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Massive Thread about Dfinity and The Internet Computer token ICP. They lied to investors, intentionally withheld important information, and may have committed fraud. Coinbase buyers may have legal standing. Plus more. Proof inside.

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by COINS NEWS 242 Views

& & & & & I invested in dfinity 3.5 years ago in the private sale and I've been trying my best to get answers but Dfinity doesn't answer questions that might make them look unsavory or require them. I don't know how to properly organize this post because its a lot of information to take in so i'll just start listing things and providing the proof. I tried and tried and tried to sort this out with Dfinity in a private manner. Every step of the way I was stonewalled or ignored. I've submitted support requests for many different reasons and have never received a single response. Every attempt I made on twitter was ignored. Every attempt I made on reddit was largely met with animosity or ignored. Prior to the removal of the dfinity subreddit chatroom, my history discussing this went back as far as late last year. I have provided as much proof as possible and tried to minimize speculation so you can come to your own conclusions.

Dfinity withheld critical tokenomics and vesting schedule information from investors upon launch, and still do.

  • According to their launch video, the circulating supply at launch was 26% of the total supply. They did not explain how they got this number, they still haven't explained how they got this number. Any posts about supply or price are promptly deleted from the subreddit. I made another one recently and still no answer and deleted again (for some reason it only shows up as deleted for me on www . reddit .com, and not on np.reddit.com or old . reddit .com). It didn't used to be against the rules to post threads about supply, but they don't want to answer these kinds of questions so they have made it impossible to ask them.

  • After doing a bunch of research, working on the assumption that 26% is accurate and stumbling upon a 107m wallet with no locking mechanism, I came to the conclusion that Dfinity controlled 111 million of the 124 million (26%) of supply at launch and for the entire first month because that is their distribution according to messari, and this wallet is 107 million of it, with the other 4 million unaccounted for somewhere else. I posted a thread about this in the dfinity subreddit but, obviously deleted. So I posted it again here in r/icptrader It is a bit hard to follow because I constantly have scatterbrain from hepatic encephalopathy, plus obviously seeing red. Some of my initial claims were wrong, but the information is all there for anyone to verify if they want to spend tons of time transaction tracking. Some people in that thread go through great lengths to defend and deny, making absolutely insane reaches to want to find a reason to discredit the information. I'm not sure if they're just die hard fans in denial or alt accounts of team members or what.

Dfinity controlled 92% of the circulating supply at launch.

  • See above. But also this means that it is virtually impossible for the price to have dumped so much without the team selling.

  • https://twitter.com/dominic_w/status/1397709105725276169 Dominic admitting that the foundation didn't vest itself, a whopping 16 days after launch. Probably something investors would want to know.

  • Dfinity completely left this bit of information out, and when confronted about it, they deleted the thread. Or just didn't answer as seen below. This is intentional withholding of information for the means of deception, which is fraud. Fraud by concealment is intentionally concealing or suppressing important information, with the intent to deceive. Proving intent to deceive might be tricky, but the deleting of threads about the issue is a good start. I am not a lawyer, hopefully one can chime in.

  • It also means that it is very possible that the circulating supply is a lie. The circulating supply could actually be much higher if they chose not to include these holdings in the 26% and that was why we are seeing such a sell off. It is also quite possible that the circulating supply increased dramatically one week after launch. Note that he didn't reveal this information till 8 days after launch, 1 day after they had become unlocked, and way after it would have been useful information. Probably something investors would want to know about before investing. Nor did he clarify what "key team members" meant. So just some of them? wtf? I have no idea how to accurately know the circulating supply other than trusting them, some sort of blockchain audit maybe?

  • The only source for the circulating supply is Dfinity. CMC lists what they told them to list. They have not provided all of the details about the token unlocks of all the various groups. They routinely provide this messari article as an answer for this question, but it actually doesn't answer the question at all.

    While the unlocking schedule is publicly known for strategic investors and private sales, the number of tokens unlocked from the Internet Computer Association, team members, advisors, early contributors, and the Foundation is unknown.

  • or this one which still doesn't give specifics:

    Across various token cohorts (Seed Donors, Early Contributors, Presale, Strategic, Airdrop, current and former employees, partners, developers, etc.) β€” ICP tokens will be distributed, or neurons will be dissolved, on a monthly or quarterly basis, where each individual and/or organization will decide to stake ICP tokens into neurons and receive voting rewards, convert them into cycles to pay for computation, or transfer them.

