What is the best way to distribute tokens during ICO?

[mirceab]

Hello guys,

We are working on launching an ICO to fund a business in the entertainment sector but we are not sure what the token distribution should be. So I am turning to you to hear your opinion on this matter.

The first possible distribution that we thought of is:
https://i.imgur.com/UO0YNp7.png
-   50% to the founders, team, advisors
-   10% in a pre-ICO where we sell to preferred investors at a set price
-   15% in the ICO, where we sell tokens to the public
-   15% we give through a referral system, where people receive tokens when they refer others to our service
-   10% reserve, in a multi-sig wallet that is controlled by our advisors.


The second possible distribution that we thought of is:
https://i.imgur.com/cTVHUOr.png
-   30% to the founders, team, advisors
-   10% in a pre-ICO where we sell tokens to preferred investors at a set price
-   40% in the ICO, where we sell tokens to the public
-   10% we give through a referral system, where people receive tokens when they refer others to our service
-   10% reserve, in a multi-sig wallet that is controlled by our advisors.

I know that most of the ICO’s until now sold a greater percentage of their tokens to the public (Bancor only sold 50%, but most sell 70-80%), but we believe in our service and we want to keep most of the tokens ourselves to profit in the long term. We don’t want to raise a shitload of money through an ICO and then go to Ibiza and drink cocktails. We want to raise some money, build our service and then share the revenue with the people that supported us through our ICO.

What is your take on this? Does the token distribution even matter when you chose an ICO to invest in? Or the product/service is more important? Or maybe you think another distribution would work better. Please let me know in the comments.

[bathrobehero]

Flush 100% down the toilet and fund the project yourself without ICO.

[mirceab]

Why do you say that? If we could have funded it privately, we would have done so. But since the business proposition is intrinsically linked to blockchain, we thought a little help with an ICO will help us fully develop the product.

[Abricotier]

I can not vote, so I will explain my option 3 here. The best is to not do any pre-ICO, because unless you have something huge, it will look scammy. For the exact numbers from the rest, I do not know, I am not a professional.

[mirceab]

I can not vote, so I will explain my option 3 here. The best is to not do any pre-ICO, because unless you have something huge, it will look scammy. For the exact numbers from the rest, I do not know, I am not a professional.

Thank you for letting me know. I edited the poll and now I think you can vote.

Regarding the pre-ICO, we had the same problem with this, because we know it looks scammy. But at the same time, we know the product is huge and will disrupt the entertaining business pretty good.

Also, we were thinking about making a minimum cap on the ICO itself. If we cannot gather the minimum funds we set up to gather, we will return all money to those who contributed and just use the pre-ICO funds from the investors to fund the development. This I think will boost the confidence that we are not a scam. Also, we are looking into baking milestone-based funding via the contract into the ICO, so that funds we receive are staggered.

[Abricotier]

I can not vote, so I will explain my option 3 here. The best is to not do any pre-ICO, because unless you have something huge, it will look scammy. For the exact numbers from the rest, I do not know, I am not a professional.

Thank you for letting me know. I edited the poll and now I think you can vote.

Regarding the pre-ICO, we had the same problem with this, because we know it looks scammy. But at the same time, we know the product is huge and will disrupt the entertaining business pretty good.

Also, we were thinking about making a minimum cap on the ICO itself. If we cannot gather the minimum funds we set up to gather, we will return all money to those who contributed and just use the pre-ICO funds from the investors to fund the development. This I think will boost the confidence that we are not a scam. Also, we are looking into baking milestone-based funding via the contract into the ICO, so that funds we receive are staggered.

No, I still can not vote, because of my low rank. But anyway, the last thing you told, about the steps, I recommend you to not doing it and simply using an escrow. That is somehow mandatory. In the same fashion, a minimal cap is somehow logical, but do not forget the maximum cap !

[mirceab]

No, I still can not vote, because of my low rank. But anyway, the last thing you told, about the steps, I recommend you to not doing it and simply using an escrow. That is somehow mandatory. In the same fashion, a minimal cap is somehow logical, but do not forget the maximum cap !

Of course, there will be a maximum cap as well. Thank you for pointing this out. Also, an escrow account under our advisers supervision would function the same way as a milestone based funding. We will see which option is most desirable, the effect is the same on both.

Thank you for your input!

[jacafbiz]

None of the above, Gnosis way is the best, keep 99% of the tokens

[One Man Band]

30/50% to the founders?  

that is going to put investors off straight away.

the lower your rake, the more investors will trust you as they'll see its not a smash-and-grab.

try 10%? you'll still be loaded if it's a success.

[Abricotier]

30/50% to the founders?  

that is going to put investors off straight away.

the lower your rake, the more investors will trust you as they'll see its not a smash-and-grab.

try 10%? you'll still be loaded if it's a success.

10% can do the trick, but it still depends of what their project is. If they are offering the next revolution, and that their product is already working, they can easily go with 10%, but if that is not the case, as you pointed it out, the lower the better.

[klarki]

Why did you choose ICO?

[bathrobehero]

I can not vote, so I will explain my option 3 here. The best is to not do any pre-ICO, because unless you have something huge, it will look scammy. For the exact numbers from the rest, I do not know, I am not a professional.

