The same old garden path

Over the past few weeks, I’ve read numerous proposed solutions to this new ICO mania which have been inspiring. While I think it’s entirely up to the individuals whether or not they invest, there must be a better way for the ICO’s to roll out, or even be proportioned better so that even the little guy can indeed, get his piece of the pie.

While starting on the contracts for the Rocket Pool crowdfund and presale, I started down the traditional garden path of first come, first served. After much thought though, I decided to take a different approach, even if it meant spending longer on them than I was anticipating. So I began asking myself, what extra tools could a developer or team need to ensure their ICO is rolled out in a fair and measured manner?

That extra time bore fruit in the way of the Sale Agent contract.

Introducing the ERC20 Sale Agent

Progressive crowdsales? quarterly crowdsales? crowdsales that combine first come, first serve and proportional distribution models? multiple crowdsales for the same token at the same time to different participants with no effect on the network?? If your jaw is still on the ground from that last one, lets pick it up and introduce you to a new contract called the Sale Agent.

The Sale Agent is a new type of contract that can authorise the minting of tokens on behalf of the traditional ERC20 token contract. This allows you to distribute your ICO tokens through multiple Sale Agents, at various times, of various token quantities and of varying fund targets. Once you’ve written a new Sale Agent contract, you can register him with the main ERC20 token contract, he’s then permitted to sell its tokens on your behalf using guidelines such as the amount of tokens he’s allowed to sell, the maximum ether he’s allowed to raise, the start block and end blocks he’s allowed to sell between and more.