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Tezos Founders Enter Legal Battle for Control of $400m in Raised ICO Funds


Founded by husband and wife, Kathleen and Arthur Breitman, Tezos is a decentralized platform that hosts smart contracts that seeks to compete with ethereum. Tezos’ initial coin offering (ICO) did not have a cap on investment and raised approximately $232 million – at the time comprising the largest ICO crowdsale to date. The 65,703 bitcoins (BTC) and 361,122 ETH raised by the company is now worth more than $400 million USD.


What do you think about this guys?

Well it's not comforting but it's also not the big deal the media is making it out to be.  There are always legal battles when this much money is involved and the main net release has only been pushed back 4-5 months.

It sounds like the Breitmans probably didn't read their contract with the foundation well enough and are now realizing they don't have as much freedom with the money as they'd like. If the foundation wins the lawsuit, that could certainly be problematic for Tezos.

Why that would be so problematic since more control this is overall better for end cutomer not getting rekt to easy by blowing away money on boats vacation etc.
Fundation wacthing what they are doing is good thing to me guys.

Sounds like a great time to invest in Tezos if you ever wanted to get on board (not that I've ever had much interest in them)

Probaly this is best conclusion off all, buy on FUD sell after dusts is settle because no one really gives a fuck who  holds money at end when price is rising.

Frankly, the above alone sounds really dangerous. It made me think twice and more before I invested. But I like(d) the idea of Tezos

To comment on what's happening now: this is not funny at all and pretty damn shocking. A legal battle between the founders and Johann Gevers, "head of the Swiss foundation they installed"? So Johann Gevers is this dude http://johanngevers.com/projects/ Make up your own mind about that man.

I believe that this is not good at all for everybody involved because a lot of energy will be wasted on a fight rather than be spent on the project. It could even result in serious depression of the Breitmans and the other Tezos devs/helpers/advisors and even the community.

As an investor I am beyond disappointed and even angry. They sit/sat on such an extreme amount of money but fail to deliver on time. I had already thought that something is not quite right because of the lack of updates on their website. For a project that has attracted this amount of money this really is a big fail.

Well, while typing this I can't help but think that such a huge amount of money is utterly dangerous indeed. Things like this is why we increasingly have ICO regulation by government worldwides, seems rightly so.

I can only hope that I will not have to pay my lawyer to try and get my investment back in the end, this would suck big time.

You can't. There is only a scammy IOU market (“i owe you”) for XTZ and the real XTZ has not been released. Will it ever be released and become reality? I  hope so. Whatever happens, this odd fight [if it's true what I'm reading in the media, that is], sadly, will remain in the "history books"...

People at Tezos, please get your things right. Solve and overcome this dispute as soon as you can. There are a lot of people watching you who expect everything to be as initially advertised.

The tezzies aren't released yet, you can't invest in Tezos now.
What I am baffled by is the foundation supposedly hasn't released money for development. The development is what the money is for so this makes no sense. Gevers has said he is one of the largest ico buyers, so again this makes no sense. Unless the Breitmans have just been trying to take money for yachts and beach homes, Gevers actions make so sense at all.

Just so many red flags, I wouldn't touch this with a 50 foot pole. With that amount of capital, they should have hundreds of full time developers on staff.

I have been warned so many people about the tezos, but that looks strange to see the husband and wife control around 400 millions dollar. The advisory board of the tezos succeed to build the momentum to raise a lot of interest.

In this case, it’s actually a very bad time to invest in Tezos. Do you have any idea how much a lawsuit costs? Lawyers bill out at $600+ an hour. Who do you think will pay for this? That’s right, the investors. The only people who will end up in the black after this thing are the lawyers, not investors, not Tezos, not the foundation, not the Breitmans

Also, lawsuits are incredibly stressful and time consuming. I would be surprised if the Breitmans were still married after this whole thing ends.

And you think that the price won't adjust to reflect that? lol

This isn't bitcointalk only news, the news would have reached those invested and price would fall as a result. But anyway as someone else said it seems the tokens ain't even released yet so doesn't matter either way.

I dont understand how the fuck did they raised so much money, more than 3 hundred million dollars it is incredible, why do people invest such that amount of money? there are to many projects that diserve at least some millions and they are not even being succesfull because they dont have a good marketing.
But i understand it, it is all about marketing and the promotion that it receives, but of course that 400 million dollars is a huge amount.

uh, where is the smart contract that 'invalidates' stuff like this? i thought legal battles were the past and ecr20 the future or whatever.

well, guess not.

Hilarious  :D

ICO = Scam ..that is what i think of this.

It sounds like there's going to be one huge dump on this one. What a shame!

No doubt the coin is stuck at ground zero.just feeling for the investors that parted ways with their hard bills to a shit project. Hope they resolve it soon and concentrate on the development of the project for the sake of the investors

i hate these ico's

I think the price has adjusted to reflect that. What I’m saying is I think it will never recover and the project will never take off, unless someone else leads it.

Wow another ICO has controversy surrounding finances?  ::)

I believe this situation with Tezos needs to be used to start to set regulations for the ICO. In this way the projects that "honestly" wants to use an ICO to create a new project and contribute at the same time in the Crypto Coin world can be protected from scam initial investors. Also ICO's contributors and investors can feel save from fraud while supporting an ICO. And moreover, general public can see ICO as a trusting project to contribute.

And I think this regulation can be adjusted through an Smart Contract, developed and discussed for some kind of representative of the currently crypto coin world (not sure about whom, I am not an expert at all).

I see Tezos story as the "invasion" of all what was trying to fight the blockchain technology: to put capitalism interests first.

I think they didn't think in the beginning that there will be so much money to be raised in this ICO. However, when they saw that it is gaining ground amongst investors, those greedy bastards started to quarrel about the money. Sadly, this is the very reason why government is banning ICO's here and there. It can't be controlled, not even the founder or creator of it. If they have been arguing who are going to managed the funds because of the huge money involved, they should at least get another party to properly handle all the finances. Too bad though that Tezos turn to be this way.

This will the biggest ICO fail ever.
I hope these news not become true. These are just nightmares and i hope the best scenario.