I think folks do not really “get” that 5% part. Perhaps it has not been clear (PS not yourself)
5% of all safecoins have been reserved for existing maidsafe investors. They are held by the foundation and investors can swap their shares at any time for these. Currently they are below the price some paid for investment so would not be a good idea.
As original investors swap over to safecoin their equity belongs to the foundation. Therefor maidsafe gets owned by the foundation.
There is no force or anything here, original investors may swap some/none etc. and initially I think very little will happen.
It’s as though our original investors now have a constant “buyer” for their equity stake and this “buyer” tells them the price every day (value of safecoin). So it’s very good for them, good for us and great for the community. We want a team of Engineers working hard on the core and also a team we can put our finger on at any stage and speak to etc.
Of course this does not mean there wont be others, many more and many anonymous so it’s all very good I think. It’s not like these get cashed in and given out, they are swapped, so we have a ton of additional investors in an appreciating asset, I think that will do the opposite of flood the market, but instead make it a larger more solid market, these people have shown immense ability to hold steady in their investments so far over a 10 year period, they are likely very stable today. We will see though.