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Comment by pavlov | Hacker News Reader

There's a complicated legal situation around Tezos that seems to be causing development delays. There is infighting among the founders concerning the legal structures established to hide^H^H^H^Hprotect the ICO money [1], and also a class-action lawsuit [2].

[1] https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/tezos-derivatives-crash-amid... [2] https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/tezos-founders-hit-class-act...

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Yes, this is an unfortunate situation. Basically before the ICO happened a Swiss non-profit was formed called the Tezos foundation. The foundation would receive the ICO "donations" and then the foundation "may" provide the donors with Tezos coins when Tezos launches. I think this whole setting up a Swiss non-profit is just to get around the know-your-customer laws in the USA and also to avoid the SEC's rules about selling securities to unaccredited investors.

So now the Tezos foundation controls the ICO funds, which are now valued somewhere around $500 million, and according the Tezos founders one of the board members (Gevers [3]) has gone rogue and tried to grant himself a bonus that the founders say is not warranted.

What I've always found strange is that the other two board members of the Tezos foundation have never really been discussed publicly in any way. One of them is Diego Olivier Fernandez Pons [1] and the other appears to be a company formation agent, Mr. Schmitz-Krummacher [2]. I've been unable to find out how these other two board members were selected, which is a bit odd considering the fate of about $500 million and perhaps Tezos in general hangs in the balance of how these two people vote. Gevers formed the "crypto valley" in Switzerland, so I can understand he would be on the board, but I'm still not clear on how the non-profit was formed and the first place and how the board members were selected.

Here's a thread asking who is running the Tezos Foundation. https://forums.tezos.community/t/who-is-running-the-tezos-fo...

[1] https://www.linkedin.com/in/diego-olivier-fernandez-pons/ [2] https://www.linkedin.com/in/guidos1/ [3] https://www.linkedin.com/in/johanngevers/

Edit: This whole situation actually proves Tezos' point to me: that a cryptocurrency should not be controlled by a small group of individuals. In this case, the small group (the foundation) doesn't control the cryptocurrency, _just_ the ICO funds.

1. Foundations probably need multiple directors, this depends on the jurisdictions.

2. The people behind the project wanted to sell a US company to the foundation for $20 or $30mm, and I think this Gevers guy basically said that was excessive.

I think the foundation probably is legally required to have multiple directors, but you would think that a foundation that raised $500 million from "donors" would give out some information about who two of the three board members are and why/how they were selected.

Regarding your second point, can you provide a source for that? What I've read has alleged that Gevers tried to take a bonus from the ICO funds. "The Breitmans said Gevers had sought to pocket a bonus from the ICO proceeds, whose value had swollen to as much as $400 million because of a rise in the value of bitcoin, and then lied about it to his foundation colleagues." [0]

[0] https://www.finews.com/news/english-news/29289-tezos-johann-...

http://www.reuters.com/article/bitcoin-funding-tezos/special...

PS: What a shitshow. These people are amateurs who have been given $500m, and I wouldn't be surprised this project amounts to nothing.

Based on how I'm reading this, I don't think this Gevers character is entirely wrong on how he's acting. But the article doesn't mention any bonus.

I didn't see anything in the article you linked to where Gevers says that the amount ($20 million) the Tezos company would sell itself to the foundation for is excessive. As I understand it, that was always the arrangement. The amount the company would sell itself for was a percentage of the ICO funds raised, I believe.

I do agree that the situation is a shitshow.

Not sure where I read that, can't find it anymore

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