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Tezos founders push for legal bailout from Swiss foundation

reuters.com

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Re: Tezos founders push for legal bailout from Swiss foundation

#11

Post by socratesone »

pavlov wrote: post #2

Tezos, the Theranos of ICOs. When you know enough rich people, you can raise a lot of money on a PDF of promises. With all the money Tezos has, they're probably going to do what Theranos did with Walgreens: pay their way into a fancy big partnership that gives the impression that there's something actually going on.

That's an easy but lazy reduction, and not accurate.

- They raised from the public

- Founder comp tied to release of a product that works

- They are focused on making a product that works, not on optical theatrics (in fact one of their biggest weaknesses is they've been horrible at optics)

Re: Tezos founders push for legal bailout from Swiss foundation

#12

Post by socratesone »

fiatjaf wrote: post #5
stoev wrote: post #4

I know that ICOs get a lot of negativity on HN. Sure, a lot of them deserve it, but not all ICOs are started for the sole purpose of raising cash that they otherwise wouldn't be able to raise. ICOs as a form of funding are equally likely to be manipulated as traditional VC funding following trends and hypes (one might argue that they ICO investors are even more gullible to dishonest founders since they are generally…

I can't remember a single ICO that has brought anything useful to the market yet. You can say Ethereum, but it wasn't an ICO properly speaking. Even if it was, a single good example in hundreds isn't enough. Ripple didn't have an ICO, Bitcoin Cash didn't, Zcash didn't, Monero didn't, Stellar didn't.

Wabi seems to be doing it right: https://www.wacoin.io/

Re: Tezos founders push for legal bailout from Swiss foundation

#13

Post by berberous »

fiatjaf wrote: post #7

Can someone explain briefly the Tezos unique features and why would someone want it? In my understanding it is just a Bitcoin copy that has a voting feature to decide protocol changes.

In addition to on-chain governance you mention (i.e. the built-in voting features to decide protocol changes and avoid the civil war that's going on in Bitcoin world), they use a functional programming language that is supposed to be much safer and easier to code than the Ethereum language.

Re: Tezos founders push for legal bailout from Swiss foundation

#14

Post by corv »

fiatjaf wrote: post #5
stoev wrote: post #4

I know that ICOs get a lot of negativity on HN. Sure, a lot of them deserve it, but not all ICOs are started for the sole purpose of raising cash that they otherwise wouldn't be able to raise. ICOs as a form of funding are equally likely to be manipulated as traditional VC funding following trends and hypes (one might argue that they ICO investors are even more gullible to dishonest founders since they are generally…

I can't remember a single ICO that has brought anything useful to the market yet. You can say Ethereum, but it wasn't an ICO properly speaking. Even if it was, a single good example in hundreds isn't enough. Ripple didn't have an ICO, Bitcoin Cash didn't, Zcash didn't, Monero didn't, Stellar didn't.

Why wasn't Ethereum an ICO?

Arguably that was the model for all other ICOs and the platform for the vast majority.

Re: Tezos founders push for legal bailout from Swiss foundation

#15

Post by JetSpiegel »

socratesone wrote: post #11
pavlov wrote: post #2

Tezos, the Theranos of ICOs. When you know enough rich people, you can raise a lot of money on a PDF of promises. With all the money Tezos has, they're probably going to do what Theranos did with Walgreens: pay their way into a fancy big partnership that gives the impression that there's something actually going on.

That's an easy but lazy reduction, and not accurate. - They raised from the public - Founder comp tied to release of a product that works - They are focused on making a product that works, not on optical theatrics (in fact one of their biggest weaknesses is they've been horrible at optics)

> Founder comp tied to release of a product that works

Who decides what is a "product that works"?

