
GAB Meeting Minutes
Agenda items:
- How is Gulden doing?
- Store of Value aspect
- Rewards / Total Supply
- Gulden Blockchain
- Support desk capacity
- Plans for the future of Gulden
- Marketing and advertising
How is Gulden doing?
We are in very good shape. Gulden’s stock price is slowly creeping up and there is an increased buzz on Gulden’s Slack. There are new members who are immediately involved and trying to help others. Rijk feels that Gulden’s vision has now become very clear. Gulden is ready for major adoption. A year ago, Gulden looked completely different.
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We also notice this clarity among other people in the Gulden Slack. The Store of Value principle is clear and provides focus. There are also many positive reactions elsewhere about the “Dutch Bitcoin” and that’s not just in Slack.
The upwardly creeping Gulden price has a positive influence on that, of course. But Rijk thinks these two things reinforce each other. Gulden has never been in better shape and has come out stronger from many setbacks. The year 2021 promises to be a great (Gulden) year.
Support Desk
The GAB and Rijk would like to thank all the support staff who answered the rising amount of questions over the last month in the support desk of the Gulden.com website. The support desk has become considerably busier, so if anyone from the Gulden community is interested in joining the support team, please feel free to contact one of the GAB members or the Slack moderators. Aat, meanwhile, is also busy helping out again on the support chat, and we are very happy about that. But extra help is always welcome.
Store of Value
Store of Value aspect: Gulden has always been a Store of Value, it was just never explained or understood that way. Gulden has never been looked at from this point of view, but that is changing. There are many coins and projects that promise all kinds of functionality, but those coins/projects are therefore also vulnerable, namely: If such a functionality no longer works (well) or it is not used, then the coin or project is worth nothing. Serious investors understand this. The group of investors getting interested in Crypto is only growing. They run into a huge list of coins and projects, which they don’t understand anything about in terms of purpose, usecases, etc. Bitcoin doesn’t have those functionality(s) that people don’t understand, Gulden doesn’t either. And that will start working in our favor. Long term investors are looking for “Store of Value” projects, or: Storage of value. And then they quickly come to Gulden, because there are very few other comparable currencies. We all knew that Gulden would stand out, but it was still very much a question of how and why. Now that we know exactly what Gulden is, we can also look for competitors. And it turns out that there aren’t really any. Rijk indicates that this will all become even clearer in the near future.
Gulden as a Payment Method?
What about Gulden as a means of payment? Exactly as it always was. The beauty of a Store of Value cryptocurrency is that the payment function is automatically attached to it. It is not the core, but a consequence. With gold (a Store of Value) that is not practical, crypto solves that. However, Rijk believes that focusing on the payment method function is counterproductive and a distraction from the most important thing: Store of Value. Technically it is already a payment method and the fact that it is used that way is a natural consequence of adoption. It is the solution that was always there (but not clearly), for the chicken/egg story: big stores only accept Gulden when many people own it, but many people own it only when big stores accept it… So in that story, the all-important thing is missing: Store of Value. People own, because Store of Value. And once it is, people will pay with it.
Adoption and Marketing
Nick asks the question, “now that we know all of this, how are we going to reach people?” Rijk explains that a lot of it will happen naturally and you won’t know until afterwards. Exactly the way it happened with Bitcoin. Big investors have a very different strategy than the masses, they know how to find opportunities that the rest doesn’t see yet. And this is an opportunity that is incredibly accessible and user-friendly, but most importantly: clear. So that’s the “easy” part, for that we have to make sure, above all, that we have the clarity reflected everywhere and all are on the important line: Store of Value. “Dutch Bitcoin” is a very good tool for that.
In addition, more and more resources are becoming available to do marketing. That goes hand in hand with the price increase. More resources = more marketing = more adoption = higher exchange rate. The budget is very small now, but growing. But even with a small budget, of course, people can be reached. Therefore, companies have already been spoken to and quotes are being requested. Rijk also indicates that there is now some more interest in Gulden from organizations. It is still very superficial, but a turnaround compared to last year.
Exchange Listings
With a growing budget, more exchange listings are becoming realistic. Rijk indicates that this is the objective for Gulden: listings on major exchanges. So that Gulden becomes even more accessible to Store of Value investors. In addition, a listing on a large exchange also ensures familiarity with the masses. Most exchanges have a financial picture attached to them, but not everywhere. Binance is also sensitive to a strong large community. Strong we have, big we had, but they can be reactivated. The Gulden newsletter for example reaches 3000+ Gulden owners (if you are not subscribed, click here) . So we can start thinking about ways to reactivate these people and get them to participate in a listing on a major exchange. Often it is enough for many people to express their desire. Of course in a serious and professional way, no spam.
Rewards / Total Supply
During the meeting, the current block rewards as well as the total supply of Gulden were discussed. Rijk thinks that we should not do anything about this at the moment. The members of the GAB agree. The current block rewards offer Gulden BV and the GAB, next to development, an enormous clout for marketing and exchange listing(s) for Gulden. In addition, lowering the total supply of Gulden is not something that the GAB actually sees a future in. Gulden is good the way it is. There is therefore more than enough room for further growth of Gulden as a project as well as the share price.
Future changes to the development of Gulden, for example, could take place through Witness voting. This is something that can be developed in the longer term and can be added to the roadmap. It would bring the decentralized aspect of Gulden to an even higher level.
Gulden Blockchain
Recently, there was some kind of temporary delay in blockchain time. According to Malcolm, this was only a minor problem which would have basically solved itself. The GAB asks if it is necessary to advise against using Raspberry Pi’s for witnessing. Onno indicates that it is advisable to use your Pi only for witnessing and not as a full node. So witnessing at home on your own Raspberry Pi is perfectly possible. The network could use extra full nodes in the form of old desktops or laptops.
Electron
All the functionalities of the NOVO wallet are in the Gulden Electron wallet. However Gulden has more functionalities than Novo has in use. These Gulden-specific functionalities are currently being developed. In addition, some work needs to be done on the UX side. A Frontend developer could contribute to this.
Gulden Lite
Rijk indicates that during the Electron development, a Gulden Lite desktop wallet will also be developed. This works in the same way as the mobile wallets, so it has lightning-fast synchronization, and no mining/witness functionality (although this may be possible in the future). This is therefore a user-friendly choice for novice Gulden owners. Gulden Lite will be available soon and already uses Electron. Gulden Lite is going to help tremendously during the growth in users. It is a user-friendly wallet where a user does not have to wait for a long time for the initial synchronization.
In-App Buying with Euro
Research is now underway to see if in-app buying with Euro is possible again and it looks very positive. Little can be shared about it yet, but more will become clear in the near future. This would work through Blockhut and therefore means that buying with euro can also be done at Blockhut.com
Roadmap
At the moment we are working on Electron, next on the to-do list is the DEX (Decentralized Exchange). Rijk indicates that there are more projects on the to-do list:
- Witness Sync: Super fast synchronization of all wallets. A system that only Gulden can develop, because of our Witness functionality.
- “Nomad”: Nomad is a project that has been on the shelf for some time. Some wallets have problems with syncing due to restrictions in the network they are connected to the internet with. Nomad enables Gulden users to communicate with the network in a decentralized way via https, without the use of complex port configurations and exemptions in firewalls. So you can connect to the Gulden network at all times, as long as you have an internet connection, without any additional actions.
These are very important features for the Store of Value functionality and make Gulden even more special and interesting in the already short list of Store of Value competitors.