If you participate in a virtual currency fundraiser, take a good look at all the conditions of these Initial Coin Offerings (ICO), at the risk of losing everything.
This is the story that investors in the Swiss startup Tezos - specializing in blockchain technology - are currently living through, through the creation of a new secure transaction system.
This summer, they participated in a $ 232 million virtual currency fundraiser in the company co-founded by Frenchman Arthur Breitman and his wife Kathleen.
The sum is currently frozen, because of a conflict between the founders of Tezos and the operator of this ICO, the participants took a collective action in the United States, to request the repayment of their bet, recalls the Swiss daily Le Time.
Problem: their investment would not be one. It would be a gift, a detail that would have escaped them, says Le Temps.
"The general conditions of the ICO de Tezos specified that the amounts raised constituted a non-refundable donation and an extremely risky operation", writes the newspaper.
Also, for the lawyer of the founders of Tezos, collective actions have therefore "no value", according to statements reported by Le Temps.
Thursday evening, the 232 million euros were worth 611 million euros according to the price of 66,000 bitcoins and 361,000 ethers, due to the variation of the value of the two crypto-currencies.
These volatilized millions in Switzerland crystallize the whole problem of ICOs.
The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) warned investors this week of the risks associated with the acquisition of cryptocurrencies, saying "there is a risk of a" total loss of your investment ".