A $232M Cryptocurrency Fight Comes to a Close

""" The Breitmans began Tezos, which is a software platform, four years ago in a bid to address some of the governance issues that have surrounded other cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin....

The ensuing dispute over control of the $232 million ... """

splintercell• 8 years ago

It's funny though, but understandable. The platform must be built in a world where the problem platform is trying to solve exists.

That's like laughing at Seamless for being unable to order food for its employees, but Seamless hasn't launched yet.

dannyw• 8 years ago

I think it’s more like “Seamless team gets taken out by food poisoning from Seamless delivery”.

arenaninja• 8 years ago

Exactly my first thought. A coin to address governance issues lacks access to its own funds due to governance issues.

Poe's law in full display.

Alex3917• 8 years ago

They're the foundation's funds, the developers were never supposed to have access to them.

isubkhankulov2• 8 years ago

The Breitmans took over the project less than a year before the ICO. Proof can be found on twitter, where the original paper's author posted that he is handing the project over.

relyio• 8 years ago

Leah M Goodman is the journalist who wrote the Newsweek article about Dorian Nakamoto.

It is also a pen name used by the Breitman as a joke.

rhlala• 8 years ago

If governance issues are important for you in cryptocurrencies, you should take a look at Decred,

JustAnotherPat• 8 years ago

Let's hope the SEC throws these two scam artists in jail soon.

mmanfrin2• 8 years ago

This is fantastic news. I think there is definite potential in both the token itself (given that it holds about a billion dollars now) and in the language backing it.

swang• 8 years ago

but why is it worth a billion dollars? none of this shit makes any sense.

mmanfrin2• 8 years ago

Because they hold a billion worth of ETH and BTC.

headsoup• 8 years ago

I still don't understand how so much money gets raised for these ICOs in the first place.

Then I remember people are often stupid and many other people like taking advantage of stupidity.

product504• 8 years ago

And then you look at Ethereum which is a $90B valuation and also wonder if it can have competitors. Tezos is a full fledged Eth competitor with its own USPs.

jameskegel3• 8 years ago

tezos is a full fledged Eth competitor

This is inaccurate

edshiro• 8 years ago

Ethereum has competition. Look at NEO (https://neo.org/).

nugget• 8 years ago

Given that Ethereum is open source, the real value comes from their ecosystem (broadly defined).

What if Microsoft branched Ethereum and created MicroCoins, and moved a few hundred developers and researchers from Microsoft Research onto the project, and then created incentives to rapidly scale up miners and other parts of the ecosystem. Would they create $xx billion in value?

Crypto prices could continue to rise, and since I own a few coins and tokens for fun, I guess I should hope they do. But I've never understood how valuations so high can be supported given the relatively low barriers to entry (relative to multi-billion dollar valuations). I'd define myself as soft skeptic - I acknowledge I could be wrong and undervaluing first-mover advantage. I just don't understand how or why.

pmcpinto• 8 years ago

I think a lot of people invested just because FOMO

ericb• 8 years ago

While there are surely FOMO investors in any ICO, there's a really rational case for Tezos. It potentially solves the governance issues bitcoin had as well as offering provable smart contracts, which helps alleviate the constantly-hacked problem with ethereum smart contracts. In terms of the amount raised, I invested because the coldly rational math of what a market-cap competitive with wither of those would mean for the token value gave really great pot-odds to a "donation."

This was the first project I ever saw where the developer pitched the source code to hacker news fore review, rather than a whitepaper to a coin sale.

lee101• 8 years ago

Pretty amazing how they managed to raise this much money, i thought it would just fizzle out after they have raised such absorbident amounts of money they would run out of incentive. its not like a traditional acquisition where they are contractually obliged to make good on their ICO promises, ICO participants often forget they are in a sense buying part of a company that is up for sale (why?).

For a legitimate Crypto company that hasn't ICO'ed or raised money checkout my company https://bitbank.nz which is forecasting cryptocurrency prices :)

philfrasty• 8 years ago

Can someone explain how one foundation (that manages a BILLION dollars) can simply be replaced by a new foundation?

Having talked to some lawyers in this space during the last weeks I have come to understand how much money is involved here in compensation/fees/listing-fees/advisor-compensation/etc. It is insane. So not really surprised any more regarding their internal conflicts for $$$.

A $232M Cryptocurrency Fight Comes to a Close

Related Stories