Yeah, but who wants to run that server and guarantee perfect uptime and results for a year? Who wants to verify that whoever ran that server didn't do anything funky? A smart contract is a much better option all around.
As to the suitability of the platform, granted, it would essentially be a test net for tracking real money, but I'm not suggesting Eos at full capacity with user-provided contracts or anything. I'm talking about a chain with just a few contracts built in, rigorously tested, demonstrating how the user-provided contracts will work and interact in the final release.
The hard parts in implementing Eos, the parts that will take a long time, are the novel parts: getting the VM ready for untrusted code, getting the parallelism working stably, optimizing all of that at the end... all the stuff no one's ever done before. The components necessary for the token sale, on the other hand, are comparatively small and not particularly novel, and thus will be faster to implement.
(Edit) Of course, these are just predictions and opinions, and I could always be mistaken. But I'm still thinking there's something here until someone convinces me otherwise.
I love your humble (edit) in your comment above. That is a great example to set for others and a wise move on your part. If I'm not mistaken, we all can be mistaken. Too many just state their opinions or beliefs as cold, hard facts.
Nice one @modprobe! Papa approves!
You make some very good points - I would also bet Dan could create a temporary EOS contract and chain to run the ICO. But we now know the ICO is definitely being run on ETH and whales are going to DDOS the network to game the ICO. Should be fun to watch...
Fun to watch for sure; bring out the popcorn! I am honestly looking forward to it. :-P
But does it make for a solid foundation for eos? I am skeptical.
I am not buying in into uncapped ICOs same goes for Tezos. It is really a pitty otherwise I would have been interested.
when you say solid foundation for eos, you mean eth chain is the foundation for eos? or...? what does not make for a solid foundation for eos? I am a beginner in this field, sorry if I did not understand it all from what you said so far.
later edit: ah I think you mean eth chain as foundation for eos ico is not a solid enough platform...