Bitcoin Forum

Recently there has been a lot of buzz revolving Scharmbeck and their services.  Since launch there has been an enormous amount of skepticism and hype surrounding their Cryptostock IPO.  I would like to write this from a purely analytic and unbiased stance. 

Diclosure: I still have a small stake in Scharmbeck stock, though most of it was liquidated on the 500 BTC announcement news for reasons I am about to explain... I am also a “rich list” worldcoin holder.

https://cryptostocks.com/securities/60

As you can see, the 500 BTC announcement created serious momentum, but amongst who?  The answer to that is simple:  Gamblers....

The fact of the matter is that serious investors have several reasons to believe that this stock is not going to pay for itself, ever, regardless if it takes off, for anyone that buys into the second offering.  Why is this, and what are the warning signs?  Lets take a look and three reasons that create a little bit of suspicion, and downward momentum on the stock price. Also, I welcome the stockholders and company to take a stance here.

1)The 500 BTC bounty scares away serious investors (And those are the ones with the money, and who dumped their SBFS stock at .037-.042). 

            One thing is for sure, something that gained that much momentum that has nothing to do with the actual product and/or services being released can cause panic amongst investors because they know .05 is the ceiling for the next forseeable future, in which case, they have about a 4 million dollar wall (5,000BTC) to chew through if/when Scharmbeck proves themselves as a legitimate financial enterprise (plenty of time to get on board for most of us nerds).

2)Their company valuation is simply too high

                  So how does company valuation even work anyway?  Well the problem here is technically SBFS is an 'illegal' security if they were to list the company to have unregistered “ownership” of a registered business or company on Cryptostocks (For those in the game for a while, this is not news, but as a simple reminder, buying any “stock” on cryptostock is not buying any portion of the company legally, and thus 'projects/companies' cannot actually offer it).  The problem is Scharmbeck is asking for roughly $5,000,000 USD for 20% total feeshares of their services (90% of that from the second offering).  This kind of money is no small request, and all told with this recent attempted publicity move with the 500BTC, it scared away its more “serious” investors and attracted a slough of  gamblers who see this stock as essentially a lottery opportunity.  If they were were playing by standard valuation rules, and lets pretend that fee shares account for 100% of the company income, and thus feeshares=company ownership, then their company valuation is roughly $40,000,000 USD (4x the value of all the WDC in circulation!).  Ouch!

3)Their dividend was obviously padded, or there is something I'm not seeing here...

                  So a 16.264  BTC dividend from their last month of beta testing rounds.  That sounds great, right?  Well hold on, before we go rushing off to thinking that 'once Scharmbeck launches, the dividends will be WAY more than that, lets do some math:  That is roughly $13,000 worth of FEES.  The problem here is that, lets say Scharmbeck uses a similar fee structure to coinbase (1%).  So that means they did about 1.3 Million dollars in volume (or roughly 4 Million Worldcoins) passed through that “beta system” in a month. BUT WAIT, it gets worse, that would be the case if Shareholders got 100% of the feeshares, but as it stands, we only get 10%, oh shit, so that means they did 13 Million dollars in buy/sell actions and 40 million WDC in volume (That is roughly equivalent to the amount of coins in circulation if that is indeed the case.  That large dividend, needless to say, really scared me.  This reminds me of the early days of reddit where there were fake posters, fake accounts, and paid content writers.  This is known in the tech startup world as the “fake it 'till you make it strategy'.


In conclusion I am not questioning the legitimacy of Scharmbeck as a company, as one can form their own opinions on that topic, but one must be weary about handing over hard earned cash when dealing with this stock. Until it proves itself and secures some big named venders as merchants and has a large user base, their stock is a liability, and shouldn't need more than its initial raising of of capitol to at least open its doors and to start doing business, especially if their BETA test was so successful monetarily :P.  If and once that happens, and if the stock is low enough, you might see me jump back on the bandwagon, but WDC would have to take off like a rocket for this to ever sellout of their second offering or justify even a third of the price it is being sold at!

You don't say... Worldcoin, who has a long history of engaging in shady activity, continues to engage in shady activity with their newest venture?

Groundbreaking stuff here. ::)

Thank you for your timely post, there is a paid content writer on Twitter(I suspect he is) who is doing a promotion for this Sharmbeck share things, and I almost got sucked in. By the way, on Cryptostock we can buy Cryptsy shares too, I quite like this company, and would not mine to own some shares.

