About time: how to monitor block numbers when investing on Launchpool.

Launchpool

Aug 20·4 min read

Launchpool uses smart contracts to facilitate community investment in the early stages of crypto projects. Smart contracts are executed when pre-defined blocks are mined on the blockchain.

Here’s a helpful guide on block numbers that will empower you to confidently execute your Launchpool investment plans. Remember, we are sharing for information purposes, not offering financial advice.

The two current investment vehicles created by Launchpool for its community are both enabled by smart contracts. The Launchpool launchpad Allocation Mining Events and the Launchpool Labs Pre-Seed and Seed Allocation Mining Events all use the same master contract.

This article isn’t intended to be a deep dive into the code, just to highlight a few interesting pieces of information and how that might be useful to you as you make and execute your investment decisions.

Tips for understanding block number

Tip one: the smart contract has been audited and confirmed to be exploit free.

The audit was completed by trusted third party specialists, Certik. This means we have third party certification that our contracts are robust and exploit free. To date we have completed around 20 allocation mining events with the contracts without encountering any issues in their execution (a note of thanks to our wonderful development team!).

Tip two: AMEs are controlled by block time, not clock time.

This is really useful for Launchpool users. The smart contract is controlled by block time, not clock time. The contracts are coded to execute when a certain block number is mined on the block chain.

To take an example, when we set-up an Allocation Mining Event on the Ethereum chain, we input one block number to execute the opening of the deposit window, and then another block number to execute the transition from the deposit window to the start of rewards being mined.

In total we input four block numbers into the smart contract to run an AME:

1. deposit window opens,
2. rewards begin,
3. rewards end and payment window opens,
4. payment window closes.

Tip 3: Trust the block, not the clock.

Blocks are mined at a variable rate. Sometimes blockchains run fast, sometimes they run slow. For this reason the exact timings aren’t known when we start an AME. To counter this we do two things… firstly, we keep sharing announcements in our channels during an AME, and secondly we empower you with the knowledge to check estimated block times for yourself.

Now you understand why we always say AME timings are estimates, and to encourage you to check timings for yourself. A reminder on how to check block numbers and predicted times:

1. Go to the project’s page on the Launchpool app. Open the Tokenomics tab, and scroll to ‘AME details’.
2. You will see block number and estimated times here.
3. Copy the block number you are interested in e.g. when the payment window closes.
4. Go to the block explorer: https://etherscan.io/block/countdown/
5. Paste the block number in. Test this block number for now: 13800000
6. Now you can see the ESTIMATED time that the block will be mined.
7. Our contracts execute when the pre-defined block is mined, so keep checking this info if you want to know when windows will open and close.

Tip 4: Allow plenty of time for transactions to complete.

Last minute transactions can be costly. If you leave it until the last minute and the network is busy, your transaction may not go through on time. Acting early can save money on spending additional gas to speed up transactions (check gwei at gasnow.org) and help you avoid missing out on a planned investment.

Tip 5: Stay in touch to stay on top.

We are building out a roadmap and thinking community-first, so new products will have different AME set-ups to best fit you guys. Each AME is unique, and we will post timing details for each individually on the Launchpool Medium, and on the project page of the Launchpool app.

Bonus tip: Using UTC

The estimated times we give for AMEs are in UTC — Universal Coordinated Time. Our community is spread around the globe so this gives everyone a consistent reference. Use this time converter to make sure you know your local time in UTC. But remember, block time is more important than estimated time!

Now you know the basics of block numbers and how they relate to the Launchpool products.

We hope this guide has been helpful. If there are topics you would like to know more about, please contact one of the Special-Admins on Telegram. We will put together another guide for popular topics.

Thanks for reading.

About Launchpool

Launchpool ($LPOOL) leverages communities, knowledge, expertise, contacts and capital to provide crypto projects with the best possible start to life, maximising their chances for success in this fast moving & dynamic space.

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