The Reasons Behind Joining Our Presale with Crowdsale in January

OriginTrail TGE presale planned for the 1st of December will be moved to 15th of January 2018 and joined with the crowdsale phase taking place from the 29th of January 2018 until the 12th of February

Edit: Token sale final details are now published in this blog post.

In this post, we will go through our reasoning behind the decision to move the presale phase to January and join it together with the crowdsale. After explaining the 3 reasons why we decided to do it (TLDR) — the minimum threshold issue, the ETH pegging/volatility and security audits — we will address a couple of implications it has on the current state.

1) 50 ETH minimum presale threshold

The threshold was initially established to enable us to handle the KYC process on time and was stemming from our hypothesis that the initial contributors to the project will be larger, strategic partners, that will be inclined to enter the presale phase with larger contributions. We did not expect such interest from smaller contributors as we believed they would mostly join in the crowdsale.

The feedback we have received from the community and the whitelist inputs, however, was that there is indeed a genuine interest from lower-size contributors to join in the presale as well. Our decision to join the two contribution phases will give us an opportunity to make use of the extra time from the shift to optimise the whitelisting process (including KYC) and allow the acceptance of lower contributions — exact threshold TBD.

2) ETH pegging and volatility

Another very legitimate feedback from the community was that the volatility of ETH acts as a deterrent to taking part in the presale for many contributors. If the Trace price were tied to USD until the crowdsale phase, presale contributors would remain locked out of their potential ETH gains. Alternatively, if the Trace remains pegged to ETH from 1st of December until the end of crowdsale, we might face a much higher capitalization that the team has planned out which we also wish to avoid.

To make the ETH pegging period as short as possible, we have decided to join the presale phase together with the crowdsale. In this way, the final date of the Token Generating Event (TGE) has not been moved but the time in which volatility can be a factor will be shortened drastically.

3) Security audits for smart contracts

Security audits of smart contracts are to be finished in time for the 1st of December; however, we feel that a mere couple of days are not enough for the community to be able to inspect them thoroughly. By joining the presale with the crowdsale in the next year, there will be more time for this process as well. We will also carry out an additional security audit with the amended smart contracts. All your feedback is very welcome to make sure everything runs smoothly.

Implications for the current state

Nothing changes dramatically for the current stakeholders. If you have already whitelisted, your application is safe and being processed; you will not be required to go through it again. All the principles of taking part in the presale will remain the same. “First come-first serve” still applies. It will, however, shorten the time between the contribution to the smart contract and the issuing of Trace. This adaptation also does not affect our planned roadmap which continues as expected.

The team firmly believes this is a win-win situation for everyone involved and that it creates a better chance for contributors to take part in the TGE.

We are available on Telegram for any questions you might have.

Trace on,

Tomaž, Žiga, Branimir