you missed the point. tZero was going nowhere and got lucky. They extended their offering over and over again. Since the ElioCoin is private right now, we have no idea as to who is buying in. The real question is, where will ElioCoin be traded? I would assume tZero but I don't know if they are up and running right now.
The SEC doesn't recognize STO's or whatever they want to call themselves. tZero is marketing themselves as an STO platform with an Alternative Trading License (ATS), securitized to an asset. They are attempting to legitimize STO cryptocoins tied to an asset, instead of just ether; the bulk of cryptocoins to date.
Elio announced last August, an effort to raise $100 million via the traditional route of an IPO on NASDAQ. They pulled that this past spring, while announcing ElioCoin. Since then, even before then, the cryptocurrency market has certainly cooled. Why pull the IPO? Elio certainly spent time, effort and money to go this route. Certainly an established IPO route would work better than uncharted STO territory? I'm guessing there was little "qualified investor" interest to make that IPO successful. Keep the car, keep the name, but please bring someone in that can drive (pun intended) it to fruition. Paul can be Chairman of the Board, but not CEO...
"The capital markets are broken" argument from Paul is tired and old. Has been saying that for at least five years now. If the market believed in your product, your leadership, they would invest. Hundreds of $100 million dollar + startups have been launched since 2009. I'm not saying the product is bad, I like it. I sat/explored the black E1C, at the 2016 LA Auto Show. But certainly the selling of it has been dreadful; we need better stewardship. We know Paul keeps pounding the pavement, but there's been little result, financing-wise, in more than half a decade, other than recent crypto savior Overstock. Paul has little successful experience in this race and has been paid a handsome salary of $250K/year with little production results to show for it. The initial Reg-D stock offering raised $16 million of a targeted $25 million @ $12/share. Those monies, along with reservation deposits, have all been but a few, been spent. Stock price on the pink sheets have languished at between $2-$6 in the last year. "Where's the beef?"
Regarding tZero, okay, I'll bite. If Elio wants to change course and trade as an ICO, then so be it. They can join the literally hundreds of fraudulent ICO's listed in the last year on foreign trading platforms that have failed, labeled by the SEC as "scams", and have cost uneducated investors hundreds of millions. Is that where you want ElioCoin to go, an unregulated market? Currently, there are no SEC recognized STO trading platforms. What tZero is proposing, is the best bet right now, to legitimize the concept of an STO, via their ATS license. ElioCoin could be the poster child for an STO. The media coverage alone, given interest in cryptocurrencies, could be huge! Or just as much, a bust! Time will tell; we just don't know. Thus far, the pre-sale of ElioCoin has had muted ramifications for movement in the OTC stock price.
With ElioCoin, Elio is treading on foreign ground, with little transparency. When pressed for financial details, they keep hiding behind "SEC regulations", but for STO's, there are none, as they are not yet recognized, and under their purview. "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!" On the other hand, like being the very first the Reg-D stock offering, they could be a pioneer in the corporate financing space. Let's hope this venture is more successful. Like Overstock's Mr. Byrne, I share his dream of STO's of being the future of funding projects.