I think the fellow presenting DasCoin has not done a good job at all of stating what it is and how it has the opportunity to go mainstream.
This company is not just about a coin or digital currency for one. The company is promoting its blockchain products and services as much as it is the coin.

So no it is not privately held. It is held by a company and will adhere to regulations given their goal is to promote the blockchain services.

I do a lot of business in Africa. I know of 1 government there already who has signed an MOU with the company to use the blockchain for the purposes of registering land titles, university grades and some healthcare applications. The use of these services will drive up the utility of the coin by default.

What will make this coin worth anything? It will be the usability and spend ability. Believe it or don't believe it, DasCoin has partnered with a company called www.cartaworldwide.com. They are a Canadian company and I had the pleasure of meeting the founder at the DasCoin blockchain launch in Zurich on March 31st. Carta is the company who has engineered Apple Pay, Vodaphone Mobile Pay, and PayPal point of sale. They have also created the payment system for Uber.  Carta is working with DasCoin to create DasPay. It will be a point of sale app which will run on the same rails as Visa, Mastercard, China Union Pay. What will happen is DasCoin holders will be able to wave this app at more than 60,000,000 point of sales globally. When he app is used it will tokenize the coins and essentially pay the merchant is what ever currency associated with the country the merchant is in. This will allow for the DasCoin to be spent without issue or hesitation. In order to use Bitcoin, one need to find a merchant (and yes there are more than 200,000 merchants globally who accept this as payment or currency) who will accept the coins as payment. With DasPay, the merchant will not know you are paying using a digital currency because the digital asset with be converted automatically into currency of choice including Bitcoin.

So, let's not throw the baby out with the bath water just yet. Let's see what is reveals in the next coming months.

One Coin is a scam - fully agree.

DasCoin I believe is on to something good.

If you have questions I will try to answer them. If I do not know the answer, please allow me to get the answer for you.

Thanks.
CCG