One of the rare photos of Ivan, current STeX CFO I managed to take a year and a half ago.
As I promised before in our telegram group, I Andrew Makarskiy, former STeX CEO, start a series of article gradually revealing the truth about what really happened in STeX behind the scenes. Forgive me any typos, plz.
As you may already know we were behind the schedule in the second half of October. Ivan Mityaev, STeX CFO and the third key member of the team was in charge of the new White Paper, the website content and the design of both the WP and the website. I knew Ivan for about two years since we often discussed trading algos on stock options. Then it turned out that our second member of my previous project was not doing his tasks properly often completing them to about 95%. We discussed this kindly and decided that he would come out of the project. I decided to give Ivan a chance and he took this new place in the team. In about half a year, Ivan started to give up his rate of work, often taking vacations. Since we lived in distant places from each other, I didn’t have a chance to learn what was going on really. On of my guess was that Ivan was exhausted and one was that he lacked enough funding and hence motivation. The latter one outweighed in my mind. Ivan had good ideas but also he had a pathological fear of delegating tasks to other people. Since it was me who introduced Ivan to Nick (Nicholas Prays) when we started the STeX startup, I knew Ivan better than Nick.
So, knowing Ivan enough, I was absolutely sure he would not meet his deadline with the WP, the website and design. I started to ring the bell, asking Ivan to show his progress. In return I either heard vague explanation that everything was going to be fine or Ivan was simply out of reach. I called Maxim Vladykin, our project manager and explained to him my fears. BTW, it was Ivan himself who stated in the telegram group that the new WP, the website and the design would be ready by October 31. So, I didn’t want to screw up STeX in the eyes of our followers and supporters.
I was going to fly and meet my team after I finished several important meetings with the key investors in Europe.
Then this skype conversation happened.
I called Nick and Ivan, they were sitting in one room and talking over one laptop. I started asking them about the deadlines, but instead, Ivan offered me a surprisingly unexpected offer. One of the key roles of Ivan in the startup was the legalization process.
“How much do you want for the ICO?” asked Ivan
“Pardon?” I answered.
“What share do you want for the casino ICO, Andrew”, Ivan elaborated.
“Pardon!?”, I repeated.
“I have a hedge fund manager in New York, who wants to build a casino in Cyprus”, Ivan said.
“Are you out of your mind”, I asked, “We are in the deep ass behind our schedule and this is what you are doing? Talking to your friends about new ICOs?”
“You see”, answered Ivan, “We can get acquainted with new key people in the banking sector by doing this ICO. They will help us with the legalization of STeX”
“Do you really think I am a complete full, Ivan?” I resented. “I already learnt that you are looking for easy money, but not now, Ivan! We must meet the deadlines, make excellent STeX ICO and develop the product. Only afterwards you can ask me this kind of questions!”
“One doesn’t hamper the other”, Ivan retorted. “Nick is already in. We need to collect 50 mln for this casino. At least 5 mln and they could take a mortgage.”. Nick kept silent and didn’t object. I heard him giving a light smile.
I took another tactic and tried to come from a different side. “Who is this hedge fund manager? Tell me his name and the name of the fund too, Ivan”, I asked.
After a series of my clarifying questions it turned out that this would be hedge fund manager was just an ordinary private trader having an ordinary account at a well-known broker Interactive Brokers. FYI, Interactive brokers doesn’t cover any sums larger than $500k by the SIPC insurance. For me everything became clear at that moment.
“Nick, don’t you see any problem here?”, I asked. “No, I don’t”, Nick answered. “I want you two stop quarreling and make a good team as before”.
“So, Nick, you mean that you don’t see any problem with that we wouldn’t have any WP, website and the new design in time?” I asked Nick again.
“Nope”, he answered.
“And you don’t see anything special here, that Ivan is spending his time talking to his friends and future ICOs?”, I asked Nick again.
“Absolutely nothing”, Nick said.
At that time I thought Ivan was the evil who controlled Nick’s mind, but I was mistaken.
P.S. Did you ever asked yourself a question, why Ivan is hiding his face? Both on the website and LinkedIn.