I would be talking about Class A voting shares for board members who control the company which would be a Stock corporation huh pretty hilarious.
There's nothing inherent about a specific share class that gives you board members. It is the charter and/or shareholder agreement that determines whether or not any specific class of shares have voting rights, and if they have voting rights, the proportional weight of those votes. E.g. for Google, it is class B shares that hold the majority of the votes (each class B share counts for 10 votes, while class A shares only count for 1 vote each - ensuring that Brin and Page together has a straight up majority, and class C shares does not get a vote at all)
As a bit of a digression the most share classes in a pre-IPO company I've had shares in was 5 (A through E), all with different rights, ranging from different voting rights, to claw-back rights, anti-dilution rights, rights of first refusal and other crap...
There's also nothing requiring an IPO for this kind of setup. On the contrary, most companies that take investors never IPO at all, ever, but remain private, and only solicit investments from a small group (in fact, most coin "IPO"'s are likely to violate various investment regulations, as most places there are stringent restrictions on reporting before you can offer an investment product or share offering to the public).
I am equating this and you must have thought I think Crypt is an S-Corp...
Apply this to stocks as if this coin could be one (if it were, then insider trading etc.), this was what is implied as if we are dealing with a stock. Crypt called Whales investors not me,
Ok, so if you're just drawing parallels, then that changes things a bit.
But my main points were that 1) there are many forms of investment that does not require the issuance of shares at all, so it's perfectly possible that these investors are genuinely investors that have put money into the dev team in return for specific return. Debt financing in particular, with or without some form of convertible note or option, is very suitable for crypto coins (and whether the dev team made use of the "not quite a pre-mine" high early block rewards, or simply bought a bunch on the cheap very early on, or whether their "assets" are in the form of other planned revenue sources is relatively irrelevant - as long as they have/had something of monetary value to offer, debt financing or a convertible note would be a possibility with or without an actual corporation) and 2) that it is common for investors to exercise control over this type of decision, either via board seats, or for that matter via shareholder agreements (e.g. typical VC dictated agreements I've had to deal with often includes a long list of things the investors have veto rights on individually or by majority vote of a group (or share class in a corporation)).
Of course, it could also be this guy is just talking out of his ass. I hope not - I hold more Crypt than I ought to
and they state that they consult the whales. Then to top it off they act in concert with whales and even state it in their Chat, but you are more concerned with what jurisdiction or exact docs are being referenced. You should be more concerned about the insider trading that was divulged in the chat.
No insider trading can be inferred from the chat without knowing 1) whether or not the whales acts on that inside knowledge to alter their buying or selling, and 2) what jurisdiction any agreement is under, and/or what exact form the mentioned investment takes. That's why it matters.
That of course doesn't mean that it isn't or couldn't happen, and it doesn't mean they couldn't be up to something highly unethical without breaking laws. Certainly, one of the possible "returns" the dev team could offer their investors in return for debt financing would be the inside track on a "guaranteed" pump, for example.
Note that the most negative action the investors could take in this case *at this point*, though, would not be prevented by insider trading laws most places, or at least be practically impossible to prove: They can slowly and steadily accumulate, and simply use their decision making position to delay a release to get more people to panic sell. Carrying out a steady trading schedule is allowed most places, as long as the trading pattern isn't materially altered as a result of inside information. And there are near infinite justified reasons possible for delaying a product release.
Of course, if an artifical pump starts, then there's plenty of opportunity for shady dealings, such as giving investors inside track on when the artificial support will vanish. But I have a hard time getting too upset even if that happens: Everyone involved knows this is an unregulated market as of yet, with a long track record of shady shit happening, and a large element of gambling. Anyone buying into this without being prepared to deal with the risks have only themselves to blame. And at the same time, most of us appear to be quite happy to reap the benefits when we get in/out at the right time of some pump and dump...
