Thanks for the reply.

As for the bonus, I think you misunderstood what I meant. I know that XCR doesn't get a bonus, but if it's clogged up forever on an exchange, I'd pay in btc to get the bonus... so timing there does matter.

But like magic, a short time after I made this post, my Polo coin went from pending to sent. So I guess it's just unusually sluggish (sending btc was like a speed demon in comparison). So at least Polo does seem to work, albeit a bit slow.

Not sure about Bter, I got stuck there, another user here PMed me about it, and he was stuck there too the other day.... guess safest route is to avoid Bter if you can.

Don't want to bug you, but am hoping you can do some of us a favor... basically get in touch with the exchanges and see what is up with their withdrawal issues?

I had XCR on Bter (which I eventually had to sell, because they couldn't move it)... as they had an empty hot wallet (and it may still be empty for all I know... they left it empty for days and days).
And now I have XCR on Polo stuck in pending mode ... others have had this same problem, so it's not just me.

I don't want to end up in the situation where they can't get the coins off of the exchange and by the time I find this out, the 15% bonus is over. Or even worse, the ICO is over.

I think more will come in once everything is figured out (like if it's mathematically possible this thing will work) and a dev team is announced. Still following the coin, just not willing to jump in until I know the coin could actually be made. Although by then the changing rewards could be an issue for me.

If the ICO wasn't doing that well, I'd agree. But in reality I think they have (and will) take in more than enough BTC. So my meager contribution (talking about 1.5 btc or so) wouldn't exactly sway things a whole lot, be it btc or xcr.

If a big whale wanted to invest, he'd have to go with BTC anyway. Not enough XCR volume to support whale buying.

Hey, stop that nonsense talk! Don't point out the obvious or everyone will try to do it.

(I grabbed some earlier at 1020ish, hoping for a bit more sub-1000).

I sometimes forget that it's almost impossible to follow whale patterns exactly. I figured the buy on rumor, sell on news thing, would occur after first release... not a couple of days later. And if a couple of days later, figured it'd be this Mon-Tues, with next dev announcement.

I can't tell if this is a shakeout to buy more coins cheaply, or one or more whales dumped for good. I sold too early anyway (bought at 5, sold at 17ish), but still following the coin. I just wish I put in a buy order at 15 earlier and I would have caught some  dumped coins... never figured it'd dump like that, but then again, I expect very few people did.

Will the XCR (or Lisk) sort of guarantee exchanges manage their withdrawals eventually? Before the ICO is over, that is? I am really referring to Polo... Bter is sort of iffy... I eventually had to cancel my withdrawal there and just sell. Their rep basically told me their hot wallet was empty, and I didn't exactly feel confident that they planned to refill it anytime soon.

Are people still having Polo withdrawal issues? Just wondering, as I had big issues withdrawing from Bter. I think Bter is having some empty hot wallet issues (so wouldn't suggest buying any from Bter). Just curious if there are issues from Polo or not.

When does the 15% bonus thing end exactly, this Sunday? Still deciding how much I want to put into this... won't be a ton, as I'm a small fish... but just not sure how much I'll put in just yet.

I was planning on just converting my XCR over, but strangely managed to sell it above ICO value (w/bonus, that is). So it'll be a btc donation for me.

Anything is possible, but if being realistic, people should realize it has gone up like 5x already in a couple of weeks. It's only a question of when the train stops. Right after the MVP is properly released, price will logically go down -- well, using weird crypto logic, that is.

It could still rise longterm, but thinking of another 10x rise in the next month or two, seems a tad optimistic to me.

That would be nice, but who knows really. I'd expect an initial bounce, followed by a dump, typical of most ICOs. We may even be able to look at XCR as a reference... if I remember right, it went to 2-3x value, then dumped rather low. The danger are all of the XCR people who converted... a lot may wish to dump at the first sign of high volume (as they haven't had a chance to do so in like a year).

