To Mr. Long,
I am sure you must have noticed lately there has been quite a lot of frustrations regarding the market efforts of Tomochain, and reply from the team was that problem is there are limited budgets available for marketing.
However, as disclosed in your ICO material, 30% of ICO proceeds (~2.4 million usd) are supposed to be saved towards marketing efforts, so my question is could you be more transparent regarding the use of funds? Have you allocated the funds that were disclosed as for marketing usage towards other purpose (hope you didn’t use those funds to buy a sports car or some nice gifts, just kidding :P)
Unfortunately whenever this topic is brought up in the telegram chats, there seems to be quite a lot of hostilities, and some (not sure if they are team members or just out of ignorance) are trying to shut people up with the reasoning that buying Tomo coins is not considered “investors” and certainly not shareholders of tomochain pte, and therefore does not have any say in whatsoever. I am extremely upset about this kind of NAZI and rude manner. Well, I, myself, come from a career background in a top 3 US investment bank, and so have the chance to work closely with finance legal firms in Singapore. I briefly consulted a lawyer I have worked with and learned while Singapore is ICO friendly jurisdiction, it does have a set of regulations towards the space. I am sure you know, but for the benefit of the community, I will summarize some key relevant points below:
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The main regulator in the ICO space is the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), who governs and oversees the country’s regulations involving money, insurance, banking, securities, and currency issuance.
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Digital tokens may represent a security interest over or ownership of an issuer’s property or asset. These tokens may therefore be recognized as an offer of units or shares in a collective investment scheme. Further, under the SAF, digital tokens may represent a debt owed by an issuer and essentially considered a debenture.
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MAS maintains that where digital tokens constitute securities or units in a collective investment scheme, you need a prospectus, and may be subject to recognition and authorisation requirements. You can be exempted from the prospectus requirement if the ICO:
- Does not exceed S$5 million (or around US$3.7 million) (Tomochain raised US$8 million)
- Is a private placement made to no more than 50 persons in 12 months
- Is made to accredited or institutional investors under certain conditions
So given the above, I believe the key philosophy is the act of issuance of tokens towards public investors does constitute certain obligation (and to the Nazi style people in the telegram groups: a purchaser of the coin is an “investor” in certain sense, you guys are either misleading on purpose or just being ignorant). I am sure the regulators won’t like it if issuer, for example, spent the funds raised on a sports car while the usage of funds are disclosed otherwise. I have made a request to consult with a representative from MAS after the Lunar New Year holidays to get further guidance in relation to the case of Tomochain. Please note I am not currently planning to make a complaint or accusation to the authority, but rather trying to get clarification re the rights of investors. We all hope the project to succeed but in the mean time fairness and respect is also deserved by the investors who gave the money to kickstart the project based on trust, don’t you agree?
Regards