Heh, like I'd care. I only invested a minimum amount in the pre-ICO and I've written that off. I don't expect anything useful to come from this startup, after all that's been going on since their first whitepaper release. At this point, I'll just continue to observe, and I'll take Utrust as a prime example to argue against ICOs - if ever someone tries again to convince me of the contrary.  

Impressed doing what exactly? The ball is in their court now. So far, they have presented nothing in terms of the product - it was all about marketing and raising millions of dollars. I am sorry, if you want to play in this league, you better do your homework, and certainly don't expect your investors to feel sorry for you.

Aptoide is a Portuguese project, so it isn't that surprising given that Utrust is basically also Portugese (despite its Swiss shell company). The thing is, Aptoide repos are also hosting warez, so I am not sure if that is the kind of company I would want to associate with. Certainly not as a startup who is seeking the trust (pun intended) of bigger merchants.

https://www.change.org/p/support-aptoide-com-stop-hosting-pirated-and-cracked-apps

I think they are just terrible amateurs who didn't think the whole thing through. Which makes me very worried considering all their lofty goals they have outlined. The biggest red flag, as it stands out even more now, is that we're just dealing with a bunch of web developers who suddenly decided to jump the cryptocurrency train.

Good suggestion. Also: questions@finma.ch (requires your full name and contact address or it won't get processed).

They are not the first trying to pull that stunt regarding no-refund. ICON comes to mind.

At the end of the day, with all of this -- the frequent unilateral changes of the terms, the frequent delays on their roadmap, the dubious people they associate with (the debt-collecting agency doing the KYC has a horrible reputation, the person running their po box company in Switzerland is documented to be a stock fraud) -- whether intentional or not, it shows that they are less experienced than what their marketing efforts (including the paid shills) wanted to make us believe.

With all that, it's up to each individual to either continue to believe that they can succeed, or to dump this headache of a token as soon as possible.

I agree. And this is where my problem lies and possibly also the problem of some other investors.

Initially I trusted them and participated in the pre-ICO in September 2017. I kept all their documents from that time (with no KYC mentioned anywhere).

Then things became... less predictable. The change of the ICO start date. The change of the ICO end date a day before the ICO should have ended. Misleading information on their website ("regulated by FINMA"). And most importantly, the changes of the terms and conditions prior and also during the ICO.

I became more suspicious, less trusting, and started to ask questions. Most of the questions were left unanswered, or they were swamped over by hired chills from the bounties. Once they asked me to contact them directly by email as they were obviously not very keen to provide the answers in public.

I stumbled over other issues like their questionable choice of director running utrust switzerland (someone with a shady past involving stock selling scams), the fact that the company was founded just a few days before the ICO (in other words, there was no company during the pre-ICO, at least that's what I assume since they didn't answer this either), the fact that no one of the actual team is registered as a director of the company, and the fact that they chose a highly questionable debt collecting agency to do the KYC for them.

And now, after the passing of the ICO, there is their passivity, their lack of responses, all that after they got what they wanted (before I got tons of emails on a daily basis, now I get zero).

Trust is a tricky thing. Once you lose it, it's very difficult to regain.

Technically, who is there to tell them what to do with the funds, to touch them or not? Do you read anything specific and binding in this regard in the whitepaper?
 Remember - ICOs are unregulated.

Either way, there is a big difference between doing KYC before or after accepting someone's money. If you broker a financial transaction, which you do when you set up an address for receiving BTC or ETH, and if you want to be on the same level of compliance as a financial intermediary, then you better know who you are dealing with beforehand.

    I am not surprised. For the KYC, utrust chose a company with the worst reputation: debt collection agency Instrum Justitia AG. I can easily imagine how they don't care and turned off the connection on you... just google for

intrum justitia watchdog

and you'll find plenty of "interesting" articles and reports. To me handing out my personal information to them would be a risk I couldn't justify.

And there it is again, the "FINMA complient" myth. It's rubbish. ICOs, as of today, are still not regulated in Switzerland (contrary to what utrust had said when they misleadingly claimed to be regulated by FINMA).

