Hi all and welcome to Decembers edition of Valueplan payouts in 2024. I will do things a bit differently this month and post the results for the entire year in first post. First of all I have nothing to do with Valueplan. I have neither applied nor ever received any funding. As you know all the info can be found in the Valueplan wallet. The objective of this post is to inform the Hive Community on how are marketing arm Valueplan is spending the money funded by the DHF. Point to note my objective is to inform the reader. My objective is nothing personal, the project managers are probably doing their best. I do not want these posts to become a back and forth between disgruntled parties against the project managers. I prefer to look at facts in this report about what was spent, which accounts received the funds so the reader can have all the information and whether they think funds are warranted.
Now my idea of good use of marketing funds might be entirely different to another persons. Because Hive is a global Community , opinions are very very different so we need to take this into account. I don't agree we should spend 19% of the total marketing for Hive on the World Rally Championship rally car for example but maybe I am wrong here. I dunno. For me, once the funds are used to promote Hive and metrics are measurable I am happy. If users are taking advantage with Hive funds , it pisses me off. I do believe there should be a limit on the amount Valueplan give to 1 Hive user. The argument is that it limits Hive marketing potential by not being able to fund expensive projets but there is also a strong argument that if a user wants more than, say 20,000 HBD for a project then they should apply to the DHF rather than to Valueplan. Also as we know when there is more funds involved , things might get a complicated coupled with the lack of oversight on the ground, as funds could be misappropriated.
OK let us get going on this. I will start with the list of all the Valueplan recipients over the course of 2024. There are 66 people in total. I have included the country the recipients are from as many Hive users are asking me this. The table is ranked in order of payout received. Point to note I have taken out any admin or bridging loans from the Project Management team and gave them their own section below. I have also given "Refunds back to Valueplan" their own section so this can be seen below as well. For example some events may have been cancelled and the user gave all the funding back. I will still show the initial funds paid out in the Payouts table and the refunds in a separate table below. In this post I will not go into individual accounts. I have done so in previous posts so you can look those up at your leisure. The total amount funded is around $1.2 million dollars. It is a marketing departments wet dream in even a medium / large company to have a budget with 6 figures.
Valueplan Payouts to User Accounts for Full Year 2024
Valueplan by Country
Obtaining a country count was a mammoth task in itself. A massive pain in the arse that took me ages to source. I found that some accounts are being set up with "Hive" as the first word. And then whatever hobby or sport as the second word. Nothing wrong with that. For example without mentioning any names above , an example would be "Hive Boxing" ,"Hive Sailing", "Hive [INSERT HOBBY HERE]". Trying to find their owners was a rabbit hole in itself which I am going to investigate further. The concern is that the same owner may have multiple "Hive [INSERT HOBBY HERE]" accounts and could be cleaning up with their various project names. In most of these wallets and even websites there is no mention of the founders of these projects. Just the Valueplan funding, a transfer to an exchange and pufff no trace. It is very clever really. These Hive accounts have 25 reputation with no replies or comments. No transparency and but what is clear is that this is a strategy. I saw in Decembers payouts the 
In my opinion if a project is to receive Valueplan funding there should be full transparency on the profile of the wallets that receive the funds. Otherwise it's just the wild west in here really.
Anyway let us get to the facts.
28 of the 67 payouts were to users in the country of Venezuela.
This amounts up to 41.79% of the total user count, Bear in mind it is not 41.79% of the total monetary payouts because the top two most funded accounts are from Croatia so the actual dollar amounts would be less than this percentile. But let us stop for a minute. 42% of all the people Valueplan funded are from Venezuela. This is baffling to me. 82% of Venezuelans live in poverty with 53% of them in extreme poverty. It is the second poorest country in South America and the Caribbean region. Are we really going to attract big revenue into the blockchain by marketing in this country. The argument is this is why we are investing here because Hive has a foothold. I will stop being objective for the next two sentences after seeing these results. It does in my bollocks have a foothold. The Hive Community are being taken for a ride here. What is going on??? Why does Valueplan have a liking to Venezuela?? Is it because the squeakiest wheel gets the oil? Are the Venezuelans a charming good looking bunch?? I just can't put my finger on it. A few names do keep popping up which I will keep to myself for now as the mental health card will be played but this cannot be a coincidence. Should Valueplan put a cap per country?? By the looks of it, for sure.
