We had to pause the ICO to finish the KYC on a few very large clients who were from problematic countries. We should be done soon and we will then resume.
Soon after that is done, we will be live on an exchange and we will update everyone on all of the exchange info.
In the meantime, anyone interested can sign up on the site and once we resume we will let everyone know.

Hey, you're welcome to contact me if you have any questions

Good question! Admittedly, it is a good way to raise funds even though we only keep a very small portion of what's raised since most goes to the diamonds but that's not the only reason.
A financial ecosystem needs three things - a way to transact daily business, a way to invest and a way to save. A way to invest is easy - most ICOs are like startups, most will crash, some will survive and a small few will thrive and make you rich. A way to transact daily business is being taken care of already by other companies and at this point others can do it better than us. But what was missing is a way to have savings. The KELA coin is a good way to have savings in a cryptoeconomy because it is based on a commodity that can be used in industry, medicine, food, etc - so it has an intrinsic worth in the real world but it's also good for the regular fiat economy which is plagued by inflation since diamonds on average earn more than the rate of inflation - so it's a great hedge.
So why can't you just buy diamonds? You could. But there are 16,000 different types of diamonds and you'd have to know which ones to pick. You could buy a whole basket of diamonds that represents all of the diamond industry. But that would cost about 3-3.5 Million Dollars. Plus you'd have to get insurance and storage. Here for 1.2 USD you can take your share of that.

So, yes, it is a good way to raise funds but it is an incredible product for the investors

Agreed. That's why I say that the point of regulation is not to eliminate scams. It would minimize it and keep the money clean.

Hi, if there is something missing from the WhitePaper/ FAQ/ or the KELA Bible (all on our site) please do let me know. Our goal is full transparency.

Starting from the moment we start raising funds we will start purchasing diamonds. The certificates of each one of the diamonds will be made available online for public viewing. A diamond's certificate is like it's ID - it has all of the characteristics of the diamond on it documented by a trusted 3rd party.

This will let each person verify the retail value of the diamonds and approve that what has been bought has an equal value to the amount raised.

Is there anything else I can clarify for you? Is there anything you think is missing on the site? I mean it, if there's something just let me know and we'll take care of it immediately.

Thank you.

Actually, the opposite is the truth. It used to be a monopoly by DeBeers. In the past few decades, more and more companies have entered the market and created competition and in the past 15 years, with the rise of online platforms for diamond traders where they can buy and sell their diamonds online via a trusted third party it has become more and more democratized.

Incredibly enough, most people thought that the control of DeBeers was the reason the price of diamonds were moving up however the less control there is over the industry, the more the price rises! When looking at charts you can see the correlation.

The above two things are the reasons that diamonds have become more popular (maybe not with you personally but with most of the world) and the reason a number of companies have integrated them into the blockchain technology. Up until now, all diamonds were always traded with a handshake agreement, whereas now the diamonds can be traced back each step of the way all the way to the source. It's still in its infancy but that's the beauty of everything - there's always the ground floor you can get on.

Diamonds which until now weren't a part of the financial industry either, are also being added there. Most prominently by the company Live Rates Feeds (the parent company of KELA) but also by a few other industry players.

I hope this clarifies any misconceptions about the diamond industry, its relation to blockchain and its potential.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2242596

You can also look at the site where everything is well detailed and with a lot more info www.kela.io

We tried to learn from others' mistakes so we could build something better. But even were the ICO not to succeed, the company is still a working company with a good future ahead www.liveratesfeeds.com

Let me know if you have any questions.

Hey, if I may, if you look at the process you'll see we start buying diamonds as soon the ICO launches and some coins are bought. All of the certificates will be posted online for public viewing.

If you look at the parent company Live Rates Feeds, you'll see that this is not the first venture and that they are heavy in the diamond industry and the financial industry www.liveratesfeeds.com

Thanks for the feedback!

True. And even with all the public "outcry" it still happens. Whereas with diamonds, reputable buyers will request a Kimberly certificate which shows that these are not blood diamonds and were sourced ethically.

