Hello, Steemit!
The recent Decentraland ICO took the participants on a very unpleasant surprise by concluding just mere 35 seconds after the ICO commenced. It was a notable and notorious accomplishment as the developers allowed 5 large investors to take part in the ICO before it even started. This took place without giving any sort of a notice to the community. Generally, those that were successful in participating in the ICO utilized pooled smart contract prepared by your fellow reddit member.
On one side of the spectrum, those that successfully participated in the ICO were given the golden opportunity to be in the very minority of the public MANA token holders. On the other side of the spectrum, individuals who eagerly anticipated for the ICO were left with bitter disappointment and salt. Many are contemplating whether 'Decentraland' is following its vision of being a truly decentralized VR economy as MANA tokens are heavily concentrated with the early large investors.
Initially, it wasn't planned to turn out like this. ICO contributors were promised 40% share of the tokens, but the unexpected participation of the large investors in the ICO ruined it.
Personally, I was one of the lucky people in the minority who participated in the ICO through the smart contract and there's no doubt that these MANA tokens will generate a good amount of return. But I was also a believer of the project and followed the decentralized vision that the project shared. Needless to say, I am very disappointed in the manner that this ICO was conducted. I have a mild suspicion that the team's original intention was to be funded by large investors and to use the ICO opportunity as a mere marketing tool.
Whilst I respect and acknowledge the fact that Decentraland's team has no obligation to sell the tokens to the public. However, the lack of communication and transparency is a huge issue that needs an immediate attention and be addressed as soon as possible. Despite my pessimistic writing above, I remain very confident that the project is solid. With an innovative vision, a strong team with diverse and relevant backgrounds, and realistic future plans, I have no doubt that the project will succeed.
However, with this massive fiesta taking place, I will be watching very closely on the progress and effort the team makes to satisfy the angry community.
Comment on what your take on this ICO is!
I continue to go back-and-forth with my support for the crypto community, ICOs and the token economy in general.
One day, I'm optimistic that we've created a revolutionary new form of capitalism - an ability to raise non-dilutive, community-sourced capital without the need for broker/advisor/banker leeches, all wrapped in the new version of excel that is blockchain. Its HARD to dig into this technology and NOT come away thinking about all of the numerous ways in which it could accelerate the world forward, in a positive way.
But then ICO's like Decentraland happen. The Decentraland team, for months, had been maintaining a community of 3,000 Slack members, providing updates on the project's progression, getting contributing members prepared for what was PROMISED to be a broadly distributed ICO, etc. They even introduced a concept of a "white list", where they PROMISED that all of their Slack community members, after signing up to the whitelist, WOULD GET ACCESS to the ICO...
And then, conveniently one week before the ICO, their Slack was "hacked" which prompted the team to (a) remove all Slack channels that provided community members the ability to comment (i.e., one-way communication) and (b) disbanded the "whitelist", BUT again promised that whitelist members would gain preferential treatment in the ICO.
Then we get to the ICO, which blows out in 30 seconds to a few large insiders and a smart contract pool that eats up all demand. That'll be REALLY conducive to developing a trusted community of network users. Thanks Decentraland.
Which comes to my point: Is this all really just a ponzi scheme? Are blockchain "projects" really just spending all of their resources on coming up with creative ways to hype their ICO in order to raise ungodly amounts of money? Who is there, post-ICO, to make sure that these people ACTUALLY DO ANYTHING towards the cause they promised their buyers? The answer: no one. The only thing incentivizing them to do ANYTHING is the fact that they held back 60% of the tokens for themselves - that way, they can continue to hype non-existent product and networks, continue to leak tokens into the market and raise MORE funds until, I suspect, everyone finally realizes what just happened.
850 token project owners got rich. Everyone else was sold a bill of goods and wampum that will inevitably go to zero.
WORLD CHANGING IDEAS fueled the start of this revolution. My deeply-rooted concern is that human nature has taken hold and will spell its demise. And it will be UGLY.
To some extent, I completely agree with you. Those broken promises and the lack of transparency is a real issue. To fix this, Decentraland team will be conducting another small ICO for those that were whitelisted. Were you one of those people on the whitelist? If so, are you planning to give them a second chance? Let me know!
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