Here is what FINMA officially says about utrust:

"UTRUST verfügt weder über eine direkte Bewilligung der FINMA für eine Tätigkeit im Finanzbereich noch über die Mitgliedschaft in einer Selbstregulierungsorganisation SRO als Finanzintermediär im Nichtbanken-Bereich. Wird im Zuge von Abklärungen festgestellt, dass ein Verstoss gegen das Aufsichtsrecht vorliegt, trifft die FINMA die erforderlichen Massnahmen."

With a link pointing here: https://www.finma.ch/en/news/2017/09/20170929-mm-ico/

"ICOs are currently not governed by specific regulations, either globally or in Switzerland. Swiss legislation on financial markets is principle-based; one such principle is technology neutrality. Collecting funds for one’s own account without a platform or issuing house is unregulated from a supervisory perspective in cases where repayment is not obliged, payment instruments have not been issued and no secondary market exists."

The KYC is a farce. If utrust were concerned about complience (and assuming that KYC was required for an ICO to be complient with whatever rules), the only way to be complient would have been to do the KYC _before_ letting people invest in their tokens in ICOs and pre-ICOs. By having allowed investors to open accounts and sending utrust BTC or ETH without prior KYC, they already breached whatever complience rule they may have envisioned.

Absolutely correct. In fact, thanks to the blockchain, they know for each account exactly how much was paid (in Bitcoin or ETH or both) and the address(es) the amount was paid from. To refund, they simply have to reverse the transactions, i.e. pay the same amount(s) (in Bitcoin or ETH or both) back to the address(es) they received the money from.

Especially if you check who they chose to do the KYC. Debt collector Intrum Justitia is the scum of the earth. God knows why they chose to work with them.

A "statistic person" from New Delhi, eh? And a blind one, that is, or why would you need a 20pt font size to scribble down your "scientific" findings?

Seriously dude, you have to try harder than this. For starters, asking critical questions and revealing cheap marketing tricks has nothing to do with "attacking" anyone. Second, until now I haven't had the honor of someone analyzing my "writing style", so thank you very much. I guarantee you it's the kind of writing style you'd see more frequently if you were to make the effort of reading content outside your little shilling bubble. Third, utrust is the only ICO-like venture I have participated in so far - in fact, I did not participate in the ICO at all but only in the pre-ICO, as I said before. I have no clue about monetha nor would I have any interest in them after my appalling experience with utrust and its shills. I assume it's just how it goes with most ICOs. Forth, even though it's none of your business, I registered here in June in order to be able to contact a member from Kraken to accelerate my tier 2 verification. And fifth, had you read what I wrote you would have also known that my very first criticism (="attack" in your vocabulary) was expressed when utrust drastically changed their terms and applied them retrospectively months after the pre-ICO. It was too obvious to ignore, and what followed was a further research by others and myself that revealed all the things wrong with this company.

It's a good lesson. This ICO and this thread in particular are prototypical examples of the lack of quality and level of expertise of people who are getting involved (or paid to) in ICOs.

It's all just fluff, just like the numerous press releases and (paid) online articles and spam tweets.

And it's so easy to detect, too, if you are actually willing to look. For example, since it hasn't been mentioned yet, go to their homepage. On the very top, just before the "buy tokens" button, utrust quotes Business Insider in the lead headline saying, "The payments platform of the future". Really? Utrust didn't provide a link to the source, but it doesn't take Google-fu to find it yourself:

http://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/UTRUST-Brings-Consumer-Protections-to-Cryptocurrencies-Announces-Pre-ICO-1002273983

That's right! It's one of the many shiny but empty company press releases that got reprinted in the markets section of Business Insider, just like any other PR Newswire release that gets reprinted there. Get it? Utrust is quoting THEMSELVES, saying how they are the payments platform of the future, and they make it look as if it was Business Insider who said these words. It just reeks.

Want more? A few steps further down, under "Featured in" you have a big Yahoo Finance logo with the quote "UTRUST will implement the world’s first cryptocurrency consumer protection into its platform." And where does it link to? To another company press release...

You are putting words in other people's mouths. Nobody said that Switzerland is a lawless country land without applicable regulations (I should know best because I live in Switzerland). This is different from you claiming dominantely on your website (well, until it was pointed out and you silently removed it again) that you are being regulated by FINMA, which is simply not true. FINMA does not govern conduct specifically for ICOs.


