Dash has funded the creation of an incubator for the funding of smaller grassroots initiatives.

Dubbed DashBoost, the project is a funding mechanism for smaller community initiatives that may not be appropriate for larger funding proposals directly from the main Dash treasury system. Instead of drawing from the 10% of the block reward directly as the treasury does, this project will use excess funds from treasury proposals submitted by the Green Candle escrow service. The proposal passed 717 Yes/222 No/6 Abstain, and aims to have it’s minimum viable product by the end of February.

According to lead developer TechSquad, DashBoost aims to maintain an avenue for contribution by smaller players who have been priced out of today’s proposal system:

“The primary objective of DashBoost is to develop and implement the concept of a ‘micro proposal’. A micro proposal typically would have a relatively low payout request but would be traditionally ‘locked out’ from the Treasury system due to economics of the 5 dash submission fee.”

With the Dash treasury system, anyone can participate and submit a proposal, provided that they include a 5 Dash fee in order to guard against spamming. As recently as late 2016 this fee was under $50 USD, making the treasury system easily accessible to all. However, with Dash’s incredible price runup over the last year, the proposal fee is presently valued over $2,000, with the fee reaching as high as $8,000 for a single proposal submission last year. This severely limits the accessibility of smaller projects, many of whom request budgets not much larger than the submission fee, and who incur significant financial risk in submitting a proposal in case of failure.

A way to leverage the collective innovation of the Dash network

The DashBoost system lowers the entry fee for participation to 1 Dash, significantly reducing the risk and startup cost while still maintaining a reasonable filter and risk. TechSquad believes that the lower fee will allow more small-scale innovation to be leveraged:

“By lowering the fee to 1 Dash, DashBoost aims to unlock the value & innovation that micro proposals and their respective owners can bring to the Dash ecosystem.”

According to TechSquad, DashBoost still operates under the same premise as the Dash treasury of offering an opportunity for, not guarantee of, funding for projects, only with a much smaller scope:

“Ultimately, each project (big or small) will have to earn it’s place in the Dash ecosystem by winning the support of the community. The main aim of DashBoost isn’t to decide if a project does or does not have a place but rather to ensure that every project, no matter it’s size, has the platform/mechanism to formally seek the approval of the community.”

For DashBoost administrator Paul a.k.a. “Pasta” this represents a unique opportunity for those such as himself who have long searched for ways to get involved in the Dash community, but have never found the correct avenue or been able to muster the fee for a proposal:

“It’s an incredibly exciting opportunity, I’ve been around here for a while always chipping in ideas here and there but now I am actually executing on the ideas and I am very glad to have that ability. TechSquad is incredible to work with and the future potential even beyond this project with him and Dash are quite exciting. I’ve had quite a few ideas about how to make Dash better, but it can be hard to execute them if you don’t have the initial capital. Now that I have been able to get this first proposal passed I think I will have the ability to do quite a few more projects for the network. All in all this is the most exciting position I have been in and I am quite glad to have this opportunity.”

Dash’s ecosystem has grown considerably this year

While the markets have been rough recently, Dash has experienced a surge of growth this year. Even at current lows, the Dash treasury still exceeds $3 million monthly, offering the capability to fund a wide variety of projects. Additionally, in January alone Dash has claimed over 20 integrations and partnerships, at a rate of five per week, nearly one every day. In terms of strict integrations, Dash has claimed at least 12, or three per week.