Litecoin Foundation board director Xinxi Wang’s interview with XCong.com:
1. The contribute money to the Litecoin Foundation has dropped sharply. What impact does this have on the daily operation and technological development activities of the Litecoin?
Donations for Q1 decreased mainly because of market stagnation. Q2 was much better for us – we will be publishing a report of Q2 once audited. It did impact our daily operations, but our employees voluntarily decreased their salaries, which helped the foundation weather the storm.
2. Github shows that Litecoin has rarely been updated in the past year. Is this related to the lack of funds?
Github was updated frequently but not in the main repo. Adrian, our main developer, just tested Litecoin 0.18.1 https://twitter.com/thrasher_au/status/1163603089611341826. Once it’s reliable, the code will be merged into the main repo.
3. Since 2019, the Litecoin Foundation has received only about $1,000 in monthly donations. What do you think is the reason for the low enthusiasm of community donations?
I don’t think there is a correlation between donations and enthusiasm. First, we did not actively solicit donations from the community in Q1. Second, the price of Litecoin was low, so the same amount of Litecoin donations were worth less than before. In Q2, we received hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of donations. Also, Litecoin is continually invited to speak at many blockchain events, and we have been continually signing partnerships in 2019.
4. Some people think that the Litecoin Foundation is mainly supported by Charlie Lee. His donation accounts for more than 80% of the total amount of the foundation’s donation since 2017. What do you think of it?
Charlie has been a huge supporter of Litecoin and the Litecoin Foundation. This should be seen as a tremendous indicator of Charlie’s belief in LTC and commitment to the project. The community has also helped greatly and we have plans to keep fundraising from the community in ways that resonate with them.
5. The main sources of funds of the Litecoin Foundation are donations and business income. How about the business income of the Foundation?
The business income was lower in Q1, but increased greatly in Q2. One big reason was that we were revamping our website litecoin.net and there were some kinks in its user experience. But we’ve since ironed out the issues and also launched some new products and marketing campaigns which have lead to an increase in business income.
6. How do the Litecoin Foundation allocate/spend their funds? What is the budget for annual expenses?
Most of our spend is allocated towards salaries, marketing, and legal services, as you can see from our financial reports. Budget mainly depends on our income. We do not have a specific goal at this moment. The foundation is still young and we are actively working to develop our strategic plans for long term success.
7. What adjustments will the Litecoin Foundation make after this?（You can choose not to answer it.）
We are considering launching a project-based crowdfunding system so people can propose projects and get funded by the community directly. This will make the dev and fund management process even more open and transparent.
8. After the Block Reward Halving, Litecoin hashrate dropped by 40%. Many miners have reached the shutdown price. How does this affect the Litecoin?
The price drop also contributed to the hashrate drop. Miners using old rigs could be losing money and thus stopped mining. However, Litecoin is still very secure.
The original Chinese article is here: https://www.xcong.com/articles/3568378