TBolt256, I would like to invest but need some alleviation of concerns to reasonably risk it. Please answer the following question:
Considering that an ICO scam just ended (Ascendancy) taking advantage of time-delayed forwarding from a non-escrow address to an escrow address, why not have investors instead send their bitcoins directly to an escrow address? The latter is definitely possible, and I have seen it on some other ICOs.
Escrows are not magic, as nothing prevents just releasing a generic clone coin to technically satisfy an escrow and then disappearing without further development. However, an identical escrow loophole to the Ascendancy scam only raises concerns further.
Respectonomy does have an interesting concept and a far better whitepaper than Ascendancy, but, like Gleb Gamow has pointed out (with some legitimate points beneath the humor and sarcasm), there are some serious red flags.
Your concern has already been addressed by Dabs, the guy who's handling the escrow. All the non-escrow addresses that are available will be under the control of Dabs and no member of the Respectonomy team will have any access to the coins until Dabs and/or SebastianJu release it.
for your reference, Dabs' message -
In light of the recent developments in this thread, I offer the devs full escrow services using a list of deposit addresses all under escrow with me, Dabs, for no additional charge. This is what I have done with other coins.
All the devs have to do is import those addresses into their ICO website, and I will take care of forwarding the coins on a daily basis to the multi-signature address.
This should remove any doubts about the escrows, both me and SebastianJu as it would shift partial responsibility to me; and my reputation is on the line.
In case a refund will happen, it can happen. In case the coin and social network gets launched, then the devs get paid according to their stated milestones.
As potential investors, it is your responsibility to check that the deposit address you are going to send your BTC into is in my list, which I will publish a few hours before the ICO begins.
If you do this, the RES devs do not hold the coins until they can deliver their project.
I have already sent a PM to the main dev the full list. There are 2000 (two thousand) addresses, more than enough to get started. Either me or SebastianJu can add more later if required.
Dabs