IP.Gold: A Cautionary Tale of A Tarnished ICO — Part 2

a multipart series told by the founders detailing how you can make all the right decisions and still fail.

Part 2: Failure To Launch

Sorry all for the long hiatus, but life gets in the way when you’ve made other plans!

Previously, in Part 1, with just 2 week until the IP.Gold April 15 Public ICO launch, IP.Gold was left little alternative but to sign a contract with Tech Bureau テックビューロ株式会社 /COMSA that went from working directly with Tech Bureau Japan and providing full marketing and ICO support to 288,000+ engaged COMSA/ZAIF community members to offering zero marketing support and blocking access to US and Japan COMSA/ZAIF members, the majority of their community, and signing with the newly-formed and understaffed Tech Bureau EU, or risk our ICO launch date! After getting assurances from Takao Asayama 朝山貴生, Tech Bureau Japan/COMSA Chairman and Tom Beno, Tech Bureau Japan Board Member and Tech Bureau US CEO, that they had “private investors to introduce us to” — we weighed the risks, we signed, continued with our ICO launch preparations and waited for the private investors…. And waited, and waited, and waited until it was 2 days before our published launch date with COMSA Global, but still nothing. Then it really hit the fan!

The COMSA Global Platform team, lead by Tech Bureau US and Tech Bureau EU, informed us that they were having trouble getting all of the wallets for accepting currencies integrated and resources from Japan and that they would not make our ICO launch date! Really, 2 days before our launch Tech Bureau/COMSA Global finally realized they couldn’t integrate the wallets or launch us on-time! WOW! All that coordination, time, effort, energy and money IP.Gold and its advisors put towards the ICO launch, not to mention the personal and professional reputation, as well as the momentum created for the launch, slipped through our fingers as IP.Gold tried desperately to come up with solutions to launch on-time. After all, IP.Gold and Tech Bureau/COMSA put out a joint press release, albeit having the excitement of a which clearly stated the IP.Gold Public ICO launch date of April 15th to the world and resulted in a 30%+ boost in CMS token value within 24 hours!

Could we launch our ICO on-time if we processed some currencies manually until the integration was done? Could we launch on-time processing everything manually (like so many successful ICOs had done previously, including COMSA ) until the integrations were complete? Could we process KYC and AML manually after we took contribution (Like COMSA did) until we got it integrated? These are the questions we asked our “partners” at Tech Bureau/COMSA Global. To which we were either told that Tech Bureau Japan was reviewing the request and would get back to us with guidance and their decision/approval or fell on deaf ears. Why was Tech Bureau Japan approval needed? We signed our agreement with Tech Bureau EU expressly because Tech Bureau Japan could not be involved due to restrictions in Japan. After days, often weeks of waiting, Tech Bureau/COMSA would anser with more restrictions and no solutions, often blaming the Japanese FSA for their inability to act and meet the terms of their contract with IP.Gold. Tech Bureau/COMSA Global instead accused IP.Gold of delaying the ICO Launch because they failed to provide the proper resources to validate the integrations with the COMSA Global platform. Of course, this was only brought up by Tech Bureau/COMSA after they had missed the IP.Gold Public ICO April 15th launch date. In fact, for several weeks before the IP.Gold ICO launch date, the IP.Gold team stood ready and communicated its availability to fully test the integrations once Tech Bureau/COMSA had them ready. As COMSA was the platform provider, IP.Gold was integrating with the COMSA platform, not the other way around.

As the IP.Gold Public ICO launch date on the COMSA Global Platform dragged on, eroding momentum and reputations daily, IP.Gold learned much about the state of Tech Bureau/COMSA Global Platform. We learned that there was only one main developer, who designed/managed/built the core of the COMSA Global Platform, and that he was receiving little to no support from Japan, even though he had told Tech Bureau Japan during contract negotiations with IP.Gold they would not be ready for the agreed upon IP.Gold Public ICO launch date unless he received the appropriate resources. IP.Gold also learned that Japan was releasing only a trickle of cash to Tech Bureau US and Tech Bureau EU, often debating not paying for cheese on sandwiches, as well as other normal operating expenses! With over ~$300 million in liquid assets, which they converted from their $96 million ICO contributions, Tech Bureau Japan was arguing over paying for programming and support of their COMSA Global Platform, even though they were under contract to IP.Gold to do so. Of course Tech Bureau Japan hid behind the FSA, claiming they could do nothing or pay no money until the FSA completed their review and Tech Bureau/COMSA/ZAIF were operationally “de-coupled”. However, this rang hollow, particularly in the ICO marketplace, as Tech Bureau/COMSA/ZAIF competitors in Japan were not having the same issues, even though they too were under investigation from the FSA. To IP.Gold and its advisors, it was becoming more clear every day that IP.Gold and its ICO launch were used as a “patsy” by Tech Bureau Japan/COMSA to placate their discontented community who were questioning their commitment to their business model as a launchpad for ICOs.

