Random Thoughts on Status ICOWith each passing ICO, we are seeing increasingly sophisticated models to manage contributions sent to an address - During the past months we have seen innovative implementations in this space: hidden caps as a prevention mechanism from pre-empting knowledge of total token supply (e.g. Aragon), Pre-ICO sales (e.g. Patientory) allowing larger contributions as to prevent contention with smaller ICO contributors during the actual ICO event, uncapped ICOs (e.g. Bancor) that ensures no one party is capable of having a large stake of all tokens.
The Status ICO which started on 20th June, was in my humble opinion by far the most sophisticated (and if I may say, effective) model towards ensuring a fair distribution of tokens to as many different contributors as possible.
Several mechanisms observed used by Status:
> Pre-ICO sales (bitcoinsuisse, ImToken) allowing huge contributions. These are the huge transactions observed during the first hours of the ICO, with gas prices allowed above the 50gwei limit to ensure that they get in.
> Dynamic ceilings - Where as contributions increase, per transaction contribution allowance reduces (surplus ethers are sent back to originating address). This makes huge contributions over time costlier, discouraging hoarding of tokens.
> Gas price capped on 50gwei - Transactions with gas price above this limit will be cancelled.
> Address ban mechanism (two transactions from the same address are not allowed within 100 blocks, circa ~25 minutes (17secs*100/60))
This model effectively allowed over 18k+ addresses (as of time of posting) to contribute at various capacities (in comparison, Bancor - 10885, Aragon - 2403, Patientory - 1728).
Will be looking forward to seeing more and more innovative ways founders structure their ICO, as for now I remain exceptionally impressed with what Status had came up with for theirs.
Some more observations:
> Many of the transaction errors during the start were a result of transactions with gas price being too high - ultimately cancelled.
> Ethereum's network ended up congested as usual.... Of which many of these early transactions are cancelled due to high gas price.
> Etherchain and Etherscan getting DDoSed before the ICO.
> MEW outright showed a message stating the contribution has ended (when it did not) - Out of frustration of herd FOMO. lol.
IMO, organising ICO's is Ethereum's number 1 use case right now, and it can't even handle the traffic.
I'm wondering how people are going to use the Status app if every action/transaction takes forever to be verified on the blockchain?