Buybacks are automated and continuous; they are capped at 20% of daily volume and are set below the market price to add support. The only way that the team could exploit the buyback feature would be for them to do large market sells while front-running bad news. I don't see them doing that any time soon.

Let me see if I understand you. You want compensation for tokens you sold before you knew there would be buybacks instead of dividends?

No. As you would only be entitled to dividends on coins you actually held (if they were doing dividends.) As it is, with buybacks you could in theory reclaim that .1% of ICN position. Moral of the story? HODL

Just hold, be outcome independent.

Traditional companies have the weight of the legal system behind them. If a company officer fails to act in its stakeholders interests the board can replace them. If the officers act illegally they can be prosecuted and put in jail. Crypto doesn't have those mechanisms to back it's arrangements. We're fucked if any of the projects decide to take the btc/eth and run, and there's nothing we can do about it. For crypto (which is supposed to be trustless) we really do have to place a lot of trust in the teams and projects that we are backing. I think that trust in itself warrants the generous terms we enjoy through the ICO process, but we give up a lot of legal protections by participating.

Regarding someone coming up with some mechanism for Iconomi to implement at the suggestion of the community regarding a way to assure investors, we still have to trust that the Iconomi team would implement it (assuming it's a rational and carefully thought out suggestion.)

When traditional investors invest in stocks and the company fails the courts sell the assets and pay out liabilities, and then investors. Yes they may lose money, but the actions are enforced the government.

I feel like the point that Mendeleev is making (and people are ignoring or not getting) is that there is no legal or structural mechanism that ties the value of Iconomi to the ICN token. Iconomi could very well build a massively successful company that generates billions of dollars in revenue and the only value transfer mechanism we token holders have is the belief that Tim/Jani and company are honorable men that will maintain the (unenforceable) contract that we all entered into when we invested in the ICO. There is likely no government in the world where ICN holders could prosecute a lawsuit against them. That being said, I believe in the project and the team. I judge them to be honorable in their actions and efforts. Everything that they are doing *SCREAMS* legitimate to me. But who knows, Bernie Madoff was the ultimate insider and he stole billions.