Built multiple versions and tweaked the contract over time. Was mostly in its final shape late last year, but continued to tweak it this year.
Yes - funds goes to me for past work, not future. When you accept funds for future work, you are at risk of being labeled a security. Therefore, the project is fully complete and there is no promise of future work, and thus cannot be classified as a security.
Now if I decide to roll those funds into future projects or marketing efforts, that would be totally my choice and not something that is promised or expected in any way (once again, that could make it viewed as a security).
And this allocation is 20% of the initial supply (1 of 5 million), given that every holders got their payouts equally according to the number they hold until 100m reached, doesn't that mean you will very likely got 20% of the total supply? And that amount is allocated, owned, and controlled by one man only instead of a team of people, where this very human also said that it is completely up to him to use the funds on whatever he sees fit and that he has no responsibility to use them for project's future?
With projects that launch as ideas before they are completed, people buy tokens in hopes of the project actually getting done (creator gets paid before doing the work). With projects that launch in a completed state, people buy tokens for something that is already done (creator gets paid after doing the work). In essence it is the same thing except the creator self financed the development costs so that there could be no chance of failing to deliver on a promise. The end state is the same in both cases, except for the risk of failure to deliver has been eliminated with a completed project launch.
The issue with the uncompleted project launches is that the project may not carry out their work as promised. This is why they get classified as a security - you paid for a completed project that may not get completed. You do not need to classify a completed project as a security because there is no promise, everything is already done. It is property, not a promise.
By the way, most projects I see only distribute 20% and keep over half of the tokens themselves. In any case, how would you distribute these tokens alternatively? Airdrop maybe?
If I may beg to differ, I think most people actually invest on projects in hope that it'll bloom and bring profits, not merely done. There are examples of projects that offered themselves while they are done and completed, a finished products, etc. and it still didn't guarantee the dev won't do rug pull. And that's the case where the project is backed by a team of people, not one person whose decision is ultimate and stated upfront that he can do whatever he wished with the funds because it is his "right".
And, actually this is the first time I heard a project keep 80% of the funds to themselves and only distribute 20%. Can you please mention some examples of projects with this tokenomy?
Sure.
Ampleforth:
https://medium.com/ampleforth/ampleforth-ieo-and-token-distribution-transparency-report-d7b632bbc838Ecosystem: 23.2%, Team/Advisors: 25%, Treasury: 20%.
Total = 68.2% (this doesn't count the 21.8% given to seed investors and series A. With that, the total is 90%)
XRP:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Ripple/comments/7pr341/xrp_distribution/"So it’s safe to say that even after a bit of trickle sales of the co-founders, less than 20 billion XRP (20%) is owned by other people than the aforementioned. And included in this 20 billion XRP are also institutions, banks and charities that have made a business development agreement with Ripple Labs in the past."
Stellar Lumens:
https://www.stellar.org/lumens"Nearly 20 billion lumens are out in the open market, and the Stellar Development Foundation retains the other 30 billion or so to develop and promote Stellar, per its mandate" (60%)
Polkadot:
https://icodrops.com/polkadot/"Available for Token Sale: 50%"
Lend (predecessor to Aave):
https://medium.com/lendefi/lendefi-the-tokenomics-d6da40ba0716Marketing:12.5%, Partners: 10%, Adoption: 10%, Team: 10%, Advisors: 5%, Reserve: 15% = 62.5%
When they migrated to Aave, they gave themselves another 18.75%. Total = 62.5 + 18.75 = 81.25% (
https://insights.glassnode.com/aave-token-analysis-migration-staking/)
The Graph (
https://thegraph.com/blog/announcing-the-graphs-grt-sale)
"Initial Total Token Supply: 10,000,000,000 GRT"
"Initial Circulating Token Supply: ~1,245,666,867 GRT"
"Amount for sale: 400,000,000 preGRT (Converting to 400,000,000 GRT)"
If we use circulating supply, 400/1245 = 32% for sale. (68% not for sale)
It is actually hard to find an example where more than 20 or 30% of tokens were distributed to holders. Cardano looks okay with keeping only about 33% of the supply. (
https://cardano.org/genesis/)