Thoughts on Visa discussing this with their lawyers?
((((Last week, an initial coin offering (ICO) for something* called TokenCard raised** $16.7m in “mere minutes”, according to the PR spin embedded in the emailed correspondence to this reporter following the event.
It was brought to market by an outfit called Monolith Studio, which until recently had offered sparse information about who was behind it, apart from a loose connection to Peter Vessenes, bitcoin investor and founder of something called “New Alchemy” (no less).
As is increasingly common in the promotion of these launches, a proposal pitching exclusive details ahead of the offering was made to the press. This, from April 19, being an example from our own inbox (with Monolith calling itself Monolith Ventures):
Details revealed over the next few weeks showed the project was the brainchild Mel Gelderman and another chap called David Hoggard. Their respective Linkedin bios were either exceptionally thin on the ground or non-existent.
The pitch itself was pretty forthright (please note the emphasis):
Tomorrow, Monolith Ventures will open the ICO for TokenCard, the first debit card powered by smart contracts. When the card launches, holders will be able to use it anywhere that accepts VISA.
And the promotional blitz disseminated after the launch on May 4 reiterated the key points:
Monolith Studio’s TokenCard closed its token launch Tuesday, May 2, 2017, after exceeding its crowdsale goal in mere minutes. TokenCard is the first debit card powered by smart contracts incorporating the VISA payments network with Ethereum. It immediately gained attention in the Ethereum community after its announcement and quickly reached and surpassed contribution goals for this one-of-a-kind project. For the first time, token holders will be able to use Ether as well as other ERC20 tokens to purchase items anywhere that accepts VISA debit cards.
Suffice to say, the above made a lot of TokenCard’s access to Visa’s payment networks — if not leveraging Visa’s brand rather explicitly for its own purposes.
You’d think Visa — had it truly decided to associate itself with or back a crypto venture this explicitly — would have also communicated the unprecedented cooperation. It didn’t.
To the contrary, a spokesman from Visa Europe told us on Friday that:
At this point I’m unable to establish any business relationship between Visa and this company.
Our lawyers are looking into this and I will come back to you if I have any further insight.
The accompanying promotional graphics for TokenCard have since gone from this))))))
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https://ftalphaville.ft.com/2017/05/08/2188471/introducing-truly-outlandish-ico-claims-tokencard-edition/Much ado about nothing, or a real concern?
