The question of whether or not there were lies depends upon definitions. Understanding that people can and do have different definitions for the same word is the first step to resolving conflict.
Here is my perspective and thinking at the time we posted:
1. Steem is not a pre-mine because we did no mining before the code was public and anyone could participate
2. Steem is not an insta-mine because mining occurred at a fixed rate for a full month before VESTING kicked in, also mining continues for ever
3. Steem is not an IPO / ICO because we didn't sell anything before we delivered the goods
After we launched a new term was introduced 'ninja-mine' which I presume means "sneeky"... but we admitted at launch that that was our intention.
So all that people are left with is that "early miners" have the ability to "dump" and suppress the price. Guess what, miners have dumped much more than Steemit has sold. I myself have purchased a lot of steem.
Lastly, we designed the system from the beginning to encourage commitment and discourage dumping.
So it is relatively clear that the only people being deceptive and dishonest are the trolls who make accusations without knowing what they are talking about. The only people getting scammed are those who are scared away by the trolls. We have asked for nothing and given much. The market will sort out whether or not Steem has value.
Doesn't matter what you call it, the OP of the previous ANNs were misleading in the sense that it indicated that there was nothing wrong with the launch and it was a FAIR launch, which it wasn't, specially after you relaunched the coin after your miners crashed. Also I would like to see a notice in the op advising against buying on exchanges. The moment you need funding, you will dump directly on the people who are invested through an exchange. Do this an I'll stop taking part in this thread, because the instamine/premine/ninjamine (call it what you want) won't matter if you advise people not to invest, but to only take part in the steem forum community.
Saying "XY" can dump aswell isn't a response to this. You are the developers, you own the biggest stash of this token and you will 100% dump a good part of it, because you NEED the funding (this was clear from the blogpost). You can not tell if others will do the same. You need to play fair with your actions after that shady launch if you want to create a proper project and not just a for-profit one.
Currently you own the biggest stash out of everyone and no expenditure is accounted for and nothing from this is indicated in the OP, you just keep closing ANNs with the history of the project.