Edit after posting -
RATHER THAN HAVING ANY ISSUES WITH THEIR ICO, IT SEEMS THAT BASICATTENTIONTOKEN MAY HAVE SOLD OUT TO A HANDFUL OF INVESTORS.....CONGRATULATIONS! I will leave my experiences below as I found them. Big money really is in crypto now and personally, I think wide distribution matters a great deal. However, best of luck to them!
Original post -
Today I attempted to participate in a new ico called BasicAttentionToken. Their goal was to radically improve the efficiency of digital advertising by creating a new token that can be exchanged between publishers, advertisers and users. It all happens on the Ethereum blockchain. The token can be used to obtain a variety of advertising and attention-based services on the Brave platform. The utility of the token is based on user attention, which simply means a person’s focused mental engagement.
The attention economy is clearly experiencing a revolution and I thought their offering sounded very interesting. They were only accepting Ether so I sent some Steem to Poloniex, exchanged the Steem for Ether in the Steem/Ether market. Created an Ether wallet at myetherwallet.com and sent the Ether to my new wallet. There are several steps here but it all went pretty smoothly. The fastest part of the process was sending the Steem to Poloniex.
It is at this point that I started to have issues....
I waited until the ICO had begun and then followed the instructions from https://basicattentiontoken.org in order to correctly construct my transaction. I must admit that I don't fully understand Ethereum's use of GAS. I thought I understood it to be the means of acquiring network resource, what I was not prepared for was the number of times my transaction failed to appear in the block explorer https://etherscan.io
I had set the GAS Limit and GAS Price as instructed, by to no avail. At this point I started to doubt that I understood what was going on, especially as I'm not familiar with Ethereum wallets and the transaction mechanism......a state true of many people attempting to use Ether for the first time. So then I set about altering the GAS Limit and GAS Price....setting them higher until a transaction was finally registered on the block explorer. "Great" I thought. There we go then. This was good because despite the fact that I wasn't overly desperate to participate in the ICO, the feeling that things were rushing ahead of me brought on some feelings of FOMO (fear of missing out.) Ultimately I didn't want all the mucking about to be in vain simply because I was experiencing user interface issues. I was getting frustrated.
Anyway, the status of the transaction started off as pending and then changed to Cancelled. Here is an example....
Naturally, I thought it was something I had done, 'Bad Instruction' sounded like it was something I had done. So I set about putting together another transaction. Of course, when I attempted to generate a new transaction after checking all the details, I got a message telling me a transaction with the same hash had already been used, so for want of a better alternative, I closed down the wallet and logged back in. I would be doing that a lot over the next half an hour or so.
After a while of trying all kinds of different things, it finally occured to me to check some of the other transactions that were flooding into the ICO address and heightening my annoying FOMO. It is then that I discovered that the majority of the transactions seemed to be cancelled...
Ahhh! Perhaps it wasn't me after all! That was some relief but I had still wasted a lot of transaction fees and time. Still, it was clear that someone somewhere was experiencing bigger problems.
My purpose in relaying this experience to you is to try to highlight to Steemians, many of which will be new to crypto, new to blockchains and new to ICO's and such that there are still many hurdles and difficulties in using these new technologies. No doubt, if basicattentiontoken has experienced some technical difficulties or there is an issue with the execution of their smart contract, they will be working hard to put it right and I wish them luck. I found Ethereum's GAS mechanism to be very awkward and frustrating, that is no fault of basicattentiontoken's but it does highlight that the choice of platform to build within, the choice of tokens a project chooses to accept for an ICO or such have big implications. Just be prepared for challenges, for disappointment perhaps and to have your head completely scrambled from time to time. There is a very long way to go before any of this blockchain/crypto stuff is truly user friendly.
On a positive note, I honestly think Steemit and Steem are among the best and easiest to use platforms around. There is still a way to go, but we're on the right track.
Happy Steeming
Exactly - I sat on ETH for a couple years, then tried to actually use it. Then I started divesting immediately. It is a neat toy made by nerds for nerds. STEEM is the first and only crypto platform I've used that is accessible to mainstream users - it is simple, fast and easy. ETH is none of these. GAS? WTF do I do with GAS? :)
I have to agree with you.
I'm sorry you had such a hassle but I really like how you used that experience to shine a light on how good we have it here on steemit. Way to look for the silver lining!
Thank you. It was very frustrating. I had no idea that they had sold out to so few so quickly. A message might have been nice but i'm glad it wasn't an issue with their tech or smart contract :)
I think the entire experience is still a valid learning experience for uninitiated Steemians.
