Tezos is one of the cryptocurrency ICOs which has received a lot of attention of late. After raising around US$232 million in short order, there are plenty of people with incredibly high expectations for this project. So far, it seems things are not exactly going according to plan, as an internal power struggle is diminishing the project’s chances of success. It was only a matter of time until something like this happened, to say the very least.
Tezos Power Struggle is Problematic
No one can deny any cryptocurrency ICO raising over US$200 million is bound to run into some trouble sooner or later. In the case of Tezos, the issue may have far more negative consequences than most people realize right now. It seems there is a difference of opinion between the team itself and the head of the foundation they set up. While establishing the Swiss Foundation was a smart decision at the time, it has since introduced a major roadblock impeding the project’s future forward progress.
Indeed, the trading of the Tezos coins that were issued during its ICO will not commence anytime soon. It may even take until early 2018 for that to happen. CoinMarketCap did add Tezos to its list of assets, but the site makes it clear these are the “pre-launch” coins (or IOUs) being traded. Any value associated with this token in its current form should be ignored for now, as it doesn’t represent the actual value of Tezos tokens. More specifically, these tokens have no value right now, since no one can actually trade them in standard fashion.
Any investors looking to get rid of their Tezos coins right now will be entering panic mode sooner rather than later. After all, the project raised US$232 million quite some time ago. Not being able to trade ICO tokens before the end of the year would be considered to be a major setback, for obvious reasons. For a company valued at US$232 million, a delay like this one could prove to be incredibly costly. Then again, there were plenty of warning signs that some of these “massive” ICOs would blow up eventually.
It is evident the management structure of this particular ICO raises a lot more questions than answers right now. Putting a lot more intermediaries in place to partake in the decision-making process means there are a lot more roadblocks and opinions to deal with on a day-to-day basis. For some unknown reason, not all people who make up Tezos management see eye-to-eye when it comes to trading the ICO tokens and moving ahead with the project. That is rather unusual, though not entirely surprising either. An untested management structure will always result in issues one way or another; that much is certain.
It is also interesting to see two of the original Tezos founders admit they have made several mistakes along the way. While it is evident this new form of doing business is susceptible to error from time to time, one wouldn’t expect it from a team raising almost a quarter of a billion dollars. Their objective now is to have Johann Gervers, the president of the Swiss Foundation, removed as quickly as possible, although it remains to be seen if that will happen.
For the time being, the Tezos project is a powder keg waiting to explode. All of the money raised during the ICO is in the hands of the foundation and stored in a bank account. For now, the team is working on converting funds from virtual currencies into fiat currencies without crashing the markets. It’s an interesting situation to keep an eye on, although a lot of investors will be getting incredibly restless as we speak.
