Bitcoin Forum

Progress update

Here is the debug output:

Debug> updating GLBSE_TICKERS.lst

Debug> no dividends found for BTC
Debug> no dividends found for JLP
Debug> updating JLP-BMD.gdv
Debug> updating BITCOINTORRENTZ.gdv
Debug> no dividends found for ENJAN16
Debug> no dividends found for BM
Debug> updating BMMO.gdv
Debug> no dividends found for EN
Debug> updating BIT.INC.gdv
Debug> updating TYGRR.BOND-B.gdv
Debug> updating TYGRR.TECH.gdv
Debug> no dividends found for UBTC
Debug> no dividends found for CRYPTOL
Debug> no dividends found for CC
Debug> no dividends found for CIB-SOLUTIONS
Debug> updating MU.gdv
Debug> updating COGNITIVE.gdv
Debug> updating IBB.gdv
Debug> updating M.ETF.gdv
Debug> updating MPOE.ETF.gdv
Debug> updating BTCSYN.gdv
Debug> updating RSM.gdv
Debug> updating MERGEDMINING.gdv
Debug> updating FPGA.CONTRACT.gdv
Debug> no dividends found for SATOSHISDAEMON.HORSE
Debug> no dividends found for CHEAPERINBITCOINS-STOCKS
Debug> updating PUREMINING.gdv
Debug> no dividends found for BST
Debug> updating BTCWEB.gdv
Debug> updating SS.gdv
Debug> updating TYGRR.BOT.gdv
Debug> updating FPGA-EU.gdv
Debug> updating AA.gdv
Debug> updating BITBOND.gdv
Debug> updating BFLS.gdv
Debug> updating GIGAMINING.gdv
Debug> no dividends found for BTCMC
Debug> updating YABMC.gdv
Debug> updating TCC.gdv
Debug> no dividends found for BFLS.FUTURES
Debug> no dividends found for CANMINE
Debug> updating PPT.gdv
Debug> no dividends found for PPT.A
Debug> updating BTC-MINING.gdv
Debug> updating ABM.gdv
Debug> updating MATH.gdv
Debug> updating FPGA-IPCORE-DEV.gdv
Debug> updating JAH.gdv
Debug> no dividends found for RUGATU
Debug> updating BDK.gdv
Debug> no dividends found for PPT.B
Debug> no dividends found for ANTI-PIRATE
Debug> no dividends found for PPT.C
Debug> updating ZIP.A.gdv
Debug> updating ZETA-MINING.gdv
Debug> updating TEEK.A.gdv
Debug> updating TEEK.B.gdv
Debug> updating BDK.BND.gdv
Debug> no dividends found for GOLD
Debug> no dividends found for SILVER
Debug> no dividends found for PPT.D
Debug> updating TICKER.gdv
Debug> updating PLATINUM.gdv
Debug> updating RAREEARTH.gdv
Debug> no dividends found for DMC
Debug> no dividends found for REBATE
Debug> updating TYGRR.BOND-A.gdv
Debug> updating BIOETHANOL.gdv
Debug> no dividends found for GREEN
Debug> updating PPT.DIV.gdv
Debug> no dividends found for JTGB
Debug> no dividends found for IMPACT
Debug> no dividends found for PPT.E
Debug> no dividends found for HEDGE
Debug> no dividends found for BMF
Debug> updating 007.gdv
Debug> no dividends found for MINING
Debug> no dividends found for NONVERBA
Debug> no dividends found for MOORE
Debug> no dividends found for TYGRR.BOND-P
Debug> no dividends found for ABSORB.1.4-6.LONG
Debug> no dividends found for ABSORB.1.4-6.SHORT
Debug> no dividends found for HEDGE.TYGRR.BOND-B.LONG
Debug> no dividends found for HEDGE.TYGRR.BOND-B.SHORT
Debug> no dividends found for FZB.A
Debug> no dividends found for FOO.PPPPT
Debug> no dividends found for BIB.PIRATE
Debug> no dividends found for HEDGE.TEEK.B.LONG
Debug> no dividends found for HEDGE.TEEK.B.SHORT
Debug> no dividends found for HEDGE.GIGAMINING.LONG
Debug> no dividends found for HEDGE.GIGAMINING.SHORT

Debug> updating GLBSE_TRADES.lst
Debug> recent_id: 206852516879679488
Debug> No new trades found.

Do you plan on open sourcing parts of this stuff? Fetching statistics etc. for example would do no harm to your business in any way and your proprietory algorithm can be capsuled away in a small class/config file somewhere maybe...

