There was a lot of confusion from people who incorrectly thought the repayment plan was a fundamental change to the business model or that ICN no longer represented a share of the profits from Iconomi platform.
It
is a fundamental change. The whole sales pitch of Iconomi was "You bring the $$, our crypto expertise will do the rest!" The project received an absolutely unprecedented amount of fiat funding during the ICO, indicating a large number of investors who are novices to the crypto world. The idea of accumulating dividends in ETH is far different from having to periodically take profits by selling off small amounts of ICN. Plus ETH is
substantially more liquid (and reliable) an asset than ICN.
Second, it means no voting on major issues by ICN holders. This is because if you were able to distribute voting rights (i.e. "ballots") to ICN holders, you could just as easily distribute dividends to them.
Third and relatedly, (and I have brought this up on Reddit several times and still
nobody has explained otherwise), stocks in traditional markets that don't pay dividends
have other characteristics that ICN does not have that provide actual rather than solely speculative value to shareholders.
Traditional stocks actually let you exercise voting rights. ICN does not.
Traditional stocks are entitled to transparent accounting and information about how the company is being run. ICN does not.
Quick list of broken promises, just off the top of my head:
- Team fund to be moved to segregated account in January
- Change in service operator (and subsequent refusal to even provide proof that it exists)
- Periodic "probably bi-weekly" AMAs on Reddit
- Quarterly expenditure reports showing amount and area of expenses (Iconomi has divested 2000BTC in just the last month. Where the fuck is it going/has it gone?)
Add to these that we've got no idea on the terms of the Cofoundit spin-off. Separation payments? ICN retained?
Intellectual property transferred? You can tell me that ICN still represents an ownership share in Iconomi. But when IP and employees start walking out the door to "spin-offs" and we have no clue what the terms were, that doesn't feel at all like ownership.
Traditional stocks can get paid out if a company is purchased or liquidated. That can't happen with ICN.
ICN is opaque and powerless compared to traditional stocks. It needs to provide dividends in ETH, which has real and established value. It feels like the team is trying to ensure ICN liquidity (nice timing...) more than it's trying to return actual solid returns to its investors.
The buyback change is like abandoning gold-backed currency in a banana republic.
