Yes I know, it’s not technically an Initial Coin Offering but for the sake of discussion, let’s forgo the distinctions and focus on what we all want to know: How does it all work? And what am I looking at here : https://eos.io/distribution/#  once I've clicked the "EOS TOKEN DISTRIBUTION APP" button?

Well I come bearing gifts! …Just some info in laymen’s terms and bit of historical perspective that can shed some light on the whole thing.

Some basics most of you probably already know

900 million EOS tokens in total will be for sale. That is, 1 Billion total tokens minus the 100 million reserved for block.one (the company building the EOS software). These 900 million will not be sold off in one shot. Nor will they be sold at a specific price per token/share/coin. The EOS tokens are sold off in increments (windows or periods) and at market price.

The first window (actually called period zero) lasts 5 days and is selling off the first 200 million EOS.

Then you have 350 more periods lasting 23 hours each selling off 2 million EOS.

So far so good?

(If you're not sure what “market” means, the abstract-as-hell way to put it would be “the effect of the trillions of decisions made by billions of brains.” Market price isn’t arbitrary; it is the effect of the many many subjective decisions made by people. If that’s not clear (and I’m pretty sure it’s not!) fear not, we will go into detail below, point by point, and hopefully light will be shed)

So, what’s the price of 1 EOS?

Unlike what we see with many other ICOs, there is no fixed price per “coin” when it comes to EOS. You can read this post here made by @eosio if you want a complete list of reasons why that is.

Before we move on let me give one example to provide some context to those that don’t feel like reading the entire above article. A fixed price means that someone within the close knit community with a lot of money could simply wait for the ICO to begin and snatch up all the tokens before anyone even knows about the project. This has the negative effect of centralizing the network in the hands of one or very few whales. The value of most blockchain projects is the fact that the networks are distributed amongst many individuals and organizations.

The price of EOS is whatever people are willing to pay for. Keep in mind this can change for every separate 23h period.  For example:

If 1000 ETH are sent to period #33, then 2 million EOS divided by 1000 = 2000 EOS per ETH sent. If Bob sent 1 ETH during this period, he will be getting 2000 EOS. If Alice sent 2 ETH this period, she will be getting 4000 EOS.

Now if you notice that no one is sending any ETH to period #308, you can send 0.0001 ETH and receive the full 2 million EOS for your contribution! Don’t count on this happening though :D    

The following visual can be helpful. This is a section of what the App looks like.

How many EOS do I get per ETH?

As someone on Slack posted:

I invested in EOS a few days ago. 1 eth was approx 2900 EOS. I checked today and it said 800 EOS. Will it continue dropping as more people invest or it is not an accurate representation of EOS i will receive?  

Before a period closes, people can continue adding funds to it. If you were the only one that sent 1 ETH in a specific period, then you would be receiving the full 2 million EOS, but if someone then adds in 1 ETH you would now both be getting 1 million EOS each. If 2 hours later, a third person comes in and puts and extra 2 ETH. At this point you would personally be getting 500 000 EOS.

It’s important to understand that everyone in a specific period gets the same amount of EOS per ETH as everyone else.   You only know for sure exactly how many EOS you are getting for your sent ETH once the period is over.  

What happens once a period closes?  

You now know exactly how many EOS you got for this period. This also means you can have an idea of what the market value of EOS is.

This is how the previous “ICOs” worked in the BitShares space during the past few years. This one has two big differences though.  

1. You are able to send funds to all future periods if you wish. So even though at the time of writing, we are still in period 0, you can send ETH to any of the 350 future periods so you don’t have to login everyday to do it manually for an entire year. See pic below.
2. When a period closes, the EOS tokens are created on the Ethereum network (as ERC20 tokens) and sent to your Ethereum wallet. These tokens are tradable! In fact Bitfinex is allowing EOS tokens to trade on their exchange as soon as July 1st!  

This is all very refreshing and should make it extremely interesting!

What happens when those tokens hit the exchanges?  

All tokens from past periods are tradable and can enter the public markets. This means that you will have two ways of getting EOS tokens.  

1. Directly from the “ICO” by sending ETH to Block.One  
2. From previous “ICO” participants that have already received their EOS and have put it up for sale on an exchange  

This will bring valuable information to everyone involved.  

If you think too many ETH are flooding into the ICO and you think you would get too few EOS per ETH, you can go to the market and buy there.  If, on the other hand, people on the market are selling their EOS at prices you find too high, you can simply buy EOS by contributing to the “ICO”. 

This also opens up fun trading

For example, if you think the early days are too hyped up and the value/price of EOS is way too high, you can sell some of your newly received the EOS on the exchanges and make a nice sum of money. Then, wait for the hype to die down and the price to fall, and buy back some much cheaper EOS tokens at a later date.  

Or this can go the other way! Perhaps EOS is cheap in the first days/weeks and it will just gain in popularity as more and more people hear about it and big money starts pouring in from all those that feel they missed both the Bitcoin and Ethereum boats.

What you believe will happen in the future does not matter. What does matter is that this ICO’s format allows you to act on that belief if you so wish.

I hope this helps clarify what is going on with this innovative fund raising format.

Feel free to discuss below!