Orcfax FACT Token Launch — Timetravelers
Based on additional chatter, FUD, and accusations in the public domain surrounding time alterations we are issuing additional information about the launch.
In terms of local machine timestamp manipulation issue: First and foremost, it is not an exploit. This incorrectly used term is being mentioned by community members who believe that by changing the local device time and seeing the UI change, they presume that a participant got into the launch or is ahead of others. The only thing such a participant is ahead in, is a head start in <10 seconds of using the validity slider and typing in the contribution number, accepting T&Cs, and prepping their wallet. So building the transaction in the UI, but anyway not being able to successfully submit it before the start time. More importantly this less than 10 sec is the same headstart that someone has when directly submitting to the smart contract because they are preparing their Tx offline. See the screen recording of how it looks.
The most important takeaway: The launchpad is fully on-chain. Smart contracts use blockchain time and refuse any transaction that has validity time before the start of the launch. So no timestamp exploit exists!
The one-minute offset is a different topic; its aim is to even the playing field between UI users and direct submissions to smart contracts. However, since this is now publicly known information, we will improve this even further with UI changes for future launches. In this launch looking at the commitments max one person benefited by pure luck (this 1 min move was not publicly known) with a submission of the transaction via the UI at 7:59:21 but anyway was accepted into the ledger as commitment only as second at 8:02:01.
He was beaten by someone who submitted after 8:00 (to be precise at 8:00:04) via UI and was accepted as a commitment into the ledger at 8:01:02. His transaction:
To remind our decision to configure the Smart Contracts to accept the transactions initiated after 7:59:00 UTC (1 minute before the actual launch start time displayed in the UI), it was explained in our Post mortem report, that it was due to the inherent technical constraints of browser extension wallets, which refuse to sign and submit transactions with validity intervals after the latest block they are aware of — from our testing 1 minute after launchpad start in smart contracts.
We addressed the concerns raised about a potential advantage gained by users with advanced technical skills during the initial period of congestion in our launchpad. We wish to clarify that, as of now, there is no substantiated evidence to suggest a significant involvement or undue advantage taken by users with advanced technical skills. The lack of any contributions accepted before 8:00 and during the interval servers were applying configuration changes further indicates that this is true, as users communicating with SCs directly would not have been affected by that downtime. Our analysis of the contributions received shows a healthy spread, indicative of a broad and diverse participant base of all sizes of commitments and a healthy spread of contributions in time.
In the meantime, WingRiders and Orcfax teams had a chance to meet and debrief. Both teams share the same views on the healthy spread between small and large contributions and their spread in time.
Only 142 of 604 dilemma
No anticipated public sale in crypto will ever meet all demands. Unfortunately, there are always some people left out. Although a project could achieve a higher number of successful participants, their decision not to use tiers controlled by NFTs that allow an enforceable max cap per wallet did make this harder to achieve. Reasons for not going for the NFT tiers could be the additional workload, time constraints, legal considerations, and possible commitment to not setting any hurdles of any kind to their project community.
We analyzed the launchpad design in comparison to other designs with various advantages and disadvantages here.
What about the next launch?
Learning from this experience, seeing the unsettlement in the community, and looking forward, we will improve both the communication of how the smart contracts are designed, as well as implement additional measures to make the UI even more informatively explicatory.