[samatman]

In my humble opinion, the question everyone is asking can be answered, more or less, by examining the following website:

https://imperialfamily.com

This will hint at where the money came from, and what's up with the exceedingly poor judgement.

[Clewza313]

Am I the only one who's seeing a Japanese Imperial chrysanthemum in the middle of that logo? Seems an odd move for what seems to be an almost entirely Korean-American company, even if it is slapped on top of a Korean rose.

[yongjik]

I assume it's this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_Seal_of_Korea

...which is apparently a related but different tree: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prunus_salicina

[broknbottle]

I think the bigger story here is how Mark Karpeles is involved.. If I wanted to be taken seriously then there’s no way I’d involve him in any legitimate venture.

Karpeles Labs??

https://www.shells.com/l/en-US/team

[MertsA]

There's a reason why any time the subject of Mark Karpeles comes up on HN rasengan comes out of the woodwork to astroturf and lie about how great his fraudster of a friend is. After Mark was unfortunately let out of incarceration Andrew Lee decided to hire the pariah as the CTO of London Trust Media (Private Internet Access).

He is not involved in any legitimate venture, he's involved in Andrew Lee's wallet.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26044256

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21684155

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21680910

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17378640

[geofft]

It seems clear enough that the money came from the sale of Private Internet Access.

(It wouldn't surprise me if some other portion of that money had a causal role in causing 'rasengan to get the blessing of one of the pretenders to the throne, though.)

[rambojazz]

I feel like this shadow company would fit perfectly with the other shadow companies that have entered Formula1 sponsoring in recent years. Next up: Freenode sponsored F1 car.