Assuming the devs use their BTC wisely, the coin should be able to survive any dumping fine.

Most people don't, but when being realistic, most coins do need a small premine to pay contributors and get promotion going. The problem of course is when a premine is like 20-50% of the coin, not some minor percentage.

Besides, a premine in ICO-land is somewhat different than in a traditional coin. As already stated, if we pretend you put some of your own BTC into ELC, then turn around and offer Dazza (or any dev) that ELC for his help, that is the equivalent to a premine. It all gets muddled when talking about ICOs.

I'm not saying you should do this, or change any ICO terms. But Dazza has a point... unless you use BTC for payouts, it's not as easy without ELC set aside.

I should point out that I mostly agree with you by the way. A small premine set aside for giveaways, promotion, marketing, testing and so on does make sense. But again, it wasn't in the original ICO terms, hence why it's not so easy to do at this point.

As for other devs contributing to the coin down the road, I assume they will be paid in BTC, so that part may be easy to take care of. Paying in ELC would be the tricky part.

Because it's exactly what he said he wouldn't do ... back when we were discussing ways to exploit an ICO.

If a dev buys his own coin like that, he gets both the BTC and ELC. And yes, he can then use the ELC to donate to contributors (as it's like a premine at that point), but it also lowers the proportion of coins all other investors get ... such as if 2.5M are sold to investors, 2.5M bought by dev, it's equivalent to a 50% premine. And ideally that BTC that goes from left to right pocket is spent to further the project, but it's not exactly something easy to verify.

And that said, it's not necessarily a bad idea for a dev to have a small premine set aside to pay out contributors and for promo purposes. I don't think may people have an issue with that.

But to be exact, I was replying to Cyberhacker's statement that it was easy for the dev buy ALL of the remaining coin. That is the part that isn't so good... you don't want a dev buying too much of his own coin like that.

And I hope you realize that isn't a good thing.

I think you misunderstood what I was getting at. If coins were set aside or the unsold were used for contribution purposes, it wouldn't be a proportional rate anymore... or at least the proportion outlined in the current ICO.

I was just stating to Dazza that you couldn't do what he was suggesting, without restarting things. Simple as that, no need to get defensive or act like I am harping on a restart. I get it, you don't want to restart or change any of the ICO terms ... so was just pointing out why what he suggested wouldn't work.

If he does any of that, he might as well just refund everyone, and restart the entire ICO and organize things in a more professional manner.

What you suggest is too major a change to just sort of slip in to the existing ICO. In your first scenario, he could end up with a huge amount of extra coins, equivalent to a giant premine. What if he sells 2M coins and is leftover with 3M? No investor would be happy with that. I'm not so sure any investor would be happy if even 1M was leftover.

True, but since this ICO does the sliding reward thing, there is also the danger that by the time the whitepaper is finalized, team background provided, and so on, very few will want to invest because of the discrepancy in rewards. Maybe it's just me, but it seems wrong to ask for money if a coin doesn't have a whitepaper yet.

I didn't mean my post to imply people should invest into Lisk. I meant Elastic should look at how they set their ICO up, use it as a template (or just get ideas) on how to set this one up. It's very professional, and has taken in a ton of money, really quickly.

I also doubt the founders had 750+ btc sitting around to invest in their own coin... I expect it's mostly people who missed the boat on ETH, or those who made a lot of profit from it, investing over there.

I know I suggested this to EK, but will mention it here too ... I think the entire ICO should start over from scratch.

Just make this a pre-announcement. Keep the ICO on hold until the whitepaper is finished.

Then set things up proper ... escrow, lawyer (ideally) involved, do some marketing before the ICO, announce which coders are involved with the project, every team member, backgrounds and so on.

I mentioned to EK how Lisk's ICO is doing, for instance (over 750 btc in like 2 days). Look at how they set theirs up. I'm not saying Elastic would do as well, but it could do a lot better than it has been as far as money taken in.