Bitcoin Forum

I'm in the middle of a legal research project that involves assessing risk of enforcement against the businesses selling unregistered, restricted securities on this board and  stock exchanges like Bitfunder, BTC-TC, etc.

Any idea where can I find a breakdown of each securities' market cap, or at least a reliable list of the total shares outstanding?

Thanks in advance.

You'd need to calculate it yourself, other than on Havelock, which lists it.

On btc-tc it's on each individual security page's trade tab, right up at the top.

Would love to know what you come up with.

My bad!

Make sure to pass by the various exchanges to add up the numbers since some assets are listed on more than one exchange.

This is my primary concern - capturing all of the outstanding direct shares.  There doesn't seem to be a location providing this data.

Also, I don't want to capture pass-through shares.   Their market cap is pretty small, almost by definition.  Any US entity selling pass-through shares is obviously engaged in risky business, but a pass-through seller probably doesn't have any ability to comply with the securities laws anyway.

Marco,

This might help you:

http://www.asicminer.co/about.html (http://www.asicminer.co/about.html)

Enjoy!  ;)

great, the next piece the US govt is going to come after...  Luckily companies like asicminer are in china and out of reach, but US companies will be SOL since none of the crowdfunding legislation has been implemented (last I checked).  So much for innovation...

Anyone running an exchange outside of the USA on a .com domain would be wise to move it elsewhere.  Frankly I am surprised these aren't running on .onion domains ...

btw Marco if you need an assistant to gather all this data, I have the entire summer available.

Thanks for the offer. Are you in the legal field?

This is quite interesting, hope you do find what youa re looking for and publish the results.

Can you share the who and why of this project?

I would note that some of the issuers are intentionally distorting their market cap by making it appear there are fewer shares than actually exist.

Kslaughter of VMC/AMC likes to claim 40 million shares exist, but each share is 1 /100 Millionth of the company...

I can certainly share the "why" (if not the "who"):

Issuers of securities in the United States are required to register their issuance with the SEC and satisfy Exchange Act reporting requirements, unless an exemption applies to the issuance - usually under SEC Regulation D, Rules 504-506.  Registration under the securities act is a very expensive and time-consuming process, not something to be attempted by any of the small companies traded here - except maybe ASICMINER.

Small businesses - whether corporations, partnerships, or "funds" - selling shares, limited partnership interests or "bonds" to raise money for their business typically do so under one of the exemptions.  If an exemption applies to the issuance of securities, then full registration and reporting is not required.  The company need only fill out and submit a few forms.  Even after registration, though, the issuance will usually result in unregistered, restricted shares, meaning the share cannot be legally resold  within a year of purchase.  Though the reporting and registration requirements don't apply to issuers taking advantage of the Reg D exemptions, the antifraud provisions always apply.  Accordingly, these issuers will use a disclosure document called a Private Placement Memorandum (PPM) to disclose risks associated with the securities.  This document protects the issuer from lawsuits based on a failure to disclose those risks.

As far as I can tell, most virtual currency "companies" and issuers of shares, like the ones traded on bitcoin exchanges and this forum have not done any of this.  The reason is obvious: there's not enough money involved to pay lawyers to protect the issuer, not enough to pay lawyers to sue on behalf of any purchaser, and not enough to get the attention of the SEC.  It's my goal to find out just how much money is involved, and get a rough sketch of what the threshold might be for enforcement.

There is a vibrant bitcoin securities market largely because - as far as I can see - it has not met with any enforcement or explicit regulation at all.  I am trying to develop a model for determining why that is and how long it might last.

No, I'm getting an MSc Industrial Mgmt so I am comfortable with numbers/accounting/finance. My legal experience (loose interpretation) is limited to a couple US constitutional law classes and working at Oracle's finance ops & contracts business unit, so likely not what you may be needing.

But thought I would mention it just in case you need any grunt work done.

I have seen enforcement actions for ~$1M, although not in a while (who reads newspapers anymore?).

Many issuers have exceeded that level in market cap, if not in actual cash raised.

I think you would find that GigaVPS is very concerned about potential, or even pending enforcement action against him.  Why, I couldn't say, but his behavior screams that he believes he is a target.

In practice I think the typical SEC agent is going to find untangling the bitcoin story too much like work.

At least outside of Washington DC, I've found the rank-and-file SEC staff attorneys to be pretty sharp and motivated, but they tend to get hamstrung by upper management and political appointees higher in the foodchain.

Though it must be said that double listed securities only list the total of btct.co listed shares as total market cap. For example, ASICMINER has a far greater share total then the listed amount on btct.co

They are simply using the "listed"/available and total shares as a 'loophole' to inflate share equity. Very commons among securities on every single BTC security trading exchange. The market value only takes into account the amount of shares that are available among shareholders, not total shares 'emitted', as by contract. ASICMINER is another example.

