these are good points. Certainly, the elected officers will not support, or at least will publicly query any BUIP which is disproportionate to the overall financials. It is certainly our mission to expense funds wisely in the furtherance of BU development and Bitcoin Cash scalability/adoption.

 

[reina]

Hi Roy & Solex,

Thanks for your detailed answer!

It's more clear now, so its easy to understand that any reasonable budget for BUIPs are not an issue and the project can sail on smoothly, funding wise, for future development ^_^!

Cheers,
Reina

This is the last financial statement I'm aware of - I'm assuming the next one is imminent.

https://bitco.in/forum/threads/bitcoin-unlimited-financial-report-1-january-2017-30-june-2017.2534/

It should be clear from that that BU has significant financial resources at its disposal. Of course, these have to be well managed (a significant chunk of this comes from a large one-off donation a couple of years ago, and of course there can be no expectation that future donations will be forthcoming of similar magnitude). But personally I'm confident that the BU Officers are managing the funds wisely.

That said, I fully agree that it's difficult to evaluate proposals to spend $50,000 (say) without knowledge of the financials of BU. In the case of the zeroconf workshop, though, the proposal is from the Secretary of BU, so it should be reasonably clear, I hope, that this is a sum that the Officers are comfortable with.

But I wonder if more could be done in future to make things clearer to Members who are voting on such proposals. FWIW, I believe most (all?) BUIPs to date that involve expenditure have been proposed by one of the Officers, and Members have generally been happy to trust their judgment.

 

[Norway]

@reina
We are finding a way into the future. Don't expect everything to meet a certain standard of law in USA or Finland.