The design itself leads into dishonesty.
It does, but in this case it looks like (greed led to) dishonesty led to design. IMO.
They could have pulled the launch, returned bitcoin.
That would have given a certain kind of credibility.
Then tried again.
In over 18months development they could have changed the total #nokoins.
They could have changed the pay structure.
They could have changed anything.
They held surveys. They asked for imput.
They claimed innovation in the original WP only to admit it was a Blackcoin feature.
They claimed $2.25m investment only it was half in paid work by the team. (never clarified, corrected on coin telegraph)
They will not give details on "team" payments.
They claim to be professional yet ban a $10k investor from their forum because he asked for a promised update. (outcome of)
Their forum is a deliberate confusion of waffle.
They claim it is easy to get yet no getnokoin at launch.
Dan makes his first visit to nokoin forum and bans 3 members, (1 investor)
Mark denies deleting posts.
ect.
James any Baby left to misinform investors all summer long.
I mean... really.
What honest people would do that to their coin?
Yes, you're right... it's a dishonest design and behavior right from the start and they had much time to think about it and to correct it or just call it off.
What's interesting for me is: Dishonesty isn't very rare in Crypto. Naivety isn't rare, incompetence isn't rare. But there are experienced people in the team. They have obviously good connections. And nobody was able to anticipate what would happen? To calculate scenarios from best- to worst-case and find out that it makes itself impossible and irrelevant? They are surprised that there is a Block-Explorer before they were able to spread the supply? They want to grow and don't think about the pressure that would be? I mean, you and me and some others are looking a little bit into it... but how would it turn out if it's really about big money and if blockchain-experts analyze the ICO and if journalists digging deeper?
I doubt that anybody made much money out of it so far. Therefore I don't believe that they've sold much to the public... maybe they even lost money in this. And I don't see any possible scenario to turn it... Maybe they'll buy it all back and say that there was too much FUD and leave. ;-)