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.