So, back to the IP.Gold ICO Launch. ICO Launch date +2 days, +5 days, +7 days, and now the ICO community is publicly questioning whether IP.Gold was prepared to launch. ICO Launch +10 days, +14 days, the ICO community starts to become negative about IP.Gold, resulting in the erosion of any launch momentum and previous private investor commitments disappearing. ICO Launch +21 days, the ICO community is fully negative about IP.Gold and many start to question whether Tech Bureau/COMSA Global was ready to launch an ICO on their platform or if they rushed their platform to placate their community who were getting increasingly vocal about when Tech Bureau/COMSA was going to launch their ICO platform so they could contribute.

Finally, ICO Launch date +28 days, the IP.Gold Public ICO is launched on the COMSA Global platform with little more than an innocuous 1 line statement to the COMSA community members buried in their monthly user update. With all the momentum and money for the IP.Gold ICO Launch gone, response from the ICO community, and our Tech Bureau/COMSA “partners”, was almost non-existent. Private investors promised by Takao Asyama and Tom Beno never materialized, which forced investors lined up by IP.Gold to question its ICO and abilities, as our own platform partner was unable or unwilling to bring private investors they promised to the table. From IP.Gold’s point of view, Tech Bureau/COMSA failed to deliver the platform and services they were contracted to deliver in the time-frame they agreed to deliver them. Simply put, it was Tech Bureau/COMSA’s fault that the IP.Gold ICO launch was 28 days late, which resulted in the loss of all of the ICO Launch momentum, money and market reputation.

After a hard fight lasting several weeks, Tech Bureau/COMSA begrudgingly agreed that the delay “contributed” to the failure to launch the IP.Gold ICO. As Tech Bureau/COMSA was concerned about the advertising, marketing and endorsement restrictions put on them by the FSA, a compromise was reached with Tech Bureau/COMSA, communicated and coordinated by Tom Beno, wherein Tech Bureau/COMSA would issue another press release, Tech Bureau/Takao Asayama would issue an apology for the delay to the COMSA community taking responsibility for the failure to launch the IP.Gold ICO on the COMSA Global platform on-time and a marketing email would be sent out to the COMSA and ZAIF Exchange communities talking about IP.Gold as the first ICO launched on the COMSA Global platform. So, again, we waited and watched with anticipation. And as before, Tech Bureau/COMSA didn’t do what they agreed to do. On the day Takao Asayama was to make the announcement to the COMSA Community as a separate announcement, COMSA Global released a “platform update” message that contained a simple announcement from Patrick Spiess, the head of Tech Bureau EU, stating that the IP.Gold ICO was launched on the platform, but didn’t mention anything about why there was a delay and taking no responsibility. Further, the email that was supposed to go to private investors, the COMSA community of over 288,000 members and over 500,000 ZAIF Exchange members, was sent to less than 40,000 “select” COMSA members, even though the non-Japan/US COMSA community was well over 100,000 Users! So again, agreements were made between IP.Gold and Tech Bureau/COMSA and they chose not to deliver on these agreements. Tech Bureau EU and Tech Bureau US, IP.Gold’s main points of contacts, lamented that Tech Bureau Japan, the main company, and Takao Asayama, were responsible for not following through on the apology or the email, even though they were the ones that ultimately agreed to it.

Adding further insult to injury, while IP.Gold was negotiating with Tech Bureau/COMSA to send out the announcement/email, they urged us to come to the CONSENSUS conference in New York City May 14–16, as we would be showcased in their booth, getting lots of exposure to potential investors, as well as face-to-face introductions to their investors attending the show. Besides, Tech Bureau US made it clear that we would be reimbursed our expenses for coming to CONSENSUS. What really happened at CONSENSUS, was that the IP.Gold team, and a newbie hired only a few days before the show by Tech Bureau US, ended up staffing the booth 90% of the time and talking about Tech Bureau US and the COMSA Global Platform, instead of talking about IP.Gold and meeting investors. Why did we stay you ask? Because we were assured that we would meet investors “once the show calmed down after the first couple days” and that we were negotiating face-to-face about the “failure to launch” apology and email blast.

Now it’s the 3rd week of May 2018, more than a month into the IP.Gold Public ICO, and we are left with no launch momentum, all our monies spent for nothing, no apology or email marketing promised by Tech Bureau, no investor meetings or interest at CONSENSUS 2018, no private investor meetings promised by Takao Asayama, the ICO community calling us a failure and a scam, our personal and industry reputations slowly eroding, feeling used and abused. Worse yet, after staffing the Tech Bureau/COMSA CONSENSUS 2018 Booth an talking them up, Tech Bureau refused to pay our expenses — as they originally agreed — in writing!

Part 1:”The Future’s So Bright!”

Part 3: “Downhill From Here” — coming soon.

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