  • it is impossible to determine the actual circulating supply. I'm sure this is intentional because they've been asked multiple times on reddit 1 --- 2 --- 3 as well as on telegram before they decided to close the telegram group. In thread #2, multiple dfinity team members fail to answer the question even after "elevating" the thread.

  • I personally notified coinbase and coinbase support via tweet and DM about this vesting information and supply inconsistency and how it was misleading investors and they never responded, but they can't claim they had no previous knowledge.

& & & & & To anyone who bought after launch: as a buyer at launch or soon after launch, knowing all of the above (but ignoring the price collapse), would you still have bought? Because all of this information should have been made public at or before launch and its impossible to make a sound investment decision without it. People have been inquiring about this information right from the start and they still haven't officially stated any of it that I'm aware of. If they have, its not in an organized and easy to locate manner. The project has never cared what the investors or community asks or wants, because people have been asking the right questions, Dfinity just hasn't bothered answering.

Dfinity claimed that the foundation or team hasn't sold any tokens

  • the claim was made on June 11 at the end of this article and in his post here

  • refused to provide any proof of his claims when asked about it on twitter multiple times and reddit

  • Recently a new block explorer came out that further confirms the wallet I talked about above is Dfinity https://ic.rocks and gave us access to a whole bunch of new information in general as well as makes investigating the blockchain much easier.

  • this wallet sent tokens to multiple other wallets that then sent tokens to exchanges and did so many times before this claim was made. Never doing it directly, but still very obvious. This wallet was previously labeled Dfinity right up until I posted this thread. lul. It's Dfinity's wallet. It was minted with 107 million tokens in it and it had no locking or vesting schedule, as is evidenced by the fact that it has moved the majority of the wallet's balance. The only possibility is that its Dfinity's wallet. If this isn't Dfinity's wallet, it means they lied about circulating supply and someone else controls a huge unlocked portion of tokens.

  • the argument for liquidity doesn't really work because thats what your investors are for, and you've blocked them from selling. the argument for liquidity also doesn't work because there wasn't much market buy demand for ICP. It has been all market sells, and sending ICP tokens to an exchange for buy side liquidity makes no sense to me but I could be wrong here.

  • "its for listing fees, duh". I don't know what the current listing fees are for exchanges, but I'm talking about hundreds of millions of dollars minimum. I don't think any exchange charges anywhere near that much for a listing.

  • There are examples in that thread i linked above, but its even easier now with ic.rocks having exchanges labeled. here is a recent transaction where they sent millions of tokens to exchanges. 2.7million sent to coinbase and 2.5million sent to coinlist (at a then price $67 which promptly plummeted) 5.2m * ~$60 = ~300m usd . Also very clearly showing that the foundation wallet is using these middleman wallets solely for this purpose. Note that this sale came AFTER they had made the above claim, but there are several examples of prior. Like this one 625k to coinbase; the wallet in this one is unlabeled, but we know that it is a coinbase wallet because of this. Here is another example 750k to coinbase (prices well above 300-400 still, a cool 300million). another one 266k to coinbase and 103k to coinlist (prices above 400, thats almost 150mil USD). here are more. Over 1.5 million ICP tokens to coinbase before the claims were made. I seriously doubt coinbase has a billion dollar listing fee.

  • Sometimes they jump through multiple middleman wallets before ending up on exchanges, its not always as easy as just 1 stop before unloading

  • So, IMO this qualifies as a blatant lie. Even if there is some acceptable reason for the above, saying that the foundation has not sold is disingenuous at best, because they clearly have, and even if its for liquidity purposes, then why is the largest pool of investors blocked from participating? I suppose it is possible that he may not have sold, but why send the coins to exchanges then? also, just look at the chart... we're not that stupid, right? These are questions that have been asked and ignored since launch.

  • While I did find it quite amusing, the information going around claiming that they sold 90million tokens is incorrect and easily debunked. The entire volume, both buy and sell, for the first month on major exchanges is between 90-100million, so its pretty impossible for it to be true, but I've actually done the research and know that most of the tokens are still sitting in wallets unspent and never touched exchanges. Thats not to say that they are innocent, as I've tried to clearly lay out, they are far from innocent. There is a multitude genuine reasons to fault Dfinity, making up fake ones actually makes it easier for them to avoid responsibility.

