A vast majority of companies have adopted a stringent policy of decisive inaction with regards to government regulations and in particular the cuddly-wuddly little puffballs at the SEC during their ICO process.
Monkey Capital in a continuing effort to do everything sideways is facing the issue head on.
Today they released a Private Placement Memorandum (PPM) which outlines a new approach to creating legitimacy in the eyes of the United States and possibly setting a huge precedent of how ICOs should stop ignoring the existence of things beyond the blockchain.
It’s a horrid read, full of phrases like “PROMULGATED THEREUNDER AND OTHER EXEMPTIONS OF SIMILAR IMPORT” and several sections that sound like two lawyers shouting at each other. But if you take some time and really dig you can find the core concepts laid out in a fashion completely incomprehensible to anyone.
So, after chatting with the COO Joshua Hawley to get a translation, I have boiled down the 39 pages into these 700 or so words. I won’t cover it all, but you’ll get the idea by the end.
Let’s get to it.
The MC boys are now offering for sale actual paper that you can buy with money. You can actually write a check with a pen and mail it with a stamp to them like ordering clothes out of a catalog in 1985. The placements cost $1 apiece and there is a 1000 minimum order so don’t try to get handful with the contents of your change jar.
Keep in mind, in order to follow the rules, they are only available to US citizens who meet the qualifications of an accredited investor under the law. We all know what a pain that is. You have to fill out a form and send it in as well. No joke.
Now you can’t trade these placements or give them away or rip them up or basically do anything with them without express written approval from the board of directors countersigned by at least two deities but that doesn’t really matter. At the end of the ICO each placement will be converted into $1 worth of MNY tokens. This means a minimum of 1000 MNY for the smallest investment but probably more since the price of MNY will still be decided by the total ICO contributions divided by the number of tokens.
Right off the bat, you’re probably thinking: A snail mail option to buy with fiat? Really, I mean I guess I could send it ACH but even that moves at the speed of banks, almost as slow as getting BTC out of Coinbase. Why would they even offer it?
Because it’s the way the world actually works. This is how businesses outside of crypto operate all the time, they get legal teams like Ernst & Young and a broker like UBS and they go through all the convoluted paperwork to show everyone that what they are doing is legitimate and they are the kind of boring rule-followers that you can feel good about handing money to.
Disrupting an industry is great, and Monkey Capital is doing that in any number of ways but they have realized that disrupting your own legitimacy is not a good long-term play. With this they are stepping up and saying that “we are a real business and we are hiding nothing.” The gauntlet is laying at the feet of the other ICOs now.
Don’t worry, they haven’t had a total break from our reality. The ICO is still going to proceed as planned and you will be able to send Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ripple, and others to directly purchase MNY. COEVAL holders will still be granted 10,000 MNY for each token (fractionally too) to their wallets.
Normally I would close with an invitation to come ask questions in the Slack channel and you should if you already have an account but recently the open invitation was revoked due to a plague of trolls. It was a controversial decision in the community but it has proven to be very positive.
Additional information is available along with the whitepaper and whatnot on the Monkey Capital website. There is also contact information for everyone involved or if you prefer you can leave questions in the comments here and I will try to answer them as best I can.