I contacted you several times. Here in the forum. Along with other people I am still waiting for an answer which, so far, you've been avoiding by cherry-picking the questions you like to answer.

Or are you saying that you are not officially representing utrust?

Let me ask you again assuming you just missed the questions before:

1) When I bought tokens during the pre-ICO, from whom did I purchase these tokens? What was the company at the time of the pre-ICO. Where was it registered?

2) How can I access the tokens from the pre-ICO? They are unrelated to the ICO, to the company who runs the ICO, and to the terms and conditions of the ICO.

At this point no, because there is nothing you can buy with them. In the future, perhaps yes, if they can be used in a payment system. From the utrust whitepaper:


In their own words, only after they received their answers from FINMA to regulatory questions, will it be possible to use them in payment transactions.

Honestly I am not worried how I look to you. I did share a link to the latest FINMA guidelines in which FINMA clearly stated that they do not regulate ICOs at this point. This stands in sharp contrast to what utrust has been trying to sell to us, repeatedly.


Please reread the quote. First, it reiterates that the ICO by itself is NOT REGULATED, as I said. And second, it differentiates that once a token becomes a payment instrument, regulations COULD apply. You are aware that, at this point, the utrust token is no such payment instrument. You may also remember that all of utrust's future planning is still subject to approval from FINMA (meaning they are not approved as of yet - and how could they, with hardly two weeks of company existance).

Still thinking I and others are spreading FUD? Well - did you notice how the "Regulated by FINMA" slogan just now disappeared from their homepage?    Instead we still see a huge "Featured in Yahoo" logo, which - surprise surprise - links to their own press release.

Before: https://imgur.com/a/wgndI
Now: https://imgur.com/a/IyJNn

Dear utrust, I am still waiting for your explanation: When I bought tokens during the pre-ICO, from whom did I purchase these tokens? Who was the company and where was it registered? And more importantly, what happens now with my tokens since the ICO is under a different company and under different terms and conditions which I did not agree on during the pre-ICO.

Wrong. You tell people to stay true to the facts while you are the one who is deciving investors by spreading incorrect information. See Finma regarding the "Regulatory treatment of initial coin offerings":

https://www.finma.ch/en/~/media/finma/dokumente/dokumentencenter/myfinma/4dokumentation/finma-aufsichtsmitteilungen/20170929-finma-aufsichtsmitteilung-04-2017.pdf?la=en

Under 2. Regulation:


and


Are you saying utrust is such a specific case and that FINMA carried out a conclusive regulatory assessment about utrust? Isn't it strange than that nobody of Finma, when contacted, was aware of you or your ICO? I am not surprised either, given that your company was just registered about a week ago. I wonder... under what company umbrella did you raise money during the pre-ICO? Can you please answer this.


Oh, and you think you're better than them? Again, you are talking about "FINMA's regulations" even though there are clearly NO REGULATIONS in regard to ICOs given by FINMA or anyone else at that point.

Please help me out: When I bought tokens during the pre-ICO, from whom did I purchased those tokens? What was the company and where was it registered? And more importantly, what happens now with my tokens since the ICO is under a different company under different terms and conditions that I did not agree on during the pre-ICO.


Uh? What does him doing some networking at some Fintech event have to do with Finma?

When you are trying to raise millions of dollars and gain investors' trust, you better do your homework and don't count on luck.

Perhaps they should've spent less time reiterating what a success the ICO has been upon hitting its soft cap. It totally contradicts their decision to extend the ICO, no matter market conditions and what not.

So now with their extended ICO they revised their white paper for the millionth time. Amongst the changes this paragraph was added regarding the ICO:

"It was expected to [sic] for the single round to run for a variable period no longer than 7 days or until all tokens were issued, whichever happened first. However, considering recent market developments and the acceptance of new countries in the ICO, the process will run until [DATE]."

That's convenient. Fill in the blank for whatever you see fit. First [DATE] was November 9 I suppose. Now [DATE] is November 20. And tomorrow... lies in the stars.

Oh, and the chart that follows right after still shows a total token pool of 1 billion. Common guys, you are collecting millions of dollars, and you cannot even concentrate on getting your lacking white paper right? It cannot be *that* difficult, and it's not just about writing pompous press releases, especially if you're planning to pioneer the world of cryptocoins in the future.