During the Ethereum ddos attack in October, it was stated that they would consider switching to a completely different blockchain if that was necessary to make the profit-sharing plan work.
Excellent point that ties in with what I just wrote on Reddit! The reason why profit-sharing depended on a stable network is that it was supposed to have been executed via smart contracts.
In response to a statement along the lines of "ICN is like any currency, based on trust that everybody agrees it has value,"
No, Iconomi was supposed to be different because profit-sharing was to be done via smart contracts.
From the whitepaper section on ICN (emphasis in original):
Ethereum smart contracts enable a very transparent and secure way of profitsharing among the token holders.
What this was
supposed to mean was that for each fund token created, there is a smart contract that securely, transparently, and automatically handles profit-sharing. This would mean that when I buy ICN, I know that there is already code on the Ethereum blockchain (that I can see and check for myself!) that will automatically take the appropriate management fees, other profits, etc., and distribute them to me at the address where I hold ICN.
That way, when I buy ICN I don't need to trust that people at Iconomi are going to do what they say, so much as I need to trust that the code will execute how it should.
(Same principal extends to the OFM platform. Fund investors are assured of the parameters and security of their investments by smart contracts, rather than just having to trust the fund manager(s)).
This highlights, even more, the enormous change inherent in the repayment program. Everybody could feel way more comfortable if the team said "Here is the smart contract we are deploying alongside the genesis of ICNP tokens to handle the repayment program at set intervals" instead of just "here's what we're gonna do."