ArcBlock's public sale began and ended on February 3rd, and by February 4th there were already complaints. The blockchain project for decentralised dapps is backed not only by IBM, with its Hyperledger system, but also by The Linux Foundation, IEEE and W3C. Its leadership, however, are considered by some to be inexperienced in the new technology and are coming in for considerable flak.

A week ago, on January 24th, the project was targeted by a phishing attack, whose URL was piggybacking on arcblock.io. Additional problems came to light after the public sale, with several purchasers complaining that the company didn't use smart contracts, despite having clearly stated in the ICO's Terms and Conditions that they would do so.

A YouTube video from CEO and Founder Robert Mao attempted (not very clearly) to explain why they hadn't used smart contracts, but responders to it are also complaining about violating the T&C's. Not using smart contracts meant that mistakes could be made and limits unintentionally exceeded, when customers would then be charged a 20% penalty and have to wait several weeks for their ETH to be refunded. Some users believe this was a deliberate attempt on the company's part to make extra money, as they could keep the 20% and also speculate on the ETH during the refund period.