Dfinity promised a fair launch for all investors, yet the private sale round that I was in, was prevented from selling the entire first month, and they won't answer why.

  • Dfinity was originally supposed to launch in 2018. Infact, here is a circular from that time. "2018 will be the year of Dfinity" lol. Anyway, its safe to say they're a bit late on the launch, like 2.5 years late. So after being late 2.5 years, and then missing several more launch promises this year, they withold the private round from selling while prices are high. Suspicious? Definitely. The private round paid the most out of any investment round for the least amount of tokens.

  • dominic promising the fairness vrf5 is Dominic Williams, the "chief scientist" of dfinity. Super fair that you allowed yourself and VCs to sell the launch hype but not the largest pool of investors that paid the most for the least and waited 4 years.

  • fairness is top priority ... no sweetheart deals for whales or insiders, no special treatment for friends ... everyone will benefit!

    >blocks non-friend non-whale investors from selling

    >dumps market before anyone else can sell, destroying credibility of the project

    >blames the seed round and early contributors (he allowed them to do this, and both of which he is a part of)

    >offers to create proposal with community input to fix this, then stops responding to the commnunity

    >vanishes

& & & & & threads of me asking for answers

  • https://np.reddit.com/r/dfinity/comments/o5a7vi/the_launch_was_not_fair_to_all_investors_as/

  • https://np.reddit.com/r/dfinity/comments/o0u7ji/why_was_the_private_presale_round_locked_for_an/ this thread was locked because asking these kind of questions is taboo

  • https://np.reddit.com/r/dfinity/comments/o4tkyd/why_was_the_private_presale_round_forbidden_from/ this thread was deleted, and not by me. im not sure if you can even see it, so here is a screenshot

  • the private presale round paid ~4.50 per token (not 4 USD like messari claims) for 4.96% of the tokens. This amounts to 23.3million total, or which would be 1.94 million per month disbursed at the 1/12th vesting rate. This amounts to less than 2 million more tokens in circulation at launch, which had 124 million. Thats a *mere 1.5% more tokens to the initial circulating supply (only 0.4% of total supply)* to have everything be fair among the various investor groups. Dfinity gets their entire 111 million tokens at launch, all other groups get 1/12 or 1/30 or 1/49 or whatever, and we get none. Even the airdrop was allowed to participate. . Thats a whole new level of disgusting greed. In fact, I can't think of a single other launch where the team/foundation did something like this, preventing their private investor pool from participating in the market while rewarding VCs and friends. Astounding. The foundation itself sold more tokens than the entire amount that the private sale would have had access to. I can't imagine a single non-friend non-whale investor ever giving him money again, not that he'll need it after what he's cashed out and still has to cash out. As long as I'm alive I will remind the world of this as often as needed so investors don't get rinsed by him again.

  • There is just no acceptable reason why only the private investment round was prevented from participating in the market, and its certainly not fair that we were excluded. Why is it that only this investor pool that paid the most for the least amount of tokens were subjected to this and how does the hell is that do you describe that as fair? Additionally, they were supposed to release in 2018 when I invested, and are 2.5 years late, having missed several launch deadlines this year alone, yet they still hold this one group of investors that waited 4 years back a month on launch and no others. It's pretty obvious that Dfinity doesn't want to explain themselves here and with the deleted threads doesn't want anyone else seeing it either.

    • This leads me to believe that the rapid price rise was manufactured and that Dominic wanted him and his seed and vc friends to be the sole profiters of this without other investors getting in the way. All previous promises of fairness were just lies to gain investors.

& & & & & Just prior to launch, they marketed and campaigned real hard in China and nowhere else. And then they rushed to launch right before the crypto hypetrain ended. I have no way to prove it, but I'm pretty sure this was intentional, as everyone knows china goes apeshit over crypto (see: bitcoin, filecoin, eos, polkadot) Either from their own greed or pressure from the VCs. They were so late at this point, what would have waiting another month been? nothing, but they rushed to get it out in a half working state, and blaming the price rise at launch on regulatory issues, whatever that means.

