ethercamp

EtherCamp has announced a crowdsale of its new token, Hacker Gold (HKG), set to begin October 20 and will run through the course of the company's second annual hackathon, kicking off in November. The crowdsale will be safe-capped at 4 million ether, however the company states this is by no means a funding goal or objective.

Roman Mandeleil, lead developer at EtherCamp, said that funds raised during the HKG crowdsale will go towards further development of the Virtual Accelerator platform, which is currently in its second version and preparing to move into its third iteration.

HKG will ultimately have a finite supply that will not be diluted with additional token creation. Future virtual accelerators will be exclusively funded with the HKG issued during this crowdsale, said a statement from EtherCamp.

EtherCamp's white paper states that HKG will act as "reputation" for the camps in the upcoming hackathon. Hacker Gold also allows interested parties to acquire tokens issued by the individual startups during the incubation period of the competition. Possession of a camp's tokens also provides preferred voting rights on the way that funds are used. Tokens issued after the hackathon will not come with any preferred voting rights.

Hacker Gold will be made available for sale for nine weeks. The crowdsale kicks off four weeks before the hackathon begins and will end after the five-week event is complete.

Tokens will be valued according to the following breakdown, with "P(i)" referencing the period of time:

  • P1: Week 1-2: (200 HKG) for 1 ether
  • P2: Week 2-4: (200 HKG - 150 HKG) for 1 ether
  • P3: Week 5-6: (150 HKG) for 1 ether
  • P4: Week 7-9: (150 HKG - 100 HKG) for 1 ether

Visit hack.ether.camp/whitepaper for further information regarding the specific formula being applied for each week's valuation following P1. There will be no premine or preallocation, according to EtherCamp.

EtherCamp's accelerator is an Ethereum-based platform where teams — referred to as "camps" — compete with each other for the chance to show their ideas to mentors, potential investors, and, if an idea is successful, acquire early adopters.

The virtual accelerator puts camps through a five-week, online hackathon where competitors vie for recognition in what is essentially a battle of ideas.

A 30-member panel of experienced judges (including UK blockchain lead at Deloitte Alex Shelkovnikov and Skype co-founder Jaan Tallinn) will then award points, called "kudos", to projects they deem most promising, whether for innovation, disruption, or both.

More than 1,100 hackers have since joined next month's hackathon and just over 300 ideas are ready for development.

As camps compete in the hackathon they will be eligible to earn HKG. When camps move into the startup phase, backers can then vote on how the team uses the funds they have been given. Additionally, investors can even vote to replace teams entirely. However, Mandeleil stated, voting thresholds for funding proposals and team replacements are very high, with a minimum of 55% for the former, and 70% for the latter.

Camps retain full rights over their intellectual property, preventing backers from controlling what is actually created.

The winning camp receives a prize of US $50,000 (€45,000, £40,000) in the digital currency of their choice. However, once HKG gains market value, runners-up camps will be able to sell their tokens to raise seed funding of their own.

EtherCamp is in the process of bringing on sponsors for this program. Currently, the team has secured sponsorship from the Pryor Cashman law firm.

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