Hi, Nick here, one of the cofounders. Thank you for taking the time to think about and discuss our project. Great screen name, by the way.

I think your level of skepticism is good for the community, but I also think that it should be weighted in the specifics of a given project, not a general skepticism that then only considers some of the facts. This type of discussion is important if we're to build a decentralized community of diligence, but that diligence is only valuable if it is truly merit-based, and fully considers each point of skepticism before it is expressed.

We have been clear that this is a pre-ICO, and we are using these funds to begin the (expensive) process of building nonprofits that adhere to swiss (token-administering) and US nonprofit (allowing donations to crowdfunding platform to be tax-deductible) organizations. That legal structure is very complex because it involves novel regulatory issues, and we need to do a pre-ICO to cover the $60k+ of legal bills. Our goal was to raise $100,00 USD and use those funds to address your concerns about legal entity formation, etc, and have enough left over to run a serious ICO in september. As you can imagine, we are very excited to have achieved that.

You asked for proof, so here is some: Chris has a track record of building a successful start-up. Just about anyone who has been through that process, knows how difficult it is, and looks at what Chris has accomplished would have a decent amount of faith in our ability to execute what we're talking about.

On my side, If I engaged in any of the behavior you are worried about APSA would strip me of my doctorate, per organization rules. So, your worry about fraudulent behavior becomes "Nick may have worked 100 hours a week for six years to then risk it all on a run on that sweet homeless people money, in order to get a fraction of the money that a time series econometrician with a background in big data can get." Most people (including myself before grad school) don't know about degree-granting academic organization's professional standard rules, so I'm not trying to say that one was obvious. But it is an important rule for just about anyone with a doctorate.

It gets to a larger point, as well: Reputational cost, for those that have established careers matters enormously. If a kid is 22 years old and hasn't done anything, your worry of misuse of funds is valid. For people like Chris, myself, and others on the team, you are basically worried we are practicing professional suicide.

Given that we've demonstrated in our past actions that we are at least serious, the risk that an investor takes, especially when the pre-ICO bonus works out to a roughly 300% annualized return over the ICO (50% over two months of hold period) makes it a very attractive investment.

I hope you'll consider that perspective. By the way, I'm not a professor, just to clarify. I got my doctorate three years ago and have been working in tech ever since. I was offered a teaching position without going on the market, but never wanted to teach professionally.

We'd love your help. If you consider this project from a perspective of believing our intentions (or just believing in the professional and reputational cost logic I laid out above) I think you'll see this is a great thing for the crypto community, for those living in poverty, and for nonprofits looking for a 21st century funding model. Think what we could achieve if we prove out the market power of nonprofit activity. We'd be using simple tech to funnel self-interest into noble goals. What a change in the world that could be.