Perhaps Iota folks may have started to morph the presentation of their endeavors to prospective "investors", because of this thread I did on the legality of selling unregistered shares to investors:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1218399.0In any case, I do not take sides on this issue. I am not making any accusations of bad intentions nor intentional fraud.
If they have already raised money in the form of shares (and I have no position about whether that claim is true or not because I don't know), I will just note that per my thread above, it is seems impossible for them to now claim they are not offering an investment and have it stand up as a valid argument in a court of law w.r.t. to (at least USA) securities law.