Crypsty sucks, better buy a working exchange's stock....

like Coinex

Thank you Shysterza for your well argumented post.


I own WDC and wonder if you can tell me about that shady past of WDC? Really interested from an investor point of view. Thanks!

Same

WDC is an all right investment... Not something I personally am in on right now - But I understand why others are.

Lots of claims of Premining and other things early on http://cryptolife.net/exposing-the-worldcoin-scam/

Really shady developers.

And Scharmbeck has had some shady activity recently. OP's post is one instance.. Another is when they posted 'We are temporarily shutting down' and then deleted the post and refused to respond to my and others emails about it. I was interested in some Scharm sales because it looked like a really legitimate business, but these events have scared me away.

UNOCS, for starters.

Or how about rolling back (with no prior notice) the blockchain to reimburse realsolid after a 51% attack? At everyone else's expense, of course.

I remember that.  So sad.

Hey dipshit don't blame worldcoin or feathercoin for unocs they had nothing to do with what happened with unocs........

The block chain correction was NOT to reimburse realsolid, it was to fix a fork, and no prior notice is required for this kind of action.

Hazard, you're a wonderful source of disinformation.

Re: The Scharmbeck 'Stock' Dilemma
-----------------------------------------

 What stock? There is no stock. No equity = no stock. Never was.
It's "fee-shares", and that's not stock, nor equity of any type.

 It's simply a way around regulations. And a terrible one for all investors since they own nothing
but a 'right' to a fixed percentage of what amounts to vague and easily manipulated company net profits.

 Has one ever heard of the term 'aggressive accounting tactics'. Yea, well, I pass.


 Toss in that most are severely math challenged, and refuse to even crunch the simplest of numbers
and wham. We have another dilemma. Of course the OP didn't spell dilemma correctly either, nor take the
time to use the built in spell check feature.

 Yes, I reviewed their offer. No, I didn't accept it. And the 500 btc giveaway didn't do anything but
completely turn me off since that would be coming directly out of the fee-share dividends too.

 As for Scharmbeck? I don't know. Don't know them. At all. But that is certainly going to be an extremely
challenging field since many are rushing into it, and some with mighty deep pockets, and not asking any
one to help fund them, in any way, shape, or form. In fact some are already up and running. With direct
fiat to crypto by way of ACH and Bankwires, and with a major bank as their fiat transfer agent at least
the one I am referring to.

 Yet the only serious, clean, full spectrum Exchange so far is Cryptsy. And their getting better and better.
I did own some of those fee-shares in Cryptsy, for about a day, until I realized that the big guns have
just arrived, so I turned around and sold those shares, not wanting to gamble. Then again I doubt Cryptsy
will fail, and likely end up as at least one of the biggest exchanges. Where as Scharmbeck is tunnel visioned
their focus to merely one Crypto-Currency. Which is fine and dandy, but quite limiting. Then again I didn't
rush back into Cryptsy Fee-shares again either. Which says a lot right there. I might be tempted to grab
some real stock in Cryptsy. Much more so, than say mere 'fee-shares'. Then again, I don't like wagering
on other businesses unless the risk/reward calls for doing so. Especially these days!

 So far Cryptsy has their act half-way together. Their business model is solid. They have real profits,
and is a very active exchange service, growing by leaps and bounds. Sure there's plenty of growing pains too.
But we're all merely learning this. After all it's still sadly all in beta, all of this. I myself have over 2000 trades on Cryptsy, with few problems, and all fully resolved.

 I hope the best for Scharmbeck & Worldcoin. I have owned wdc for a long time. Started mining it shortly
after it came into existence in 2013. Since then I recently sold off much of wdc, before the recent long decline in almost all crypto-currencies, and then most recently re-purchased some on the hopes that Scharmbeck and other emerging Exchanges would drive more demand for wdc. So far that's not the case though. So far just like almost every other Alt. currency hardly any of them can get their acts together.

 2014 is The RACE to the Mainstream Marketplace. But from the looks of things most are still trying to get their acts together. And not even in the race at all yet. At least Scharmbeck is trying, or at least it looks like their trying, to do something. Yet it's not clear if their investors will end up happy, or disappointed.



