TL;DR: Perennially confused BTC maximalist (maxi) Tone Vays admitted recently to being stumped more so than usual. After years of cajoling and hectoring supposed shitcoiners for daring to dabble in tokens and initial coin offerings (ICOs), maximalist scolds have themselves succumb on at least tokens and what sure looks like an ICO by another name. Prominent maxis appear tied to an F-1 filing with a new Ethereum-based security token, INX. Meme war combatants have taken notice.

Meme War Rages: BTC Maximalists Caught in ERC20 Sh*tcoin Scheme

Oof. You familiar with oof? It’s that involuntary sound one can make when something hideously obvious, deliciously ironic comes across your desk. Oof. It sounds exactly the way it feels. Oof.

Oofs spread throughout the cryptosphere when names like Litecoin founder Charlie Lee and Blockstream’s Chief Strategy Officer Samson Mow, among others, were presented as part of a prospectus showing investment in an initial public offering (IPO) for 130,000,000 INX Tokens from cryptocurrency exchange INX Limited, looking to raise more than $120 million.

“It’s utterly amazing to me,” Ethereum developer Anthony Sassano head-scratched, “that people who have been shitting on Ethereum for years (and calling it a scam) are now investing/advising a company that is issuing an ERC20 token. I’m at a loss for words at this point – just absolute insanity.”

Come to Jesus

BTC maxi apologist Udi Wertheimer attempted immediate damage control. “It’s not about being automatically good. You can’t tell if something is going to succeed in advance. But the 2017 ERC20 shitcoins clearly didn’t have the incentives in place for anyone to actually deliver any ROI. They were practically guaranteed to fail,” he danced.

It’s. Different. Now.

And perhaps it is unfair to not allow such charitable, kind, forgiving thinkers such as Mow to change his mind. We grow. We learn. Maybe Mow has had his Come to Jesus moment, embracing projects he once warned others about. Well, not exactly. Mow right up until the INX Token information was released publicly continued his familiar line against Ethereum, a project begun in direct response to long-standing maxi dogma concerning the BTC protocol and its development. “No,” he stressed on 20 August 2019, “it’s not safe to issue tokens on Ethereum.”

Mow has yet to make that clear in the case of the INX Token, evidently, which is described as “an ERC20 blockchain asset that is programmed using a smart contract that is compatible with the Ethereum blockchain, and the rights of the INX Token holder, which are contractual rights set forth in the INX Token Purchase Agreement,” according to the company’s prospectus.

Poor Tone Vays

About two months earlier, INX “Board of Directors of the Company approved the issuance of an aggregate number of 2,358,820 Ordinary Shares par value GBP 0.001 each, in consideration for an aggregate amount of $2,462,610, which was invested by the following investors in accordance with the allocation set forth below,” which includes Mow, to the tune of $100,001, according to the US Securities and Exchange (SEC) filing. He’s also listed as an Advisory Board Member.

(Hilarious side note: “Under a Share Purchase Agreement dated September 27, 2018 between the Company and SPiCE Venture Capital Pte. Ltd a limited Company incorporated in Singapore, the Company issued to SPiCE 478,927 of our Ordinary Shares, par value GBP 0.001 each, in consideration for $500,000 and a warrant to purchase additional 622,605 Ordinary Shares at an identical price per share to be paid in US$ or SPiCE Tokens, under such terms as further described in the Share Purchase Agreement between the Company and SPiCE. The warrant was not exercised and it expired on April 2, 2019.”)

“This is NOT an ICO,” poor Tone Vays began in earnest at the cognitive dissonance happening all around him, “but will be a registered & compliant security – Just like $BNB this is a scamy & bullshit usecase for a Utility token. – Launching on #Ethereum is beyond Stupid & a few of their advisors should know this, even though everyone on that list works w/ #Shitcoins.” Not too long after, Vays continued, flummoxed. “So don’t really know what to say on this one,” before inviting Mow and other maxis “to discuss this $1.4 Million investment” in another venue.

Vays and BTC maxis will have work out who is the Stalin, Churchill, and FDR in this meme war scenario, along with whether they’re Axis or Allied powers at this point. It’s all so confusing, especially for Tone. Could this be the maxi’s Yalta? Or is more like the Hitler-Stalin pact of 1939, which some revisionists believe to be the eventual beginning of ceding Poland altogether? Whatever the case, I am really worried about the fragile soul that is Tone “Buy the Dip” Vays. ‏Oof.

DISCLOSURE: The author holds cryptocurrency as part of his financial portfolio, including BCH.

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