Tribal Finance ICO Allegedly Rugs Investors, Postpones Token Launch Almost Indefinitely

Tokenized private credit and financing platform Tribal Finance appears to have rugged its users through an initial coin offering (ICO) that was not launched after two years of unveiling.

According to a Reddit post by pseudonymous user Simple Man, the Tribal Finance team has delayed its plans, delivered on none of its promises, and will most likely never launch any coin.

A Two-year Old ICO

Simple Man explained that Tribal Finance’s ICO, TRIBL, was unveiled on CoinList, a U.S. crypto exchange and platform for selling tokens to early adopters, in March 2022. Simple Man took part in the investment, which was not his first, as he had registered for other ICOs with long waiting lists running in the 500,000s in the past.

Information about TRIBL on CoinList included separate token vesting schedules for options 1 and 2 of the coin. Option 1 involved the sale of 39 million TRIBL, which would be locked up for a year, followed by a linear release in six months. Option 2 had 25 million TRIBL for sale with a one-year lockup period and a 12-month release.

Per the token vesting schedule, all Tribal Finance tokens are meant to be in circulation at the time of writing; however, the circulating supply still reads zero. Worse still, Simple Man revealed that there have been a few newsletters from the platform’s team since 2022.

In March 2023, the team postponed the unlock schedule to April 9, 2024, and released airdrops to TRIBL CoinList participants to alleviate their concerns. The team claimed the delay was to “strategically navigate” the bear market conditions and support token value for the Tribal community. Tribal Finance said private investors volunteered to extend their lockups in support of the decision, believing such a move would benefit the project’s long-term health. 

TRIBL Release Postponed Indefinitely

Interestingly, Simple Man disclosed that he received no emails about the airdrop at the time and only learned about it after he contacted the CoinList customer support team because Tribal Finance did not release TRIBL as planned.

In an unexpected turn of events, the Tribal Finance team delayed the TRIBL unlock schedule again earlier this month, citing the “necessity for regulatory compliance.” This time, the team said the token release schedule may not occur at all, and updates on the project will be provided on or before April 30.

Meanwhile, the return on investment for TRIBL has declined significantly, with option 1 falling from 3.71x to 1.32x and option 2 slumping from 5.1x to 1.82x.