The NEM funding proposal was approved today.
By a large margin, the 3% POI and the 65% quorum in favour of the proposal were exceeded, which were necessary for the XEM 210 million (approximately USD 8 million) funding plan to pass.
The news was reported by the NEM Foundation in the official forum a few hours ago. The Executive Committee and Board members expressed their gratitude to the NEM community for supporting the funding proposal, and also thanked the NEM Labs team for their success.
Community members voted through the Proof of Importance (POI) voting system to approve the following points of the NEM Foundation’s restructuring plan:
- the NEM Foundation’s operational plan from 20 February 2019 to 20 February 2020;
- implement a new organisational structure;
- use available funds to pay outstanding invoices, employee contracts, and miscellaneous expenses;
- reduce expenses by 64.05% compared to the 2018 budget and reduce staff by 69%;
- transition to a product-focused organisation.
Summary
A new structure for NEM
As you know, the first obstacle encountered by the new Board of Directors of the Foundation was the negative budget. Following the sharp depreciation of cryptocurrency in the markets, the new board decided to restructure the organisational structure starting from the elimination of regional teams, replacing them with new teams focused on the products created.
The organisational structure will be agile, and new staff will be hired only if strictly necessary: “We will be prudent and careful in our expenses,” they say in the statement.
Funds will be managed by a team of professionals
Cillia Lim is the new director of NEM’s financial department, and will be surrounded by other financial professionals to manage community approved funds better.
Cillia, according to the press release, has 20 years of experience in the financial sector and will work closely with the Executive Committee and board to guide NEM’s financial transition.
The first step is to support Catapult
Once the NEM funding proposal is approved, the first objective is to direct funds to sustain the launch of Catapult.
The Foundation’s board of directors will work closely with Core Dev, the Project Management Committee (PMC) and all independent developers of the NEM community.
NEM co-founder Jeff McDonald has been selected as the interim CTO to achieve this goal.
At the moment there is no roadmap for Catapult, although the community has requested it. However, at the moment “there is no clear answer to the question, the work is in progress” says Jeff McDonald answering the question.
According to Jason Lee, secretary of the NEM Foundation, a “clear” answer will arrive by March 31, 2019.
Two monthly updates from the Board
Having received the approval for the Funding proposal, the new Board promises two updates per month to inform about
- the continuation of the work to restructure the internal organisation of the Foundation,
- a roadmap, and on strategic choices concerning the present and future of the NEM cryptocurrency.
