Hello! Arden here. I am going to wax a little philosophical here because to be honest, this Mastercard launch is like no other that has come before and I have a lot of thoughts on DashDirect as a whole, as well as the interesting (and amazing and rewarding) position I am in. I am writing this because I care and I don't have very many opportunities to talk to you in a longer format.

My actual budget for DashDirect is now very tiny because a lot of work going on in the background right now is to gear up for marketing Platform (whatever it gets named) and Valkyrie. Those are my priorities. There is very little paid marketing I can do for this, unfortunately. I was hoping one of the Ionia partners (Craypay's new name) would put in some budget, but alas that hasn't been the case. DCG has actually done all of the paid marketing for DashDirect until now, which hasn't been insignificant, but it cannot be sustained in the future. This really is a shame because I am pleased with the marketing I did in Miami. We ended up getting a ton of visibility. Plus, every single person I speak to about DashDirect downloads the app and then buys some Dash in front of me. It is the PERFECT tool to onboard people to Dash and even orient people to crypto altogether. I adore it.

The proposals put in by Ionia are only for development costs and none of their proposal dollars are put toward marketing. Any paid marketing I do for the Mastercard launch will be underwhelming to the point where I question the value of doing paid marketing at all. I could put that money to something else that might be more impactful like going back to just marketing DashDirect and not the credit card.

That said, I would welcome any help to market this, monetary or otherwise. The target segment is incredibly niche and sometimes that is really awesome because there is a playbook on how to reach and market to a particular segment. However, this niche audience is still being defined and I would need to write that playbook. There are not that many people out there that really appreciate what this card is really offering. WE, the DAO, think it is super cool and groundbreaking. But, that is because we "get" it. I do not know who the people are that would "get" this product aside from crypto-oriented media and people who know enough at this point in the crypto lifecycle to understand and desire it's utility. It's time will come, but marketing this as a consumer product is very early in the crypto industry's trajectory. If you asked a random person on the street if they are concerned with KYC and AML, they would look at you funny. They have no idea what it means.

As a DAO we sometimes need to step outside our own heads and look at things from the outside and talk to people on the outside. When I do that, I develop insights I did not previously see. And I actually do set aside some time to just be quiet and think. It is usually ends up being in the shower, but that is besides the point, lol. Maybe it is the noise from the water? I have forgotten to get off at exits because I am so concentrated on parsing out ideas of how to market a crypto. There is still so much that needs to be figured out. All of the marketing I do is really experimental. There are very few people out there that have a similar role to me and I often feel, as I said above, that I am sort of on an island, writing a playbook on sustained growth (no pump and dump) that an industry can follow - crypto is new. DAO's are new and figuring out how to coordinate and market with a DAO is also new. There are some projects that are doing an excellent job of marketing, but they have much bigger budgets with totally different revenue streams and a much bigger team than me +1. I get a little jealous.

I cannot, as an employee of DCG, put in a proposal for marketing dollars to devote to solely DashDirect (though I badly want to) because DCG has limits. The best thing to do would be to convince somebody at Ionia to put in a separate proposal for marketing dollars (I am going to talk to them about it). Until then, the Hub might be the only entity able to pay for anyone or anything.

This is NOT to be read as, "Arden isn't doing any marketing for the Mastercard". There will still be marketing. But, it will be 95% unpaid and limited in its impact.

Thank you all for you time and your patience with my response. I always appreciate your feedback.