In case you blinked, the TenX ICO lasted all of 7 minutes. While the TenX team may consider this a huge success, the ICO process left many investors feeling they had been cheated.
For reference, TenX is a cryptocurrency debit card that utilizes the Visa and Mastercard network. Although they're not the only company to attempt this, they're the only company with a proof of concept. If cryptocurrency debit cards gain any real traction, it could be extremely profitable to stakeholders.
Where the TenX ICO went wrong.
- No Gas/Gwei Limits. The purpose of the 100,000 ETH pre-sale was to entice the whales to get in early. Despite TenX giving "recommended" limits of 50 Gwei & 130,000 Gas, they did not enforce it (much like the Status ICO). This gave an advantage to whales, who in some cases, paid entire Ethers to get their transactions processed faster. Essentially, following TenX's recommendations set you up to fail.
- Revealed ICO address too early. Minutes before the ICO countdown clock had reached zero the ICO address was already being flooded with transactions. The crazy part being, the smart contract was actually accepting the transactions. People who followed instructions and waited until the timer hit 0 were left at the back of the line.
- Etherium Network Queue. Despite sending the transaction seconds after the ICO began, many investors had their block removed from the pool due to the massive influx of transactions.
In my opinion, the most disappointing part was that some people who submitted their transaction 5-7 minutes after the ICO started, got in regardless of their Gas and Gwei. Investors had to get a bit lucky with which block their transaction fell into, because it certainly was not first come, first serve. Credit to some of the more tech-savy investors who sent a second transaction after their first transaction was "pending" for a little too long.
There are many lessons to be learned from this ICO. Using this system, the advantage goes to whales who are willing to spend copious amounts on Gas to skip the line. I believe that the Status ICO was more fairly administered by only accepting transactions with specific Gas limitations. Ultimately, TenX raised a hell-of-a-lot of money, and I'm just a cheesed minnow.
If you participated, or tried to, let me hear your thoughts on how we can make this system more effective.
Cheers,
Gayboy