Caveat emptor - let the buyer beware!

the one that does not have any volume to support its feeShares price ? :))

Hazard has "coin creation service" and he is calling most coins a scam. This guy is one of the biggest morons nature produced.

you sober?

Yup, I sold my Scharmbeck shares during the hype a week ago for almost 0.04BTC a share.
These coins I spent to buy the real asset (WorldCoins).
I think investors should start concentrating the real deal. The WorldCoin will be around 0.1 BTC in a few years.
I am following their Facebook group and I am amazed by how fast the WDC developes.
WDC, like BTC, is not get-rich-quick-scheme. Rather it is get-rich-in-a-few-years-from-now-scheme.

As there are more services and goods that can be purchased by using WDC, the price will start skyrocketing due to the increased demand.

On WorldCoin Foundation's discussion forum there is a lot of speech of lowering the block reward of the coin. If this will take its place, it is very bullish sign for WDC and probably one should start hoarding WDC.

Remember, the golden rule: when price goes up by 10 times, sell only 10 % of your existing WDC position.

Let's say, you are WDC-rich and have 100 000 WDC. When the price goes to 0.0035, you sell 10 000 WDC (and you will be left with 90 000 WDC, then perhaps you could consider putting some of BTC to aside waiting a small correction).
When it goes to 0.035 BTC-levels, sell 9 000 WDC (you will be left with 81 000 WDC). Then you have total of bitcoins 350 BitCoins.
If you buy 100 000 WDC today, it will cost you only 35 BTC at the current price.

Summa summarum, after investing today only 35 BTC in a few years you will be left with 350 BTC + 81 000 (valuable) worldcoins.

However, this is a risky thing - but I think the odds are favorable.

Are you are the same "hazzard" on satoshi poker?

You guys are crazy, buy shares now with all the bad news then sell them on Feb 27th. Come back and tell me you didn't make a profit, I dare you.

I'm worried by the bounty too. Looks like the fake it till you make it strategy

Like I posted on Reddit, if you read through their announcements on Cryptostocks, you'll see that the dividends also are shares of the fees from their mining pool. They also were running their own 20mh rig and paying 100% out to fee share holders in BTC. That means the dividends are made up from a combination of: Sharmbeck transaction fees; Mineworks mining pool fees; Scharmbeck's own mining.

Whether those numbers add up or not, I don't know, but I thought it'd be worth mentioning.

=====================================================================

 Shysterza, You might want to recheck your facts below: here is a quote directly from their offering at:
https://cryptostocks.com/securities/60

 Notice this part: "...  100% of net fee revenue (i.e., gross revenue less operating costs) generated by all Scharmbeck business activities will be paid on a monthly basis to shareholders (1 SBFS = 0.0001% of fee income). Please stay tuned to Scharmbeck’s twitter feed at https://twitter.com/scharmbeck for up-to-date information... "

 Now that isn't what the quote by Shysterza above says, but WHAT I STATED prior. ie, the "NET" profits, of yes, of FeeShares, and all their other "business activities...". Which isn't equity (stock), but merely the "right" to a percentage of certain stated NET earnings that they state they will release monthly.

 The point being that it's not the "gross" profits, or the value of the gross fees collected, plus whatever gross income they collect, but what the "net" profits are. And after executive salaries, and all other business expenses, which are extremely opaque at this time, of course, with no sustained earnings, no profit/loss statements, no balance sheet, or any sustained length of business activity since it's in fact a start up. Not to mention no defined business plan laying out salaries and typical fixed business expenses as well as other estimated business expenses that any well done business plan would estimate and project. And well it's all on faith, shall we say.

 Of course they did not misrepresent anything that I am aware of. And I don't claim that either. Just pointing out the details, and the straightening out the facts, for anyone that runs across this deal. I wouldn't want others mislead. It's not nice to be misleading about anything, especially other peoples investments. Then again it's up to everyone to do their own due diligence. As I did.