Scripts, they do a thousand things a second :) ETH sounds very interesting to me but I can't get over steemit, since it's my first :)
Amen brotha... this shit aint too easy thus far.
Ethereum, Bitshares, Steem and most other platforms honestly have a lot of work to do before even quasi mainstream adoption.
Absolutely!
I hear ya, well we have a facebook with a governance model and some weird ideas and crypto people I think the mainstream needs to learn the ropes, it's not that hard to grasp, but it seems most people can't spend 2 months learning anything.
Well hopefully in the future noone will have to spend 2 months learning how to make a tweet or buy a worthless penny stock. I'd rather have it easy and productive. =)
nice....your post deserve upvote and resteem...
Thank you very much!
u r welcome
How do you think the token is gonna perform?
I honestly have no idea. I think Ethereum is over valued, centralised and has big issues around scaling but what do I know?
This was real shit of an ICO I never participate in ICO without upper cap. What will they do with 36 megabucks?
I don't like the distribution at all but that certainly does not bother the big money and i doubt it will bother BAT.
From above subreddit : It comes to my mind what Andreas Antonopoulos said in a recent episode of Let's Talk Bitcoin: "very soon the FTC will come and bite ICO promoters in the ass"
@benjojo, I'm more excited about steemit as I take little baby steps into the digital currency world. It's so easy to transfer steem funds. @dan might be the real satoshi with bitshares and steem. The future is bright for steem. Much brotherly love from your california friend.
Hiya bud! I hope those steps prove to be highly rewarding, both in spirit as a Steemian and in your pocket! We are all still early adopters. Have a bear hug from across the pond :)
I had not heard of this ICO and I really liked the idea. Too bad you had so many troubles getting in. The only thing I can say about it is that at this moment Eth is the most solid currency. Already exceeded $200 and seems to have no roof. In 1 or 2 years, it is sure to exceed $1000.
With respect to steemit, the interface we have, the speed and no transaction costs is unmatched.
I hear you bud.
they have apps :D which reminds me of something I was laughing about a few months ago
https://steemit.com/news/@j3dy/news-apples-apple-logo-swift-d
Apple shit :D and my only news piece to date :D
I also attempted to participate in the BAT ICO, sadly, my transaction never made it through either. I gave up after multiple attempts and after 1 hour passed.
According to the BAT website, the thing was sold out in 24 seconds. I'd have to imagine that there are some big holders of the BAT token now, that is the only way I can see it being sold so fast.
I heard approx 130 with a couple of mega whales.
yea tough times, I was also interested, but I'm barely getting the grips of crypto, almost got an idea how to cash out :D on the BAT topic I heard they got financed in 24 seconds so it's not you after all :D I'm not into etherium either, I've just heard some good stuff and like the name so I'm just now hearing about GAS a second time :D
https://steemit.com/cryptocurrency/@grateful/bat-crowdsale-is-live-bat-token-brought-to-you-by-brendan-eich-the-creator-of-javascript-and-co-founder-of-mozilla
and how i saw about the quick ICO
https://steemit.com/bat/@bguerrero1986/bat-sold-out-in-24-sec
by the way that dude linked the same guy that made the ICO announcement video I watched, seems like he got zilch too it seems everybody did, there must be some tech mafia in china already :D
I am very surprised it was set up like that...we all know the issues that tend to hang around when a distribution is flawed in any way.
it was a awesome pump, imagine the dump :D 30mill sold in 20 seconds :D
The crazy thing is how much people were willing to pay for a gas fee. Some serious Hype/Demand.
Best,
Isaac
I know! I think I put mine up to maximum at on point! ;). Oh well, one thing seems pretty certain in the short term, there will be no shortage of icos! ;)
That is the truth!
The floodgates are open. I want to do a real estate ICO to crowdfund a house as an investment property.
That's an interesting idea!
One token has real estate ownership you can keep them as ownership in the property or you can spend some if you wanted to use them as a timeshare at a rental rate.
Wish I knew about this sooner!
I think a lot of wrangling goes on behind the scenes and that a lot of these icos are a done deal before they launch.
Yeah your probably right about that. I do wanna get my hands on some BAT tokens thou.. If you find a way please let me know!
Can't you just earn BAT tokens by using their Brave browser?
If anyone requires a Force choke, let me know.
Much appreciated Lord Vader. I have a technological terror i'm going to use on them instead. I'm quite proud of it actually. I'll let you know if it's enough.
Don't be too proud of this technological terror you've constructed. The ability to destroy a planet is insignificant next to the power of the Force.
But it sounds like it might be ok for this job. I will be here if you need assistance.