I want to drill down on something Hive account@igormuba71 raised earlier that I think deserves a more direct answer: the actual budget breakdown.

Here is the entirety of how 900 HBD/day, around $328K/year, is described in the post:

"The budget covers developer and team wages, server infrastructure, GPU compute for ZK provers, AI development tooling and business development for chain partnerships and aggregator listings."

That is the whole budget section. One sentence of categories with no numbers attached.

What is striking is that this is less detailed than the previous VSC proposal that paid out 420K HBD over 365 days. That proposal at least listed specific positions:

• 6 full-time developers
• 1 part-time marketing/social media position
• 1 Business development position
• Travel and marketing budget
• $75/day budget for V4V development

It still didn't include salary ranges or split percentages, but it gave the community something concrete to evaluate. The new proposal moved backwards on transparency while keeping the cumulative ask large.

The only follow-up detail I could find is Hive account@lordbutterfly's reply to Hive account@igormuba71 earlier in this thread:

"The core team is decently large and budget is in most part spent on the team, it slightly fluctuates due to how specific team members are paid (fixed, per hour) but that is almost entirely the budget with ofc servers, team nodes, certain services, Zk provers will account for most of the non team cost."

That is a description of where money roughly flows. It is not a budget breakdown. For a $328K/year ask sourced from community funds, the standard should be higher.

What a reasonable breakdown looks like for this size of ask:

1. Headcount with anonymized salary ranges (e.g. "1 lead at X to Y range, 3 senior at A to B range, 2 mid at C to D range")
2. Fixed vs hourly contributors and what proportion of the budget each represents
3. Infrastructure costs broken out: servers, team nodes, services
4. GPU compute estimate for ZK provers
5. AI tooling spend, and whether it is per-seat or usage-based
6. BD and travel budget
7. Marketing budget, if any
8. Contingency

None of this requires disclosing individual salaries. None of it compromises competitive position. It is basic transparency for a publicly-funded project.

A direct ask:

Hive account@lordbutterfly Hive account@vaultec, would you publish a line-item budget breakdown for the 900 HBD/day before this proposal closes? The community is being asked to authorize roughly $27K/month in funding. The single sentence in the proposal is not enough to evaluate whether the budget is reasonable, whether it is well-allocated, or whether further reductions are warranted.

To put it plainly: smaller ecosystem requests on Hive routinely get scrutinized down to the dollar. A $328K/year ask should at least match that bar.