Evolution Finance Listing and Future Development
It has been several days since the launch of Evolution Finance and we thank you for your patience. Now that the dust has settled and we’ve had time for reflection and analysis, we would like to provide you with our insights into the launch and explain why we made certain decisions and their impact on the project.
Before we go into what happened, there are few overall things that are important to understand.
- Evolution Finance is a unique project in that we added 100% of the EVN tokens as liquidity at the time of launch and no funds were raised by the project.
2. Token launches are challenging in and of themselves. Even more so when you are launching a product at the same time. Not to mention implementing industry first anti-bot measures, a capped LP and deflationary token!
3. The team worked incredibly hard to make this launch a reality and although there were many challenges along the way, we are proud of the outcome.
4. Finally, anyone (any real person — not bot users), who lost gas fees during the launch because of a failed transaction due to the way we conducted the launch, will have an opportunity to submit a claim and may be reimbursed via the dev fund (subject to our analysis of the claim).
The Launch Overview
In general, we are incredibly proud of this launch. We successfully stopped 142 bots from sniping up to 30% of the EVN liquidity and in doing so, prevented this liquidity from being stolen by bots and dumped on token holders. Of these 142 bots, 23 transactions still got in and accumulated 22,267 EVN tokens. These addresses are currently blacklisted and can not move the tokens while we undergo further and final reviews.
In a space where bots routinely ruin launches by getting in before the real community members and then dumping on them, we consider this a huge victory. That said, we know the launch was far from perfect and we will be the first to acknowledge this. However, as stated above, we are looking at ways to potentially compensate community members in some form who were adversely impacted by the launch in terms of lost gas/failed transactions.
The Most Challenging Launch We’ve Ever Been a Part Of
Collectively, Blockchain Strategy Team, Ferrum Network and DAO Maker have been involved in dozens of token launches. None have been as challenging or intense as the launch of Evolution Finance.
This is because Evolution Finance was not just launching an ordinary token on Uniswap. This was both a complex token launch AND a complex product launch, AT THE SAME TIME. Add this to the fact that we implemented and executed a series of anti-bot strategies that had never been done before, it’s no wonder the teams stayed up for over 24 hours throughout the launch. At the time of launch we also had the unfortunate timing of the Ethereum Infura node going down and the Ethereum network heavily congested due to a coinciding launch on Polkastarter.
The Impact of Adding 100% of the Liquidity
Evolution Finance is not an ordinary project, we are pioneering innovation in the DeFi space. The vast majority of projects will add maybe 5% of their total token supply as liquidity at the time of the launch. This means that an ordinary project will always be able to add MORE liquidity pretty much at any time. Therefore, in the case of a normal project, if bots buy the token or add liquidity before anyone else, it is a major annoyance, but it is not an existential threat…
At Evolution, we added 100% of the liquidity at once. If bots were allowed into this launch it would have been a complete disaster and perhaps could have destroyed the project before it even started. Remember we blocked 142 bots who collectively attempted to snipe 30% of the ENTIRE supply! Of these bots, we captured 23 that got through. Imagine if bots controlled 30% of the entire project…it would have been a disaster waiting to happen for token holders. That is what we prevented from happening with our anti bot measures.
So instead of only looking at what happened during the launch, people need to understand what WOULD have happened had we not done what we did. When analyzing a particular decision, it’s critical to look at what would have happened had the decision not been made.
Here the alternative would have been detrimental to token holders by way of higher points of entry, and even less people able to participate. And the fact that our anti bot measures prevented such a high percentage of the supply from being sniped is evidence enough that our decision proved to be the correct one.
How we Stopped the Bots
While much of our anti bot strategy will remain a trade secret, we can reveal the following information.
In the lead up to the launch we gathered intel on known bot activities from multiple sources and combed through this information to determine the certain key indicators that differentiate a bot from a human. While we cannot go into the details of these indicators (we do not want to tip the bots off for the next projects) and how we found them, we then performed manual checks to ensure we didn’t accidentally blacklist many humans instead of bots.
Through the lead up to launch it was clearly indicated that last minute adjustments would be made to the contracts so bot owners did not have advanced notice on the strategies to prepare. The Evolution contracts were fully Audited by Arcadia, Arcadia were also aware the added anti bot measures would be added in the final days. Prior to launch a list of edits was sent to Arcadia for review and to ensure the integrity of the contracts remained in place. Due to Arcadia’s workload at the time they were unable to complete this task within the tight timeframe and a second auditing firm was engaged to review anti bot measures implemented and gave Evolution the green light to launch safely. A full second audit will be released to confirm this in the near future, along with additional dev and security updates.
Once we identified the transactions associated with the bots, we blacklisted them. Meaning they can never sell or transfer their EVN.
For those addresses that were not botting other launches but still deemed to be a bot, it was because they were so quick to get into the launch that it would be impossible for them to be a normal person using Uniswap or the Evolution website. This flagged them for further review and executions via smart contracts confirmed, which was clearly stated as against the launch rules.
The Impact of Stopping the Bots
As stated above, we prevented up to 30% of the supply from being sniped by bots. And despite FUD to the contrary, this is a massive victory of the regular people against the bots. But of course, this also meant that people had challenges during the first 5 blocks since we prevented selling/transfers during this time…. First of all we apologize to the regular people for the inconvenience we caused during this time.
However, we still believe it was the right decision because the alternative could have been catastrophic to the project and community.
Anyone who has been black listed but did not use a bot can contact the Evolution team and we will analyze the situation. If we made a mistake, you will be unblacklisted.
The Team’s Whitelisted Addresses
Another issue we saw raised was that the team whitelisted addresses and buying EVN before the community. We are not denying this was the case, in fact as everyone knows we have discussed this topic openly on a daily basis as well as including it on the website and in the Medium articles.
There are four critical points to understand:
1) We always stated this was going to be the case and openly discussed the reasons.
2) This is still far more fair than the normal token economics structure where the team mints and just keeps 50–80% of their token supply for free.
3) The team self funded the project and no free tokens were given to the team.
4) By purchasing tokens we were able to maintain the integrity of the guaranteed rising price floor for the EVN token, which is a critical element for the project and token holders.
At Evolution, we invested into the project ourselves and self funded it for nearly 6 months leading up the launch, taking 100% of the risk without raising a single dollar. We notified people of this intention from the outset. If people did not agree with this approach, they were free not to participate in the ecosystem.
Again, this is a situation where people need to think of the alternative, where we would have held an ICO, raised $1 million+ and kept 50%-80% of the supply for ourselves, and no guaranteed rising price floor. When you compare the Evolution launch to the standard model, you can start to see why we called it a fair launch.
Looking Ahead
As important as this assessment article is, we are not living in the past. We are already looking ahead to the future of Evolution, and the future is bright.
Between the many partnerships, the dev team we are expanding with, and the beginning of the lending/borrowing platform, there are a ton of exciting developments on the horizon for Evolution Finance.
Currently we are setting up and preparing for the implementation of tETH and the liquidity management structure along with accompanying buybacks, and this is only stage 2. There is a lot of work being done to bring an evolutionary DeFi platform to the space.
Conclusion
In sum, despite its challenges and unusual nature, we will 100% stand by the launch of Evolution. We stopped the bots and saved the project from having up to 30% of the supply taken from the hands of our genuine investor community. That said, we know it’s possible some real people were caught up in our anti bot measures. Always remember, how many times have you seen complaints or yourself complained about bots ruining a token launch for you? This time, a project fought back, this time, a project won!
We are now looking forward to moving on as planned and we have many partnership announcements, product releases, and marketing campaigns coming your way.
