I hate to bring the other side of the coin here but it needs to be considered.
I agree with this analysis, and I am excited in general. And have donated more than I have to any other project so far.
But if the deal goes south, or this fails becaused of any reason it will deliver a SERIOUS blow to the image of Monero. I hope they know what they are doing.
Asking the community for 4500XMR (currently nearly a half mil USD) and then not delivering would be devastating image wise.
You're right, there's always downside-risk to anything *but* I don't feel like it's quite as bad as you're thinking.
If it fails, the failure will likely be mostly limited to being visible to the Monero community: I mean, if the project flops then by definition it sort of means nobody outside in the real world saw it or benefitted from it, right? So what the world is unaware of at all, cannot damage their perception of it...
The upside of positive visibility to the world-at-large, versus risk of the downside of "yet another marketing failure" (*cough*Jaxx*cough*) to be endured by the long-suffering but still relatively tiny Monero Community seems pretty acceptable to me.
Also keep in mind that this is "just" 450000 bucks today ... i say just because yeah it sounds like a lot... but alone all those steps to do the legal stuff, integration, development of tools is pretty cheap for 450000 ... and we didnt even consider the PR effect alone this could bring ... be it a retailer for slips, shoes, pampers or used condoms :p 450000 $ is a joke for good marketing
It's actually $900,000. $450,000 is the amount required of the FFS.
IF it is successful enough to repay, it is going to do so in a currency valued probably 10x or more higher... This also makes it harder to repay. I don't know where the balance lies, so maybe someone with the time on their hands will do some thinking on that, and get back to us.
EDIT:
nevermind. found it
Very soon!