The EOS ICO: One major concern

EOS is a new blockchain platform being built by the founder of Bitshares & Steem: @dantheman

EOS & ME

The past few days I have enthusiastically followed EOS developments. I watched the video presentation multiple times in order to learn about the technology and the people behind it.

I think I fit well into an essential EOS target group when it comes to the development/”hosting” part: I’m a young entrepreneur who develops full-stack SaaS web-apps alone or with a small team. I use modern web frameworks such as ReactJS and Vue, Node, Yii2 (PHP 7 framework) etc. I'd say I fall in the target group of the start-up world.

I feel like EOS is the first real opportunity for us to build actual decent web-apps on the Blockchain without having to spend insane amounts of time learning new technologies.

Web developers will be able to use EOS to effectively build platforms for the blockchain like Steem (and Steemit).

Ideal

The way I view EOS and the team behind it, backed by the founders' strive for an ideal “fair for everyone” ICO as shared by the team, is that developers and start-ups (the “small fish”) would not miss out on the ICO and that everyone would get an equal opportunity to invest in the future of EOS, rather than having the market controlled by whales. The focus of the project would be on getting Blockchain into the mainstream by making it easy to integrate with modern web technologies.

Getting web apps out there will decide the success of EOS. Early developer enthusiasm is essential.

If you're not yet familiar with the EOS Draft ICO, here's the official link containing a description.

The problem

Whales will still be the major contribution factor in this ICO. Chances are this results in single contributions (of i.e. $10,000 - $50,000) made by developers and small start-ups to generate immense losses. The only good outcome for these parties is to not play, and for whales to take the ICO. The problem with this is that the enthusiasm for a lot of developers to build applications on EOS will fade. Also; the premise.

It’s not the fact that whales would (obviously always) come out on top, but the premise that EOS would allow its real users, the developers who would build all the cool stuff, to be extracted of their initial investment money with an ICO that is so risky and uncertain.

People might say “then just don’t buy it, more piece of the pie for me, you can go secondary on an exchange”. This feels unnecessarily exclusive/defensive for a platform that boasted its accessibility and potential ease of use for developers, and its strive for mainstream popularity.

I haven't lost faith in EOS. I do feel like work needs to be done on the ICO draft in regards to this issue.

What are your thoughts on the ICO, and the issue described above?

I didn't think I'd already be talking about an ICO but, since EOS harmonizes pretty well with my introduction post, I'm very captivated.