In the near future I do not plan to release the source code, since it gives competitors an edge in the very thin market right now for GLBSE funds. However, in the more distant future I probably will release some of the code (it's very simple code anyway) since an open source platform for GLBSE-based trading and backtesting would certainly be something that would benefit everyone.

Assume the average coupon/face rate of mining bonds at this moment is 1.4% per week. Then MOVETO.FUND could have the expected return rate of 1.4%*2-0.75%=2.05% per week by just holding a bunch of mining bonds and do no trading at all. If you decide to be more risk tolerated and do some trading, it could be much more.

However, it all depends on how MOVETO.BOND sells. BDK.BND pays 1% per week and is issued by a forum member who already established his fame. Its current market cap has not exceeded 3,000 BTC. If I were you, I will consider 1,000 BTC by selling MOVETO.BOND to be very very lucky, because both the interest rates and existing credits of BDK.BND are better than MOVETO.BOND.

So: Are you OK with starting small? Could you still operate well without a fully deployed 2x leverage? If MOVETO.BOND doesn't sell well, then MOVETO.FUND will probably also not, because investors know that your fund relies on leverages.

I guess you have considered them all already. But I still hope my questions could help you with a something like a plan-B if things don't turn out to be perfect.

Thanks for the feedback; this is very useful information.

• Yes, leverage is 100% optional. If I can sell bonds to boost returns, great; if not, that's OK too. The main point of having the split between the fund and bonds is to give investors more options: use the fund if you like risk, or use the bonds if you want a lower return while offloading a portion of direct equity ownership risk onto others.
• I have upped the interest rate on margin bonds to 1%/week per your suggestion in order to be competitive with other similar offerings.
• Regarding short-term buying and selling - right now after looking at the trade logs, I can quickly see that there is virtually no liquidity on the GLBSE, so we're going to have to stick to long-term plays.
• Regarding bootstrapping the fund - I already have a good chunk of BTC that I am personally investing to get me started when I am finished with the backend code.

Thanks,
-cyto

Update:

I removed the MOVETO.BOND offering (and modified the OP to exclude it) for the following reasons:

(1) There's not enough interest in low-rate/low-risk bonds at the present time
(2) There's not enough capacity on the GLBSE to absorb the extra capital ATM, so aggressive reinvestment makes more sense than paying out margin rates
(3) It's easier / less headache
(4) I can achieve higher returns by modifying the desired risk level inherent in the investment strategy rather than utilizing leverage

Thanks,
-cyto

I've been coding away all day today, and am proud to announce that the database and analysis code are completed, so in terms of execution, we are ready to rock and roll right after the IPO!

A bunch of updates:

I've been spending today (and plan to spend tomorrow and the next day) reviewing code and resolving bugs. Today I found a minor bug in one of my calculations which I fixed; it did not have a large effect however. Specifically, while constructing price bars of various frequencies from the trade data, one of the frequencies had corrupt data.

Another detail I want to mention is that the "database" is really just a collection of text files at the moment. I update them every day, so over time it will grow as more trades occur, but eventually I will use a real database. Right now, however, there is so little data that text files are sufficient.

Finally, I got a GLBSE contract together that Nefario agrees is good for the fund, here is a copy:

(0) Each IPO share represents a 1 BTC investment in the fund.
(1) The fund trades and invests solely in securities on the GLBSE.
(2) The maximum concentration in any given security is 20%.
(3) Dividends are paid out monthly, on the first of the month.
(4) 40% of earnings are paid out as dividends, 40% are reinvested for
fund growth, and 20% are paid out as fees to the fund operator.
(5) The fund operator will buy-back shares once per month upon request ( after dividends are paid ) to ensure liquidity for exiting MOVETO.FUND. Each
share is valued at (1 / # shares) * fund_portfolio_value minus 1% to
cover redemption expenses.
(6) New shares may be issued at any time at (1 / # shares) *
fund_portfolio_value price to ensure liquidity for entering MOVETO.FUND
--> Contract updated prior to IPO, please see https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=82869.msg931614#msg931614 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=82869.msg931614#msg931614)

A couple updates today:

• Fixed another minor bug today.
• Nefario has approved the fund and it is now listed on the IPO page: https://www.glbse.com/ipo/104 (https://www.glbse.com/ipo/104)

5/30/2012 - CONTRACT UPDATED PRIOR TO IPO such that dividends are automatically reinvested into the fund, which is how most hedge funds operate. This ensures the highest possible performance for investors, as well as making MOVETO.FUND a "set it and forget it" type of investment, where clients are not continually having to reinvest their own dividends. (It also has the side effect of making the paperwork easier for everyone, because investors that continually request new shares in order to reinvest their dividends would be very difficult for me to accommodate.)