Thank you!! We try to show our appreciation to everyone who is a part of our community. Not only the bounty team. We also created our Tokens of Appreciation promotion to show some love to our entire community.

And you are absolutely right that looking at the team and in this case also the parent company, makes all of the difference. That's why I invite everyone to look at the whitepaper on our site and at the parent company - www.liveratesfeeds.com

Hey, let me explain to you how we are different

First of all, look at the parent company - Live Rates Feeds. Who have created the world's first tradable diamond index. So we're not talking about a fly by night company, nor are we talking about a company that doesn't have it's basis in the diamond world. www.liveratesfeeds.com

Second, if you look at the info on the site, you will see that we start purchasing diamonds as soon as money comes in. Were we to run away with the money, then our entire company would close and what we created - the only tradable diamond index (the IDXUSD) would be completely useless and gone. And for what? For an ICO? God no. We're in the process of having some of the world's biggest stock exchanges do Due Diligence on the company since we already have 3 of the world's biggest stock brokers interested in adding this to their portfolio. If the ICO in any way endangered that, we would immediately close the ICO simply because it would not be worth it.

Third, regarding how a project can be backed by a diamond. The project is not. As in every industry, there is a small difference between the retail and wholesale price. That little difference is what gives us the cash to expand our day to day operations at Live Rates Feeds. The diamonds are there to give security to the coin holders in a manner that is completely unrelated to the Project being funded.

I am certain that as a smart thinking man (or woman) if you look at the details and the information on the site you would find the company and its projects to be far from ridiculous.

Some diamonds are indeed like that and those diamonds don't have Kimberly certificates.

Nowadays, all reputable diamond buyers will ask for a Kimberly certificate whenever buying rough diamonds.

Hey, I thought I'd answer this myself
The beauty of it is that we are buying the diamonds as soon as the first buyers buy the KELA coins. We buy them our network since we have some very good connections in the diamond industry that come from 1) my personal background 2) the fact that we created the world's only tradable diamond index (IDXUSD). All of the diamond certificates will be posted online for public viewing.

This means that if something happens to the crypto economy, coin holders will be able to redeem their coins for the diamonds held in storage.

And for anyone interested, you should check out our Tokens of Appreciation promotion (details on our homepage - www.kela.io)

I find it ironic that the ONE crypto that offers a redeemable asset is the one that you have an issue with

But you ask a very good question. As we write on the site and in the video explanation, we will be posting all of the diamonds' certificates up on our site so that they can be publicly viewed. A diamond certificate is like its ID. It gives you all of the information about it so you can check for yourself its value without having to trust us.

1 - I agree about the greater fool theory, however I fail to understand how that's related?
2 - Yes, it is.
3 - I agree with you that in some instances it is about power, but let's agree that it can also be about justice. For example, when opening an offshore company/ account: they don't care about taxes you may be evading, or anything like that, they just want to make sure you aren't using the account for one of the big 4 - weapons, humans, terrorism, money laundering for one of the above three.

China didn't regulate - they banned. Completely different.

A company can choose which jurisdiction to be regulated under. The country that will have the smartest regulation will have the most projects built in it.

Though it will lower the number of scams, that is not my main reasoning. Regulations do lower the number of scams but they do not eradicate.
The main reason I think regulation is good is because it limits the use of funds for criminal purposes.

I am also talking about regulations imposed by governments (the only regulations banks impose are imposed on them) are not always costly, and I am saying this from experience. I advise a company that helps companies get regulated in many jurisdictions. Regulations don't HAVE to be costly nor do they HAVE to limit potential gains. The fact that some regulations do doesn't mean that it has to be this way.

So should there be regulations? Absolutely. Right now, it's too much like the wild west. But as I've said - smart ones. Not idiotic ones that do nothing to actually achieve something meaningful.

This answer literally made me laugh out loud.

If you have any questions about it, feel free to ask. We are as transparent as can be

Did you look at the link I added? That would probably solve your dilemma