jebmo’s posthaven

Blockchain startup Block.one announced this morning that it has raised $185 million in just five days of selling its EOS cryptocurrency token. That sum breaks the record Bancor set just a couple of weeks ago with its ~$150 million fundraise.

Block.one’s goal is to bring blockchain to businesses. It claims its platform offers a level of scalability unprecedented in the blockchain world; it would be able to process millions of transactions per second with no transaction fees, according to CoinDesk’s write-up of the company a few days ago.

Still, the CoinDesk story points out, the company has had little to show for its claims so far, something that has become characteristic for many startups launching initial coin offerings (ICOs).

This record-setting ICO comes amid a fresh surge in interest in blockchain technology and startups.

The full text of the company’s press release follows below.

Block.one, the developer of EOS.IO software, a new blockchain operating system designed to support commercial-scale decentralized applications, today has successfully received 651,902 ether (“ETH”), which is approximately US$185 million, in the first five days of its 341-day long token distribution. In exchange, 200 million EOS ERC-20 compatible tokens (“EOS Tokens”) were distributed to purchasers (representing 20 percent of the total one billion EOS Tokens being distributed).

The distribution of EOS Tokens began on June 26, 2017. The distribution uses a ground-breaking token participation model by creating what is intended to be the fairest token distribution project launched on Ethereum to date. This elongated timeframe eliminates the quick frenzy usually surrounding short token sales, and allows the community ample time to learn about the EOS.IO software being developed by block.one and participate in the token distribution if they wish.

The EOS Token distribution also approximates an auction where for every period, everyone gets the same price. At the end of a period, the respective set number of EOS Tokens for that period will be distributed pro rata amongst all authorized purchasers, based on the total ETH contributed during that period.

“We felt an approximately year-long token distribution was the best method to ensure people receive fair market value for EOS Tokens,” said Brendan Blumer, CEO of block.one. “We anticipate that strong interest will continue throughout the year as the community continues to learn about the EOS.IO software and the benefits it can bring to their business.”

Seven hundred million additional EOS Tokens (representing 70 percent of the total EOS Tokens being distributed) have been split evenly into 350 consecutive 23-hour periods of 2 million tokens each, and will be distributed at the close of each period. The remaining 100 million EOS Tokens (representing 10 percent of the total EOS Tokens being distributed) have been reserved for block.one as founder’s tokens pursuant to the feedback received from the community to ensure that block.one has aligned interests with those participating in the EOS Token distribution. If a blockchain adopting the EOS.IO software is launched, these founder’s tokens will be locked and released over a period of 10 years.

Many corporations are looking for a blockchain that provides the speed and performance required in order to run commercial-grade businesses.The EOS.IO software introduces asynchronous communication and parallel processing to support hundreds of thousands of transactions per second. The software on which EOS’s architecture is based establishes an operating system-like construct upon which applications can be built and eliminates the requirement for users to pay for every transaction. The software is intended to allow developers to build their own high performance applications on the blockchain and deploy their own monetization strategies without requiring users to necessarily pay to use those applications.

block.one intends for the EOS.IO software  to support distributed applications that have the same look and feel as existing web-based applications, but with all of the benefits of the blockchain – namely transparency, security, process integrity, speed and lower transaction costs.