Here is the final contract:

(0) Each IPO share represents a 1 BTC investment in the fund.
(1) The fund trades and invests solely in securities on the GLBSE.
(2) The maximum concentration in any given security is 20%.
(3) 80% of earnings are reinvested for fund growth, and 20% are paid out as fees to the fund operator. Fees are paid once a month on the first of the month.
(4) The fund operator will buy-back shares on the first of every month upon request to ensure liquidity for exiting MOVETO.FUND. Each share is valued at (1 / # shares) * fund_portfolio_value minus 1% to cover redemption expenses.
(5) New shares may be issued at any time at (1 / # shares) *
fund_portfolio_value price to ensure liquidity for entering MOVETO.FUND

I have notified Nefario of these changes so hopefully the IPO page will change shortly. Naturally after the first share is sold the contract cannot be modified, so I want to make sure I get it right. It's also possible Nefario will require that the IPO be postponed somewhat due this modification.

Either way, I will keep you posted. Take care.
-cyto

It's closer and closer to the fee structure of the "real-world" hedge funds now. Good to know that at least you don't charge an extra 2% of the deposits like other hedge funds do. ;D

There's a potential risk for you however. If there's a panic buy-back demand with a high volume, you will lose a lot of money when you liquidate your position, considering the low liquidity of GLBSE.

This is a really good point. I plan to buy-back the shares with my own money though anyway if people want to sell to avoid panic liquidation. I'll try to keep a sizable personal reserve for this purpose, but naturally I don't have an infinite reserve for a real GLBSE catastrophe, such as a major crash event.

I'm hoping that liquidity improves as time goes on and therefore withdrawals will be less of a problem.

Is there any limit to exposure to a single market sector?
For instance, if your algorithm chooses to invest in 10 different pirate bonds you will have less than 20% in any given security but still 100% exposure to Pirates's default.

This is a great point. Right now no, there is no sector filter - but I will definitely consider adding this soon since it's a great idea.

However, regarding Pirate: I have already filtered out all assets that are associated with his operations. If you want pirate exposure, you'll have to invest elsewhere. Nothing against him personally, it's just that I don't know or understand what he is doing.

We plan to be Pirate-free from this week. So MU could be white-listed. :D

Yep, MU is definitely something we're looking at. We are absolutely a fund-of-funds when it makes sense to do so.

Damn, the only problem I'm having now is that I cannot get price data as far back as I would like from twitter (stupid, stupid twitter :().

So I'm not expecting to really be in full-throttle mode until after the first month of operation. That's why I want to start small :).

Stochastic has in his thread (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=74711.0) a good collection of historic trading data.

Thanks!

We are now live @ https://glbse.com/asset/view/MOVETO.FUND (https://glbse.com/asset/view/MOVETO.FUND)

381 shares sold thus far - leaving 619 IPO shares available. Hopefully we can get the full 1K sold soon (I personally have a few hundred or so coins I'm still in the process of transferring over). I am also quite excited since we made our first asset purchases today!

Nice. Starting small will make you flexible and agile. Nearly 40% selling at the same day of IPO is also a good sign.

Before the transparent funds are implemented by GLBSE, could you provide us the portfolio information somewhere else? Thanks.

I am still thinking about how to best do this. There is a tradeoff between giving out trading information to competitors vs being transparent for investor trust.

In the meantime, I think the way to go is with regular auditing by a trusted third party:

(1) Every month I will post the current NAV (i.e. price per share) NAV per share, # bitcoins I have on reserve for buy-backs, and fees paid
(2) I will get Nefario to look at the fund's account to verify that the information is correct, and that I am following what I have promised in the contract.
(3) Nefario will sign the audit with his private key.
(4) I will post his signed audit here on the forum with my monthly report.

I'm in talks now with him to see if he would be willing to do this for me. Naturally he would charge a fee which would come from my own pocket each month.

Thanks for your reply. I'm very glad to know about this.

But in my opinion, your proposition has some parts of it which are "overdoing" while some are not enough.

"Overdoing" part: Nefario with his private key as an escrow. (But I secretly think that bothering him for this will give him an incentive to give transparent funds a higher priority in GLBSE's todo list. Just joking.)

Not enough: Many hedge funds will give their investors information about their portfolio and positions in addition to just the NAV. You might not want to disclose too much information on the forum, or everyone else may read and emulate your strategy. But you could send information to shareholders. If you think 1 share(1BTC) is a too low threshold for people to know your financials, you could issue something like "MOVETO.FUND.MAJOR", which sells, say, 500 BTC each share, of which equals to 500 "MOVETO.FUND" shares, but the shareholders have the privilege of knowing more information than normal "MOVETO.FUND" shareholders.