Thank you for letting me know. I edited the poll and now I think you can vote.

Regarding the pre-ICO, we had the same problem with this, because we know it looks scammy. But at the same time, we know the product is huge and will disrupt the entertaining business pretty good.

Also, we were thinking about making a minimum cap on the ICO itself. If we cannot gather the minimum funds we set up to gather, we will return all money to those who contributed and just use the pre-ICO funds from the investors to fund the development. This I think will boost the confidence that we are not a scam. Also, we are looking into baking milestone-based funding via the contract into the ICO, so that funds we receive are staggered.

Then don't handicap it with a silly ICO.

If you and your team can't trust your project enough to throw your own money into it and fund it then how are you expecting others to trust it enough to give you money?

And if you and your team are not able to fund it, then maybe not start a project that is above your heads or try find investors without giving them premined coins.

No crypto is decentralized - therefore becomes useless - if some people have control over a significant amount of the supply.

Fund your project without ICO/premine and get coins like everyone else by mining or whatever fair method you intend to initially distribute the coins.

[ranih]

we want to keep most of the tokens ourselves to profit in the long term

One of the basic ideas of blockchain is that you don't control the token. Owning 50% contradicts that (and it's also greedy in my opinion).

[mirceab]

30/50% to the founders?  

that is going to put investors off straight away.

the lower your rake, the more investors will trust you as they'll see its not a smash-and-grab.

try 10%? you'll still be loaded if it's a success.

Maybe, or maybe not. It could be interpreted that it's a pump and dump scheme, but we plan on releasing the coins to the team in a staggered manner, over the course of a year or more. This way you canot do a smash-and-grab. And an investor who sees this will think that the business is sound, since we are keeping so much of it for ourselves.

Why did you choose ICO?

Because the business has a lot to do with cryptocurrencies, it is at the core of our business. And because we wanted to get help from the community with the development of the product since it will be intrinsically linked.

Then don't handicap it with a silly ICO.

If you and your team can't trust your project enough to throw your own money into it and fund it then how are you expecting others to trust it enough to give you money?

And if you and your team are not able to fund it, then maybe not start a project that is above your heads or try find investors without giving them premined coins.

No crypto is decentralized - therefore becomes useless - if some people have control over a significant amount of the supply.

Fund your project without ICO/premine and get coins like everyone else by mining or whatever fair method you intend to initially distribute the coins.

We trust our project and we already thrown a lot of money at it, but it's not enough to take it to the next stage. We thought about using the classical routes to receive investments but as I said, the project is intrinsically linked with cryptocurrencies and we want to let others be a part of this.

Also, the purpose of the token is not to be used as a transaction coin, so technically they are not premined and they will never be mined. It's purpose is to fund our project and insure that the persons who backed it up will receive future income from their investment based on a smart contract. This way the payments are trustless and even if we retain 50%+ of the coins, this will not affect the distribution of income in the future. So the purpose of the token is not to be decentralized.

One of the basic ideas of blockchain is that you don't control the token. Owning 50% contradicts that (and it's also greedy in my opinion).

I think the main ideas of the blockchain is to ensure and prove ownership. The token is not a coin with it's own blockchain. Then your critic would have been valid and keeping a majority stake in it would defeat it's purpose. Instead, you can think of the token as an investment vehicle, that entitle the owner of the to receive future revenue streams from this business.

And being greedy is good. It shows that we have faith in the product and want to keep it to ourselves, not just dump coins on the market and leave with the funds we raise.

[Ayers]

Hello guys,

We are working on launching an ICO to fund a business in the entertainment sector but we are not sure what the token distribution should be. So I am turning to you to hear your opinion on this matter.

The first possible distribution that we thought of is:

-   50% to the founders, team, advisors
-   10% in a pre-ICO where we sell to preferred investors at a set price
-   15% in the ICO, where we sell tokens to the public
-   15% we give through a referral system, where people receive tokens when they refer others to our service
-   10% reserve, in a multi-sig wallet that is controlled by our advisors.


The second possible distribution that we thought of is:

-   30% to the founders, team, advisors
-   10% in a pre-ICO where we sell tokens to preferred investors at a set price
-   40% in the ICO, where we sell tokens to the public
-   10% we give through a referral system, where people receive tokens when they refer others to our service
-   10% reserve, in a multi-sig wallet that is controlled by our advisors.

I know that most of the ICO’s until now sold a greater percentage of their tokens to the public (Bancor only sold 50%, but most sell 70-80%), but we believe in our service and we want to keep most of the tokens ourselves to profit in the long term. We don’t want to raise a shitload of money through an ICO and then go to Ibiza and drink cocktails. We want to raise some money, build our service and then share the revenue with the people that supported us through our ICO.

What is your take on this? Does the token distribution even matter when you chose an ICO to invest in? Or the product/service is more important? Or maybe you think another distribution would work better. Please let me know in the comments.

no no too much money to the founders, i would say 10% to them and the other equally distributed to pre ico and ico phase, the 10% of referral is good for me i agree with that, also i would increase to 20% for the signature, advertisement is more important

[arc45]

I'd say take a 10% - 15% founder cut but make sure to outline milestones and how the funding will be budgeted.  It allows for the market to determine the value of the project and puts pressure on your team to satisfy the needs of the majority share / customers.