 Fact is though there listed at  https://cryptostocks.com/securities/60  as "FeeShares", meaning I suppose and speculate that the majority if not the vast majority of any earnings will in fact be from the fees collected. Per:

Ticker   SBFS
Name   Scharmbeck Fee Shares
Listed on   November 04, 2013 21:02
Owner   doug@scharmbeck.com

  I didn't mislead. But someone else just did above here, by not mentioning about the "net' part, of the profits side, of the equation here, where I quoted them, above here. SEE THE FULL TEXT above, and BELOW for the Press Release and the Offering details. As always verify everything yourself. Don't trust anyone anywhere when it comes to money. And never take anyone's word for anything concerning money. GET IT IN WRITING:

Disclaimer: I have nothing to do with SCHARMBECK WORLDCOIN FINANCIAL SERVICES. But I do in fact own Worldcoins. And it does matter how this plays out. It concerns me too, since it could effect Worldcoin.

 So I edited the above text of mine, to be quite clear on every last point I made, right after 1st posting this last reply. I now wash my hands of this entire messy affair. I wont bother with this topic again in this tread. There is no need to do so.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


https://cryptostocks.com/securities/60

"Press Release: 05 November 2013 [updated: 28 January 2014]
SCHARMBECK WORLDCOIN FINANCIAL SERVICES
Scharmbeck is offering the final round of 100,000 non-dilutable fee shares (ticker symbol SBFS) at a price of 0.05 BTC per share. Scharmbeck fee shares are offered and administered on the cryptostocks.com exchange. 100% of net fee revenue (i.e., gross revenue less operating costs) generated by all Scharmbeck business activities will be paid on a monthly basis to shareholders (1 SBFS = 0.0001% of fee income). Please stay tuned to Scharmbeck’s twitter feed at https://twitter.com/scharmbeck for up-to-date information.

Revenue produced from the offering will offset costs for regulatory licensing, full time development of new services, and will capitalize Scharmbeck for growth. Fee share owners will be able to vote on new services and features that will help shape the future of Scharmbeck and Worldcoin!
Beta testing of Scharmbeck’s cloud-based service to buy-and-sell Worldcoin with a U.S. bank account began on 20 December 2013. Open beta is expected to launch in February 2014. Three-tier security has been implemented for armor-plated fund protection. Scharmbeck is registered with FinCEN.

500 BITCOIN BOUNTY
Scharmbeck is offering a 500 BTC bounty (approximately $485,000 USD equivalent; ref. www.mtgox.com) to celebrate meeting initial beta test, marketing and social media goals!
Rules for collecting the bounty:
1. A randomly selected Scharmbeck Feeshare (SBFS) holder will be invited to perform the simple bounty task within seven (7) days of Scharmbeck selling out second round SBFS shares on the Cryptostocks exchange (https://cryptostocks.com/securities/60).
2. Eligible SBFS holders must own at least one (1.0) full Scharmbeck feeshare (SBFS) at the time of the random drawing.
3. Eligible SBFS holders must have enabled the ‘Disclose my email’ checkbox under the [Account] [Settings] [General Settings] of their cryptostocks account (https://cryptostocks.com/settings/edit) prior to the drawing, and the email address corresponding to their cryptostocks account must be a functioning email address capable of receiving notification of selection.
4. Each Scharmbeck feeshare (SBFS) owned comprises a 1-in-200,000 chance to be selected to win the bounty.  The more SBFS you own at the time of the drawing, the greater your chances to be selected.
5. The drawing will be videotaped and witnessed in live attendance by two members of Scharmbeck, one member of the Worldcoin Foundation, and one active member of the freenode.net #worldcoin IRC channel community.
6. Members and employees of Scharmbeck, and their immediate families, are not eligible to be selected.

ABOUT

Scharmbeck is the leading online service provider for Worldcoin cryptocurrency services. Of all available cryptocurrencies, Worldcoin was selected for its bitcoin-like security features, its robust reception and support by the mining community, its rapid transaction confirmation times (critically important for acceptance and use in commerce), its mining and reward dynamics, and its early adoption growth potential.
Worldcoin is a decentralized, peer-to-peer digital currency whose creation and transfer is based on open source encryption protocols. Worldcoin is similar to, but significantly improves on Bitcoin. The Worldcoin network will produce thirteen times as many currency units as the Bitcoin network. When the Worldcoin network has fully matured, Worldcoin’s improved transaction features are expected to allow Worldcoin to achieve a parity market valuation of at least 0.077 BTC per Worldcoin.
SCHARMBECK, LLC
Approved for immediate release."
https://cryptostocks.com/securities/60