With the exception of this bombshell all seems alright.
Mexico was a distant second with 5 users, USA with 3 and Ghana on the list of user counts with 3. But wow what a skew towards Venezuela. Not the country I would imagine to be the mecca for Hive marketing. I would have imagined the USA and countries in Europe, the Middle East, parts of Asia and Australia to be the prime target as these countries have more disposable income to invest in Hive. Crypto is important in developing countries to act as a stable coin for turbulent economies but unless a government get behind a crypto coin in particular then it would be hard for any crazy investment to take place given the economic conditions. With Hive being a global token it is hard to argue why 42% of the one nation are receiving the payouts whether it is the UK , USA France or indeed our friend Venezuela.
Bridging Loan Repayments To Admin Accounts/ Conversions of Hive to HBD to Account.
Bridging Loan From Admin Accounts
| Date | Account Name | Hive | HBD | Wallet Comment |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 29/08/2024 |  | 141,243.00 | 0 | Loan of Hive to valueplan |
| 21/02/2024 |  | 3,058.00 | 0 | Refund By Admin |
| 04/12/2024 |  | 4,100.00 | 0 | Loan of Hive Bridge Loan |
Nothing to see here. Just some cashflow and accounting error problems by the project team and the top brass.
Refunds from Users Accounts Back to Valueplan For Funds Not Used
There were 19 refunds in total. Fair play to the accounts that gave back some money to Valueplan that was not used. I would have thought this figure to be higher myself but I guess everyone was bang on the penny with their payout claims. Good job everyone. I wish I could get my own staff to be like you.
Summary
So this completes the Annual Summary. The Hive Community need to know these things for the future of our blockchain. The Binance Futures boost is temporary but if the platform keeps spending without any reporting metrics then we are only going down from here. By reporting on this for a year it astonishes me around the naivety surrounding some of these projects. Also the vast amounts of money we are dealing with here are what most people have ever even dreamed of. It is by far the most easiest way to rob a bank. I am finding when accounts get some funding. They are happy and some can't believe their luck. The next time they apply they ask for a little more. They receive it and then ask for more and then more again. After a while there are some projects that are pretty much a runaway train. They are used to the funding at this stage and just expect it now. Loans have to be given to Valueplan to ensure the ship stays afloat. I point to the Rally car , Street Workout, Community Wells and our Conference Queen with these arguments. One accusation is one of the project managers doesn't have a job, stays in fancy hotels and completely lives from the proceeds of their project. Not beyond the realms of possibility with the vast amounts involved. If you go to the Valueplan wallet and filter with the name of any of the amounts you will see the monetary values increasing steadily. What it cost to build a well in 2024 is far more than what it cost a couple of years ago. Almost double in fact. Friends of these projects see the large amounts that these accounts receive and they want a slice of the gravy train so they apply themselves. Various members of the Street Workout crew have now branched out into their own projects. The same can be seen in Ghana and the many conferences that are held in South America.
"If they are getting funding then why not me?".
And this is true. Why not them?
I don't do this for the upvotes. I earn alot less on my normal posts because of these Valueplan posts. But I'm OK with that. I am happy to die on this hill. It's a hobby and I have grown fond of Hive and my friends in it. The worst these posts can do is get me a downvote. At best it will make some users more accountable for the vast amounts that they are withdrawing from Hive. Whichever way there was always a need for more transparency and I hope that these posts achieve that. In my next post I will go through Decembers figures.