& & & & & Dominic has admitted that he also participated in the seed round, which is the round that paid 0.03 per token. This was a way for him to have a massive balance separate from his team holdings and the foundations holdings. Speculation: He probably just allotted himself the rest of the 25% that wasnt spoken for, so his personal holdings are potentially quite massive and any claims he has made about dfinity/team having a minority share might not include these tokens. Would love for him to prove me wrong on this or any of this, so I've taken the initiative and reported myself to [email protected] as a FUDer, and honestly I hope they prove me wrong, but I just don't see how its possible (its not). But they may attack my person to discredit me or whatever, which is why i've provided proof for every claim made except this one.

& & & & & Coinbase should have never listed this token with such glaring issues, and it is very irresponsible for them to do so. Since they are a publicly traded company that is regulated by the SEC, one could easily argue that they should be held to a higher standard. Buyers were definitely mislead. Regulators need to get involved here, this was truly a disgusting mess about raping the market and rewarding VCs and friends. Everyone who bought at exchanges should point out these issues and complain in a formal manner because this is disturbing.

& & & & & They haven't so much as even apologized for any of this. In fact, Dominic deflected blame onto the seed and early contributors, even though it is he who allowed them to do this. This should speak volumes to the kind of leader and kind of person that he is. Imagine if a military commander or a company executive tried to blame the failure of their duties on others..they wouldn't because they know the consequences are shameful and they would lose the repsect of their friends and peers. I think this holds especially true in Asian culture, but I could be wrong. At least now we know he will throw others under the bus to save himself. I've heard he is losing employees now, but only know of 1 for sure.. I expect that trend to continue. Once you lose the respect of your employees, how can you even be sure they are doing their best work for you?

& & & & & This whole thing really hits me personally because my health is declining pretty quickly. Some of you may remember me from a thread about TOMO. Tomochain turned out to be SAINTS compared to Dfinity. I have tried contacting Dominic and Dfinity support probably 20+ times in the last 6 months explaining to them my situation and that I needed the money for treatment. I was torn for awhile because I need this coin to go up so portraying it in a negative light really hurts me, but this is just too fucked up. Seriously, fuck them. Fuck polychain. Fuck a16z. Fuck coinbase. If they don't realize they have doomed the project, they're delusional. No one will trust them after this. This is the kind of stench that never goes away. The greed is astounding My investment, after waiting for 4 years, is currently at breakeven after adjusting for eth's increase in value, because I paid in eth, as did almost everyone, and not in USD. The claimed prices of 0.03 and $4.50 per token being thrown around are a bit misleading. But I can't even sell. I don't have the energy or the money to pursue this in a legal manner, even though I absolutely could and should as I have a great case and would looooooooooove to see what further disgusting actions turns up in pre-trial discovery, but I hope someone else does sue them and that this information benefits you in that regard. Special thanks to the few other redditors that have been bravely pursuing the truth despite being constantly harassed about it. To anyone who bought after launch at the highs, I am truly sorry that you got wrapped up in this, your losses are tremendous and I am embarassed to have participated in something that would end up doing this to people. I would be devastated by losses like that. I've created archive copies of all pages referenced in this thread so if they are to go "missing", worry not, they are not lost.

& & & & & Some, not all, but some of the Dfinity team members seem like truly decent people with good moral attributes, and its unfortunate that they have to deal with this.

& & & & & https://twitter.com/dominic_w is obviously feeling the heat because this is the least he has ever tweeted in recent memory. the entire bullun and prior it was several to dozens of tweets a week of hyping and now its maybe 1 tweet a week.

& & & & & I was genuinely excited about this project and participating in it, now it embarasses me. Feels a bit like admitting I used to listen to Limp Bizkit.

If you wish to contribute or donate to help, you can do so by letting Dfinity know that this is unacceptable, I firmly believe that no one should be paying for Dfinity's wrongs but Dfinity. They have the ability to do the right thing and are certainly equipped to do so. But since they won't even acknowledge any of this, I wanted to let the world know just how shitty they are. Thank you

TLDR:

Provided proof that Dfinity (possibly intentionally) withheld important tokenomics information at launch, and still do. Proof that they lied to their investors and prospective buyers about selling their tokens, lied to their original investors about a fair launch. Proof that they controlled 92% of the circulating supply at launch and failed to mention this fact. They promised a fair launch to all investors and then blocked one of their investment rounds from selling, the private round which paid the most for the least amount of tokens, while they and their early contributor friends and seed friends dumped the price 95%. And the rest of the post is me whining about how this ruined me personally because of poor health.

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