Hope some part of the suggestions above will be useful to you. Best regards. :)

Good points on all counts, and I certainly understand. My objection was to publicly announce positions, but privately sending them to all shareholders makes perfect sense.

So how about this?

(1) I post a monthly update here publicly on the forums each month with the NAV per share etc.
(2) I send out financials privately to all shareholders with the monthly report
(3) Ideally have both reports signed by a trusted auditor

#1 and #2 I will immediately commit to. #3 I would absolutely desire to do as well, but it depends on when/if the GLBSE allows a read-only login for fund auditors. I will toss this idea to him since it would mean he wouldn't have to audit anything himself, and he could still make a commission off of auditors (or however he wants to structure this feature business-wise).

Great ideas, thanks! Keep them coming. I have updated the FAQ.
-cyto

And another thing to consider:

It would be very interesting if you could develop a more conventional strategy as real-world hedge funds do? What in my mind is something like a combination of several or all things above:

1. longs on GLBSE.
2. shorts on GLBSE.
3. longs on BTC vs USD.
4. shorts on BTC vs USD.
5. call/put options of GLBSE assets.
6. other derivatives not re-invented in the Bitcoin world yet.

Because I feel that long-only strategy is more vulnerable to risk than a carefully planned combination-based one. If you could make it fully automatic and rely on a sound investment model, MOVETO.FUND may become the Renaissance Tech of Bitcoin(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renaissance_Technologies). ;D

Lol with my teenie market cap of 1K BTC! :o Seriously though, thanks for the motivation. :)

For now I choose long-only with a market-timing component, since that performs better in my experience than the classical "hedge-up/lever-up" approach. The problem with the long/short strategy is that it makes less money, and yet although it may appear to have less risk, in reality you never know when your spreads are going to come apart (think LTCM).

Your 1K BTC fund might become 1M or 100M USD or even more after 5 years, if BTC really takes off, and you manage to cash out exactly before each time it rallies. ;D


I think a well engineered long-short strategy not just reduces the risk, but also increases the expected return. "makes less money" means it will make less money in the best scenario. However, what we care about most is the expected average return rates, right? So both the "what if a meteor hits earth" condition, and the "if I long AAPL from the start" condition, contribute only a little to the average return rates.

Of course it's just my personal view which I'm not very sure of.

A couple questions for you cytokine...

Who are you and what qualifies you to run this fund?  You have only been registered here for a few weeks, use a tormail email, aren't verified on GLBSE.

Are you selling blocks of shares at a discount?

Sorry, I should have been more specific, but with everything I say I must be careful not to give up my methodology.

I have tested many long-short models and have found better performance from a long-only model that can switch into a completely different strategy during bear markets, albeit with higher draw-downs than a pure spread trader. So it's a tradeoff between return and draw-downs, just as it is with any approach to the market. But then again, perhaps this simply means I don't have as effective a pure long-short strategy as something you are familiar with.  :-\

I have run various different funds in "real life" and have been doing trading and investing for many years.


Blame the regulators. Everything in the Bitcoin world is a legal grey area, especially if you're doing any sort of money management. That is why I use tormail.


I can probably sell you some IPO shares at a discount if you buy a large quantity, but I would have to put in the difference myself s.t. other investors do not lose NAV. Just PM me with how many shares you want and I'll let you know what I can do.

Well don't take my words too seriously. It is just very exciting to see MOVETO.FUND appearing, since it's practically the first hedge fund in Bitcoin, and I can't help throwing out random ideas. :P

In fact our fund MU is also a long-only fund which profits mainly from buy-IPO-then-sell and market-making. Because of this, I'm very glad to see other funds thrive. Although they may bring some competition, the bullish impact of them to the GLBSE market is sweet. :)

I agree. The GLBSE is growing so rapidly that I'm sure it will accommodate a large diversity of funds and strategies. There are always more companies springing up, which means more opportunities for everyone. 8)

A few updates:

• Made a small improvement to the backend analysis code today
• The model issued a fresh buy signal today on a very liquid asset, so we're ramping up our purchasing in this area
• 251 222 IPO shares left - now is a great time to get in!

Take care,
-cyto

Updates:

• Completed work on one of my slightly higher-frequency indicators, which will help us to time purchases after a buy signal is received
• Received several sell signals today, luckily nothing we own :)
• Optimized some strategy parameters to reduce portfolio turnover
• Moving over about 2K BTC into the GLBSE, so I will buy up the remaining IPO shares soon. I will issue an additional 4K shares shortly thereafter, giving us an initial target market cap of 5K BTC.