You're welcome
TAT.ASICMINER   ASICMiner   Bitfunder    $170,714,827
ASICM   ASICMiner   Havelock    $164,818,520
G.ASICMINER-PT   ASICMiner   Bitfunder    $162,443,960
ASICMINER-PT   ASICMiner   BTCT    $161,020,039
TAT.ASICMINER   ASICMiner   BTCT    $157,786,020
S.MPOE-PT   MPOE   BTCT    $89,967,500
S.MPOE   MPOE   MPEX    $80,345,585
S.MPOE-PTʡ   MPOE   LTC    $75,075,000
G.MPOE   MPOE   Bitfunder    $67,901,293
S.DICE   Satoshi Dice   MPEX    $23,037,597
S.DICE-PT   Satoshi Dice   LTC    $22,167,600
S.DICE-PT   Satoshi Dice   BTCT    $21,631,000
GSDPT   Satoshi Dice   BTCT    $21,340,000
G.SDICE   Satoshi Dice   Bitfunder    $19,521,573
100th   100TH-mine   Pico    $18,764,131
SDICE   Satoshi Dice   Havelock    $16,781,097
AMC   AMC   Bitfunder    $12,028,000
proph   Proteon Pharmaceuticals S. A.   Pico    $11,468,515
G.BBET   Bitbet   Bitfunder    $8,401,817
S.BBET-PT   Bitbet   LTC    $7,630,350
S.BBET   Bitbet   MPEX    $7,032,549
BTC-TRADING-PT   BTCT   BTCT    $6,965,085
LTC-GLOBAL   BTCT   LTC    $6,758,115
VTX   VirtEx   Havelock    $4,850,010
pico   PicoStocks Inc.   Pico    $4,374,700
CRYPTO-TRADE   Crypto-trade.com   BTCT    $1,932,725
CRYPTO-TRADE   Crypto-trade.com   LTC    $1,822,275
S.MG   MG   MPEX    $1,261,485
HIM   Havelock Mining   Havelock    $1,202,800
btcQuick   btcQuick   Bitfunder    $559,060
CIPHERMINEʡ   Ciphermine   LTC    $551,460
COGNITIVE   COGNITIVE   BTCT    $414,960
DMC      Bitfunder    $409,505
BTCINVEST      Bitfunder    $262,094
TABITA      LTC    $211,575
RSM   RSM   BTCT    $152,767
Addiction   KNC    Bitfunder    $123,344
BITVPS   BITVPS   BTCT    $113,878
BitPride   BitPride   Bitfunder    $93,298
KCIM   Korb Mining   Havelock    $87,970
Win.Avalon   Batch 3   Bitfunder    $80,481
OPCU      LTC    $66,230
GPT.YABMC      Bitfunder    $61,433
COGNITIVE-PT      LTC    $49,140
TAT.VIRTUALMINE          $43,021
Cado.AvalonB3   Batch 3   Bitfunder    $39,906
LTC-MINING      BTCT    $29,408
ASIC.COOP      Bitfunder    $23,199
Bit-Inc      Bitfunder    $22,342
JAH      Bitfunder    $17,945
GPT.ESecBTC      Bitfunder    $15,435
LTC-CHARTS   LTC-CHARTS   LTC    $11,821
LTC-GAMING      LTC    $2,457
ZigGap      Bitfunder    $2,118

 :o 

How did you compile this info?

From looking at the info from all the exchanges?

It's wrong.

newspapers? I've never seen an enforcement action there but I wasn't into securities when newspapers were relevant, the SEC lists their enforcement actions on their website


check them out if you would like a nice mix of wtf, lolz and cognitive dissonance

yes, many companies have a few insiders that helped bootstrap operations and then Pass Through's were created that have no official relation with the security issuer, except the fact that you don't know who is running the pass through.


there are a couple US ones that are issuing straight up shares though. its a banhammer waiting to happen

an easy way around this is simply to say that you aren't offering your securities to americans. the SEC themselves admit that individual americans can get around this through the investor's incorporating their own LLC's in offshore jurisdictions, but there is no SEC consequence for the american investor doing this, the ISSUER on the other hand just needs to SAY that they aren't offering it to americans. with the advent of bitcoin, you don't know so its all good

I have a spreadsheet pulling the shares outstanding * price on each exchange and more.
Would be happy to share a link soon as I get my FTP site back up as soon if theres interest.

Ent, I didn't include anything off exchange currently. I am considering making a little site with btc stock info and could include those peak market caps. Anyone have that off-hand?