There’s been many discussions around the current model of token crowdsales. The system is by no means perfect, as Vitalik recently discussed in his analysis of token sale models:
I would claim that not many people are, in principle, opposed to the idea of development teams that are capable of spending $500 million to create a really great project getting $500 million. Rather, what people are opposed to is (i) the idea of completely new and untested development teams getting $50 million all at once […]
We promote the use of a milestone accountability model for crowdsales, where crowdsale funds are released only upon completion of predefined events outlined in the project roadmap. This model incorporates Vitalik’s suggestion of a feedback mechanism for development teams.
There is no feedback mechanism where teams are first given a small amount of money to prove themselves, and then given access to more and more capital over time as they prove themselves to be reliable and successful. […] and once the sale is completed, the incentive to developers to keep working is relatively low compared to traditional companies.
With milestone accountability, all holders of the company token will also be issued a voters token, that allows them to act as oracles in confirming the release of project milestones. If the voters agree the release event has been completed, the company is able to withdraw the next portion of their funds.
If the voters signal the release was incomplete or unsuccessful, the company will have a cooldown period (eg, 30 days) before they can attempt another vote for fund withdrawal. This cooldown period forces the feedback mechanism and holds the company accountable to concerns within the community. Once the cooldown has completed, the company can signal a new round of voting. This process continues until the community has reached consensus on the release of the milestone.
We’d love to hear feedback on the milestone accountability model, as our team has plans to implement this in our upcoming crowdsale. As members of the Ethereum community ourselves, some of whom have been investing in recent crowdsales, we’re hoping to deploy systems that improve upon the existing model. This way everyone can remain confident that developers are accountable to their promises.