Re: Tezos founders push for legal bailout from Swiss foundation

#16

Post by barkingcat »

stoev wrote: post #4

I know that ICOs get a lot of negativity on HN. Sure, a lot of them deserve it, but not all ICOs are started for the sole purpose of raising cash that they otherwise wouldn't be able to raise. ICOs as a form of funding are equally likely to be manipulated as traditional VC funding following trends and hypes (one might argue that they ICO investors are even more gullible to dishonest founders since they are generally…

You are missing one very important detail: the people behind any and all ICO's (or any venture really) need money to eat, to pay mortgages, alimony, child support, and maybe even bribes, overdue tax payments, salaries and healthcare copays for their employees. Maybe they just want some money to blow in Vegas.

They raised some money - they now want to extract that money. Obviously, they can't for some reason, either being blocked by investors or other members of their company who are disputing it (or want the money for themselves too).

It's super transparent, and in the end, people are people. An ICO or blockchain, or any technology isn't going to change that fact.

Re: Tezos founders push for legal bailout from Swiss foundation

#17

Post by JustAnotherPat »

socratesone wrote: post #11
pavlov wrote: post #2

Tezos, the Theranos of ICOs. When you know enough rich people, you can raise a lot of money on a PDF of promises. With all the money Tezos has, they're probably going to do what Theranos did with Walgreens: pay their way into a fancy big partnership that gives the impression that there's something actually going on.

That's an easy but lazy reduction, and not accurate. - They raised from the public - Founder comp tied to release of a product that works - They are focused on making a product that works, not on optical theatrics (in fact one of their biggest weaknesses is they've been horrible at optics)

> They are focused on making a product that works, not on optical theatrics (in fact one of their biggest weaknesses is they've been horrible at optics)

Is bad optics the new 'fake news' because it seems like the Breitmans have been focused on who controls the billion dollars they have.

Re: Tezos founders push for legal bailout from Swiss foundation

#18

Post by Operyl »

JetSpiegel wrote: post #15
socratesone wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's an easy but lazy reduction, and not accurate. - They raised from the public - Founder comp tied to release of a product that works - They are focused on making a product that works, not on optical theatrics (in fact one of their biggest weaknesses is they've been horrible at optics)

> Founder comp tied to release of a product that works Who decides what is a "product that works"?

Probably the foundation, which is already seemingly doing a good job at managing the money (and not just throwing it to the founders willynilly).

Re: Tezos founders push for legal bailout from Swiss foundation

#19

Post by chrisco255 »

fiatjaf wrote: post #5
stoev wrote: post #4

I know that ICOs get a lot of negativity on HN. Sure, a lot of them deserve it, but not all ICOs are started for the sole purpose of raising cash that they otherwise wouldn't be able to raise. ICOs as a form of funding are equally likely to be manipulated as traditional VC funding following trends and hypes (one might argue that they ICO investors are even more gullible to dishonest founders since they are generally…

I can't remember a single ICO that has brought anything useful to the market yet. You can say Ethereum, but it wasn't an ICO properly speaking. Even if it was, a single good example in hundreds isn't enough. Ripple didn't have an ICO, Bitcoin Cash didn't, Zcash didn't, Monero didn't, Stellar didn't.

Qtum has shipped and met all its promises so far: https://qtum.org/en/

Basic Attention Tokens are already integrated in Brave browser: https://basicattentiontoken.org/

Re: Tezos founders push for legal bailout from Swiss foundation

#20

Post by staunch »

socratesone wrote: post #11
pavlov wrote: post #2

Tezos, the Theranos of ICOs. When you know enough rich people, you can raise a lot of money on a PDF of promises. With all the money Tezos has, they're probably going to do what Theranos did with Walgreens: pay their way into a fancy big partnership that gives the impression that there's something actually going on.

That's an easy but lazy reduction, and not accurate. - They raised from the public - Founder comp tied to release of a product that works - They are focused on making a product that works, not on optical theatrics (in fact one of their biggest weaknesses is they've been horrible at optics)

> - They raised from the public

Not quite right. They raised from their own investors and the public, which may be part of the problem.

If their own investors bought into their own ICO to "seed" it, which tricked the public into thinking there was genuine demand, that might constitute fraud.

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