ICOs

ICOs Splashing Their Slush on Non-Stop Partying, Jets and Land

from Trust Nodes 5 years ago 0 0 1024

As well as, presumably, watches and yacht with football teams for entertainment nights. Or at least that is what is being claimed, with some of our investigation backing it.

$6 billion worth of eth has been sold by ICO-ed projects this year. An incredible amount of capital that might build tomorrow’s empires or today’s playboy homes.

Moshe Hogeg, founder and co-CEO of Sirin Labs, which raised some $160 million in an ICO this December for a blockchain phone, has bought this June $19 million worth of land in “the prestigious Kfar Shmaryahu,” according to a report.

They say “Hogeg is planning to build a home with a swimming pool on the land” of 1.25-acre, citing unnamed sources. They say Hogeg’s office said “we do not comment on private matters.”

The value of the Sirin Labs token (SRN) has fallen by 97.5% to $0.09 from a high of $3.57 this January, substantially lower than its opening price, and thus presumably its ICO-ing price, of $0.65.

Vinny Lingham of Civic, which itself raised 94,178.08 eth in an ICO last year for identity verification, publicly said this Thursday:

“I’m hearing about and seeing pictures of many CEOs and teams that are splurging ICO money (private jets, drugs and non-stop partying), not coding, shipping products or signing customers.”

He provides no evidence, except for the above statement, with Jeff Ward, an eth developer formerly from uPort which too is focused on providing identity verification, commenting on the above statement by saying:

“When I was on the uPort team, I pointedly asked him at the 1WorldIdentity conference in DC that if identity projects don’t need tokens then why create one?

Vinny Lingham’s response: ‘Because I can, because it’s free money.’ That’s the exact moment I realized he’s a piece of ****.

I asked, ‘What about the [Securities and Exchanges Commission (SEC)].’ V: ‘They have no clue what’s going on anyway.’

I kept quiet about this to see if he might turn the corner and build something and not to burn bridges. He made a beer vending machine. **** em.”

Civic has crashed from $1.37 during the high in January when it had a market cap of just under half a billion dollars, to now $0.12.

“One of Israel’s top soccer teams was sold on Monday to businessman and Blockchain entrepreneur Moshe Hogeg, after he agreed to cover the controversial team’s significant debt.

Beitar Trump Jerusalem was purchased for NIS 26.5 million ($7.2 million) from Eli Tabib, who had been the owner since 2013. Of that sum, NIS 8.5 million will be used by Hogeg to cover the team’s debt.

‘I am happy and excited to say the deal has been signed,’ Hogeg said Monday. ‘I have a vision to lead Beitar Jerusalem to a new path. I believe in the team and its abilities and I intend to develop the club and take it to new heights.'”

So reports the Times of Israel this August 15th, making it a combined $26 million of known spending by Hogeg after his project raised $160 million in an ICO.

That’s while many tokens are underwater and plenty of the projects behind them have a lot more eth than the total market cap of their token.

They are not spending these sums to buy back their own tokens, but they are cashing out a combined average of 15,000 eth a day, with ICOs selling some 4.5 million eth just this spring and about ◊1.2 million this summer so far.

Most of this money will probably go towards funding development and other proper business expenses, but it looks like much of it will go towards fine swimming pools and football teams.

“This is soul crushing,” Richard Burton, an eth dev, says. “We’ve only just begun to feel the repercussions of the enormous misallocation of capital that happened the past 12 months – possibly the worst ever,” Lane Rettig, another eth dev, says.

The hangover thus continues as the excesses of 2017 start biting with tough questions now requiring answers, including whether code can be the antidote by bringing back the DAO where token holders have binding votes on the distribution of funds as now some smart contracts, like DAI, have proven unhackable code can be a thing.