Introducing the Mainframe pre-sale partners

And additional context around what we optimized for

Over the coming days leading up to our July 4th token distribution, we will be announcing who we’ve partnered with in the Mainframe pre-sale. We know many of you have been asking for quite some time.

The announcements will come in four parts, categorized by the type of pre-sale partner.

1. Funds — traditional VCs but also newer crypto funds [blog post]
2. Builders — prominent CEOs, founders and executives in the blockchain community [blog post]
3. Angels — individuals who are neither funds or founders, but who can add strategic value [blog post]
4. Media personalities — those who can help spread the message [blog post]

What We Optimized For

Within the first week of starting pre-sale conversations, it was clear that we were on to something special. It was overwhelming the amount of interest that people had in our project. We wrote this blog post which gave a few suggestions of how to interact with us.

We were honored, humbled and grateful that so many in the community were eager to support us. It was inspiring. We clearly aren’t the only ones who share these values around privacy and freedom.

We found ourselves in a rare situation, one that most founders can only dream of: we could be selective and picky about who we would partner with in our pre-sale.

It was a unique opportunity to ensure we surround ourselves with the right combination of talents, skillsets, connections, and perspectives. We knew we needed to be thoughtful, deliberate and strategic about it. Below are a few of the dimensions that we were optimizing for, in no particular order or priority.

• Token Usage. This was a requirement for all pre-sale partners. We wanted to collaborate with organizations and people who were committed to using the token for its intended purpose. The Mainframe token is essential to keeping the network strong and secure — to reward nodes for relaying, delivering and storing data packets across the network. We wanted to put our tokens into the hands of people who would truly help bootstrap and kickstart the ecosystem. This is why we partnered with so many founders and operators in the blockchain ecosystem, and funds who have committed to being node runners.
• Experience. I’m sure mistakes will still be made, but we want to make as few as possible. I like to believe we are experienced and smart… but there is always someone out there smarter and more experienced. We want to surround ourselves with them. Who has experience going down a path similar to ours? Who has faced opportunities and challenges similar to what we will be facing? Whether it be marketing or tech, we want to lean on folks who have been there, done that. Many of the blockchain founders and angels (former operators/entrepreneurs) fit this category.
• Connections. The reality is that “success” in this space (and really anywhere) is so heavily based on who you know, not what you know. We’ve been around long enough to know this. Who can open doors and unlock opportunities? Not just with crypto-specific activity but also with hiring/recruiting, business development, partnerships and customer acquisition. Who has influence with high-level government officials? Who has pull with key enterprises? Who can help us get fast-tracked, short listed and introduced? This is incredibly important to us and something we put a lot of weight into as we were finalizing allocations.
• Community. In a literal sense, our success directly relates to the strength and power of our network — the power of our community. Growing our community is essential. Who can help spread the message of Mainframe far and wide? Who can help draw new people into our community? Who has a large voice or large audience? Who can help foster and cultivate the community we already have? So many of our pre-sale participants fit this bill.
• Diversity. We want to build technology for all of of humanity. We want to build a community and movement that is global. Everyone can and should feel included. That’s our aim. To achieve that, it’s essential that we surround ourselves with diverse perspectives — whether it be geographic, cultural, gender, religious, and others. We are actively working hard to make the core team more diverse. Ensuring that we have a diverse set of pre-sale participants was also a very high priority for us.
• Credibility. There are a lot of scammy and questionable projects out there. For the average crypto fan, it can be hard to discern between the real projects with real teams and technology… and the fake ones. We wanted to bring on people and funds who could bring a clear stamp of credibility to our project. We are a serious project, with real technology, doing ambitious things. While many of them don’t bring much value beyond brand value, this is still important in today’s crypto world.
• Distribution. We had more than 240 pre-sale partners. Only 14 entities/people got over 500 ETH allocation. The largest pre-sale allocations were around 1000 ETH… and you can count on one hand how many received it. We didn’t want any single pre-sale participant to be given a large allocation. No pre-sale participant will hold a disproportionate number of MFT as compared to others. No pre-sale participant has unfair influence, power or control of the network based on tokens.

Moving Forward

I know many of you were disappointed that you couldn’t participate in the pre-sale, or that you couldn’t get as big of an allocation as you hoped. We are sorry. It’s impossible to make everyone happy. So while you may disagree with our decisions, we hope you at least better understand our thinking and perspective around it.

Most importantly, this is just the beginning of our journey. Not all is lost simply because you didn’t participate in the pre-sale. This train is just getting started. On July 4th tokens will be distributed and there will be plenty of opportunities for you to access, acquire and utilize the Mainframe token.

We are in this for the long haul. We aren’t going anywhere. Brick by brick, we are creating a new layer of the web where privacy and freedom are first class citizens. If you’re reading this blog post, you are with us from the beginning! You are far from late on joining this community, this network, this movement. The door is wide open, jump on this train and let’s change the world together.