Define a mission statement

[lehnberg]

Relevant forum thread.

Shortlist of proposals to be discussed in the next governance meeting (https://github.com/mimblewimble/grin-pm/issues/26)

In no particular order:

ID	Grin's mission is...
A	To advance financial sovereignty, through a private, simple, and accessible medium of exchange.
B	To advance economic freedom, through a privacy-focused, simple, and fair medium of exchange.
C	To fight for the freedom of your money, through privacy-focused and light-weight transactions.
D	To give the world the power to make private, secure and independent financial transactions, without barriers.
E	To empower freedom through an open, minimal, and private financial medium of exchange.
F	To be a private, trustless medium of exchange; minimal in design and inclusive of all.
G	To be https:// for money.
H	To afford economic, social and political change through a private, open, and trustless monetary medium.
I	To record the private transfer of value in a lightweight and neutral manner.
J	To help you protect your economic sovereignty with privacy and fairness, empowering you with a dead simple medium of exchange.
K	To enhance the world’s money. With everyone. For everyone.

[umma08]

in order of my own preference (but may still need refinement from community):

1. I
2. F
3. E
4. A

[knaccc]

Decentralized financial privacy, boldly re-imagined.

[sesam]

:-1: for:

G) short and catchy, but those who know what https is are few, and might already complain that https has an unsolveable Certificate Authority problem that grin would not want to remind anyone of.

I) "To record" while correct, doesn't fit with the original MW dream of only caring for the UTXO set and safely ignoring historical transactions.

If this mission statement is to be repeated whenever grin is mentioned, it ought to be easy to remember without faults. It'll have to be simple English, and somewhat catchy. knacc's suggestion is catchy, though maybe still too glossy to feel minimalistic. Though grin's intended user base probably don't care about minimalistic, that's a slightly passé Scandinavian school of design, and programmers (like me) like minimalism too. Most suggestions are a bit too long. I scrolled back up, and still haven't memorized any of them.

Maybe try some simpler and shorter To.... sentences?

S1. To build an international currency with privacy and fairness for all. S2. To provide a private method of value exchange.

The current website has these (formulated as To... sentences): Web1. To make electronic transactions possible for everyone, without censorship or restrictions. Web2. To build a private, scalable and open (community-initiated) currency.

UPDATE: Then there's another older mission statement formulation mentioned here: Web0. To create open electronic cash for all, without censorship or restrictions.

[sesam]

Finally got through the above linked forum thread (good stuff!), and I'm copying over some other versions that might have been withdrawn / excluded from the list above for a reason, or just missed or to avoid having too many suggestions. Maybe nice to have here listed and for reference. (PM me if something should be removed). I also included some post fragments, rewritten as To... sentences, that actually could be quite good.

From 0xb100d

• To provide secure, private value transactions on a global scale. some overhead edited out :)
• To be the best digital cash.
• To be a private, scalable, digital currency.
• To be a neutral, more efficient, money technology.
• To be the soundest money possible.
• To send specific numbers to each other, and just happen to do currency stuff as a way to fund the miners. :)
• To be an encrypted, public, immutable, global clock and message board with a fee to transmit.

From AdamSC1:

• To raise the standards of freedom through a lightweight, private, and simple medium of exchange.
• To empower financial self-sovereignty, through a private, simple and open medium of exchange.
• To create open electronic cash for all, without censorship or restrictions.
• To improve financial self-sovereignty through an open and lightweight medium of exchange, that protects your privacy.

From burrrata:

• To be an open community that makes sharing and exchanging value easy.

From midipoet:

• To empower financial autonomy through a private, minimal, open medium of exchange.
• To afford economic, social and political change through a private, open, and trustless monetary medium.

From lehnberg:

• To enable financial sovereignty through minimal and open transactions that protect your privacy.

[lehnberg]

Voting is open: https://www.grin-forum.org/t/vote-on-grins-mission-statement/1724

[umma08]

Voting is open: https://www.grin-forum.org/t/vote-on-grins-mission-statement/1724

i didn't seem to get confirmation of my vote on that page. clicked on 'submit' quite a few times.....i assume vote was only counted once. :-/

[lehnberg]

every time you submit you change your vote. it only counts once, but you can change your vote until it closes

[0xb100d]

Tried to combine the best of the top voted statements and also add the word "neutral" which I think goes a long way. thoughts? https://www.grin-forum.org/t/vote-on-grins-mission-statement/1724/75?