1. First of all let's clarify that there have been many successful ICOs and projects launched with anonymous teams, so we are hardly breaking new ground here.
2. As we have said before, we would like our proposal to speak for itself, and we do not believe that revealing our identities would add any significant value to this proposal.
3. We believe that a person’s name guarantees nothing, (at least not unless it is a very well-known person within his field), and in the fast-changing and largely unregulated environment in which cryptocurrencies and assets currently exist we see few benefits for either the investors, or the founders, to fully divulge their identities.
You have full access to the team through various channels, including here and on Slack http://angelinvestors.io/slack. We only use our first names, but you can ask us anything you want, and we will do our best to answer you.
4. For those of you that have invested in other ICOs that pay dividends, (in Ether or otherwise), you should also consider the fact that anything centralized, (i.e. the people behind the ICO are easy to go after), is much more likely to be tied up in legal battles and/or have "difficulties" meeting old or new compliance regulations.
These legals situations may at times prove to be directly harmful and dangerous, not only to the founding team members, but also to the investors. They may also hinder the team from being able to always act in the best interest, (i.e. most profitable) for their token holders.
Various governments around the world use force and threat of violence (i.e. prison), often in an almost arbitrary manner. They go after certain companies and people, and sometimes imprison them to "set an example", even if there are no victims and no crime has taken place.
When you offer something like an ICO to an almost worldwide audience it is easy to fall foul of some regulation somewhere...
We are doing everything we can to avoid legal trouble of any sort, and to make sure that we don't breach any regulation that we are aware of. That includes not allowing investors from those countries that have made it clear that token sales and ICOs could be considered securities in their jurisdiction to take part in the ICO.
However, since new laws and regulations constantly come into place in various parts of the world we feel that staying at least "semi-anonymous" may give us (and all other Angel Token holders!) another small safeguard for the future.
If were to do anything truly criminal, like stealing the 20% of the funds we raise during the ICO as "the newbie wodan11" suggested above, our anonymity here certainly won't protect us from law enforcement. This is more about not making ourselves "the easiest target in the forest"...
ICOs are generally risky, and this one is only slightly different.
Yes, we are an anonymous (or semi-anonymous) team, but we also offer the 80% Guaranteed Investor Protection through our immutable Ethereum smart contract.
This means that an investor basically remains "in control" over 80% of his/her's invested Ether until March 7th 2018, and 40% of the invested Ether until April 26th 2018.
At any point during the coming 5 months they can simply initiate an immediate and automatic refund of up to 80% of their investments by simply sending their tokens back to our smart contract from the same address they sent their intial Ether investment. We believe this offers more protection than almost all other recent ICOs, despite the fact that we are not completely open with our identities.
However, we do understand that some people may have wanted to take part in this ICO, but are concerned about our anonymity. We can fully appreciate any such caution and if that is how you feel, we are not trying and persuade to invest in this ICO.
What we suggest is this.
Read our white paper, review our smart contracts on Github and review the Initial Coin Offering as we have laid it out in the white paper and on our website.
If you believe that our goals are achievable and that we have set-out a sensible and rigorous structure, and that our smart contracts are secure and robust, then join us in our vision for the future of Angel Token and help us create it.
Our smart contract allows you to scrutinize our performance and ensures that you can always recover at any point (until March 7th 2018) 80% of your investment.
Reach out to us and get to know us over on Slack, or ask more questions here.
In the end, if you decide that this is not for you, we understand. Each one has their own criteria for risk and there are zero hard feelings from our side if you don't join us...we promise!
As a team we believe very much in "if it's meant to be and we are good fit it will happen, and if not that's ok too".
We don't try to hard-sell anything we do.
We's rather just point to the opportunity and honestly explain what we can do, and then let people decide if they think we are good fit for them or not.
If you do decide to invest, only invest as much as you can afford.
Yes, you have the 80% Guaranteed Investor Protection, but even so, always stay within your comfort limits when investing in ICOs.
For those of you that DO decide to join us, we very much look forward to seeing you on the inside!
