I am not sure where to start. To be honest, I have mixed feelings. I have been an Electroneum supporter from day one, and have no intention of selling my coins anytime soon, but I do understand other investors' frustrations and I hope Richard Ells or someone from the team addresses these issues at some point.
First of all, no launch is flawless, and any changes they could have made at launch would have been criticized no matter what. But, I do think it is unfair that people that actually invested in this ICO, and made it the success it was, were unable to access their coins from the start and benefit from the crazy price on the exchanges (could not have seen that one coming so fast). I understand that the team wanted to deliver what they offered, and prevent people from getting their coins stolen, and I commend them for that, but in my opinion I think it would have been best for them to delay everything. Would people have cried scam? Absolutely (people cry about pretty much everything ... imagine what would have happened if coins got stolen?), but at least investors who wanted to sell / dump could have benefitted before the miners. I am sure most investors would have been happy to sell enough to recover their investment and hodl the rest (which probably isn’t the case anymore).
None of this is the miners fault of course, as we also depend on the miners for the success of a coin, but it was a mistake on the team’s end to continue with the Cryptopia exchange listing before investors could get their coins.
On the other hand, I doubt the price would have gone as high as it did had 4+ billion coins been circulating from day one, and then people would have been complaining the coin wasn't rising.
My other concern is regarding the pre-mined amount of coins. According to this transaction hash (TH) from October 30th, 12+ billion coins were pre-mined (TH: 878ec74ff5f305ba30df3bae5f84bc59c8cb8cfbcc3df12f58dd7e646999892b).
(Electroneum THs can be checked on: https://blockexplorer.electroneum.com/)
I have re-read the white paper (both the overview and the technical to be sure, and there is no mention of “pre-mined” coins on either whitepaper, the closest info would be on the overview WP regarding the following:
However, even though they don't use the term "pre-mine", it is assumed those 6.3 billion ICO coins will be pre-mined since this is standard in ICOs were mining is involved in order to pay investors and bounties, as well as other expenses listed on the WP. Unfortunately I didn’t notice this because it was explained several times in the Bitcointalk ANN thread, so I felt I already had that information, but it should have been clearer on the WPs.
(Please note there is a new Electroneum thread on Bitcointalk that is moderated as the old one got impossible to deal with).
Some people wonder what is the big deal? For me it is mainly transparency. Other people are complaining that by doubling the pre-mine amount their investment is only worth half or that they ended up paying more per coin than they initially thought (even though some gained by investing during the bonuses, especially the 50% one).
I understand the project needed a mobile mining pool, it’s super important, but this amount should have been specified instead of stating several times (on their ANN thread and other platforms) that “6 billion pre-mine for the ICO AND bounty campaign” and that “There will be 15 BILLION coins left for miners”. Maybe they never thought they would sell the amount of ETNs they did during the ICO, or maybe they forgot to specify it and combined the "mining" and "mobile mining" pools, but transparency is key, so yes, an explanation from the team regarding this would be nice. (update available at the bottom of this post, in the PS. PPS section).
In summary, will I dump my coins when I finally have access to my wallet? Absolutely not. Like I said earlier, although I do think the launch could have been handled better, I have seen the team working hard for this project and I do believe it has the possibility of doing very well (in the medium to long term). I hope people will still be willing to hodl, but if they want to dump after the delays and what not it is completely understandable. Like I have said in all my ICO / crypto-currency related posts, investing on this market is risky and there is no guarantee of returns so you should never invest more than you could afford to lose. I invested what I could afford to lose on this ICO so if I lose it would suck, but if I win that would be awesome.
You can keep up with ETN prices on CoinMarketCap: https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/electroneum/
Cheers,
Ally
PS. To those investors that set a super stupid password, please stay out of the crypto currency world.
PPS. My concerns have partially been addressed already.
My first concern is addressed in this reply from the team to felipeintheend:
Part of my second concern is addressed by Richard Ells directly in this video: https://www.facebook.com/afzal.ahmed83/videos/10214401757178878/ (starting around minute 30:00 and then again @ 34:17). Thank you Afzal Ahmed for taking the time to visit the Electroneum offices to make this video.
Yes, before the November 1st launch they had to pre-mine the 5 billion ICO coins and bonuses for investors (that’s the figure that's in circulation) as well as pre-mine the mobile mining pool of about 7 billion something. The remaining 7 billion or so would remain on the blockchain to be mined. Unfortunately he doesn’t mention why this pre-mining for the mobile mining pool was not mentioned on either WP (as the only reference to this is that the unsold ICO coins would go to a mobile mining pool).
At least it’s good to see him addressing the concerns directly, and I hope at some point he will address why this key info was forgotten.
UPDATE: I contacted the community manager for the team on Bitcointalk, and he clarified this. Here is a screenshot of the reply, but in summary those "pre-mined" coins for the mobile mining pool are being considered as "to be mined" (for the mobile mining experience - aka the mining simulation) and not in circulation, which makes sense.
