In brief
- SKALE sold over 167 million tokens, worth over $5 million in a public token sale.
- SKL buyers can stake the token on ConsenSys Codefi's Activate platform.
- The platform uses proof of use, which mandates that holders stake the token for a predefined period before they are unlocked for other uses.
SKALE, a network for creating decentralized apps on the Ethereum blockchain, announced today that it has sold over 167 million of its SKL tokens, worth just over $5 million, via a public sale that concluded September 11. Those tokens will be distributed on September 24, at which point owners can use them to generate staking rewards on the network.
But this isn’t some DeFi house of cards, because SKALE users can’t sell them...yet.
Together, the Activate platform and SKALE require that SKL token-holders stake the token for 60 days before they become unlocked. All 3,736 people who purchased tokens in the public sale will be bootstrapping the network from the get-go.
The sale took place on Activate, a ConsenSys Codefi tool for launching decentralized networks. (ConsenSys funds an editorially independent Decrypt.) The platform uses something called proof of use, which seeks to build up a long-term community rather than just a trading post for people hawking the latest token.
Earlier this year, SKALE CEO Jack O'Holleran told Decrypt it had chosen to use the Activate platform because the project was more interested in stability than speculation: "We strongly believe that the programmatic requirement that token purchasers 'use' their token through staking creates a stronger, secure network that has long term stability."
According to its press release, SKALE stuck with that ethos. It says that over 14,000 people from over 130 countries wanted to participate in the launch and had indicated they were ready to purchase $43 million worth of the token—far more than total supply. SKALE used a “more compliant” know-your-customer process to pare down the list of potential buyers.
“Rather than let a handful of whales scoop up all the tokens and potentially dump them later, or dominate the network rewards,” the release read, “the sale aimed to have the most number of individual participants possible and make the SKALE Network a self-sustaining endeavor.”
In the end, users from 90 countries participated in what SKALE called “one of the most distributed token sales to date.”
SKALE has had considerable success attracting investors, of both the venture capital and public user variety. Last October, SKALE Network announced it had secured $17 million in funding from the likes of Arrington XRP Capital, ConsenSys Labs, Winklevoss Capital, and others—one year after Skale Labs raised over $9 million to help create the network.