When the Envion team announced their project in January, there was a consensus among crypto enthusiasts that the company was destined for great things. The team went on to publish a deal that indicated that IBM was interested in partnering with them. This was after the crowdsale had generated more than $100 million from token sales.
Six months down the line, there is no indication that the project is still on course. The team complained that the IBM deal fell through. However, it soon became obvious that the management is involved in squabbles with founders, leading to accusations and counter accusations. Meanwhile, the investors are losing patience and hope that they would get the tokens they paid for or refund of their money.
The company CEO, Matthias Woestmann claimed that the founders fraudulently created extra 40 million tokens while the founders are saying that Woestmann illegally took over the company and refused to burn tokens in his possessions as previously agreed by the management. Woestman, who had successfully managed one of the biggest solar projects in Germany has gone further to insinuate that investigators might be invited to look into the issue.
A couple of days after making the allegations, Woestmann, released a video in which he said the founders created extra 20 million tokens instead of 40 million he initially alleged. On being confronted about the contradiction, he said “There is no contradiction: 41m Tokens have been created without the knowledge and permission of the board” 24m of them are totally illegal because they are not covered by the prospectus. And I generally would say that the German judicial system will bring light into the suspected large-scale fraud.
In his statement, he said that the company plans to create new tokens as replacement for the old ones that resulted in the management crises. He said that as soon as that is done, the investors will be issued the dividends as promised them. Speaking on why it took him two months to make the announcement and clarifications, he said he could not make any pronouncements without first having solutions to the quandary.
He further said that he only had $50 million of the money raised accusing the founders of lying about the amount generated. The CEO also hinted that his version of the events that led to the stalemate has been reported to Swiss and German regulators. On when the company would commence operations, he said that mass production was yet to start.
The founders on their part had a different story. Michael Lukow who led the founders said about the crisis “In the wake of his legal troubles, Mr. Woestmann has reinterpreted the ICO prospectus, its guiding legal document, to exclude tokens sold to pre-sale investors from the greater pool of sale tokens.” The founders said, making reference to the change in Mr Woestmann’s testimony on the difference in the number of tokens sold.
The founders whose profiles have been removed from the project website have already set up another through which they are reaching out to investors in the Envion token.
They accused Woestmann of illegally taking over the company and refusing to burn unsold tokens as agreed. While the crisis raged, the investors are increasingly worried that their money may be lost.