Take care,
-cyto

Based on questions I have received, I have updated the FAQ to clarify how fees work. If you don't want to re-read the OP, here is the relevant section:

The 20% fee only applies to the differential between the last high water mark and the new high water mark. This means that I only make money when my investors make money. For example: if we have a losing month, that means I have to make that money back and then some before I can get paid. ( This is also known as a performance fee (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Performance_fee). ) There is no management fee.

Thanks,
-cyto

GLBSE Commentary:
The assets on the GLBSE are badly mispriced. The data I'm looking at is kind of bizarre with how mis-priced the market is. Prices for certain bonds are going to have to rise (and therefore yields per btc invested fall), that much I am certain of, which is why I'm focused on those so that we may experience capital gains. But it's possible that even the lower yielding bonds could be worth a lot in the future even at these prices if yields fall sufficiently in the broader market. There is a huge gap, so something is going to have to give. So there is a reason to allow the purchase of *small amounts* of lower-yielding assets: capacity, since other assets are very hard to come by.

One of the few non-mining securities with a decent upside potential I see is the IBB, but it is extremely overbought at present so I just cannot buy it at these inflated prices. I am very bullish on Bitcoin in general and the potential for the overall Bitcoin economy.

Good analisys. Seems accurate to what's happening, and most important, what will happen. BUT (here goes the ubber question):

- Are you earning money to us, your shareholders?  ;D

I will be updating the NAV per share at the end of the month as well as posting the buy-back price (this is the normal routine that I'm sticking to). In the short-term we're about flat because we had to pay up to get higher-yielding assets, but only by sacrificing about a couple weeks of future gains. So I expect these investments to pay off within the next month. Keep in mind that I have purchased the vast majority of the shares (over 3.5K right now), so my interests are your interests.

Just what I've been looking for. I'm in for the long haul. looks promising.

:)

I would like to remove the 20% per asset allocation limit, and make allocation a judgement call on a case-by-case basis. Additionally, I would like to have the ability to invest outside of the GLBSE (for example, at other exchanges or opportunities). The reason is simple: at present, due to the very small number of high quality assets, these two restrictions are unnecessarily tying us up and reducing efficiency by forcing us to invest in assets that are less efficient. I was not expecting this because my past experience has been trading the S&P500 where this is not a problem because there are plenty of shares to choose from, but on the much smaller GLBSE it is. I personally am very unhappy with this situation considering that I now own 3.5K+ shares and would like to be more efficient with these shares.

Since this would be a minor change of the contract, however, I will of course buy-back any shares from those who disagree with the modification immediately upon their request at the full NAV per share. The updated contract is much more mature and should be something we can go with for some time to come. I also added in a clarification about how fees work, because the previous contract was ambiguous.

I will absolutely not make it a habit of changing terms (this is likely a very rare event), but you must realize this is just the first month of operation and therefore I am learning a lot about how to properly structure GLBSE contracts. It is in everyone's best interest to do this now, in my opinion.

As always, your feedback is welcome.

Here is the updated contract:
(0) Each IPO share represents a 1 BTC investment in the fund.
(1) The fund trades and invests primarily in securities on the GLBSE, but may also invest in opportunities outside of the GLBSE. The fund will not be involved in any pirate-related investments.
(2) 80% of earnings are reinvested for fund growth, and 20% are paid out as fees to the fund operator. Fees are paid once a month on the first of the month.
TO CLARIFY:
The 20% fee only applies to the differential between the last high water mark and the new high water mark. This means that I only make money when my investors make money. For example: if we have a losing month, that means I have to make that money back and then some before I can get paid. (This is also known as a performance fee.) There is no management fee.
(3) The fund operator will buy-back shares on the first of every month upon request to ensure liquidity for exiting MOVETO.FUND. Each share is valued at the NAV per share minus 1% to cover redemption expenses.
(4) New shares may be issued at any time at the NAV per share to ensure liquidity for entering MOVETO.FUND
(5) This contract may be amended in the future provided (1) the operator alerts all investors and offers to buy back shares at the full NAV per share and (2) the operator gives at least 2 weeks prior notice. The buy-back offer must be open for one full month after any modification.

Many thanks,
-cyto

I might invest in this. Is there a mailing list or private forum for shareholders ?

No, there is no private mailing list. I post updates to this thread, but I will also send financials to shareholders each month using the "motion" feature on the GLBSE. (And of course I'll post a heads-up here when that happens.)

Thanks. Thats an interesting use of the motions feature on glbse :)

It does the job for now :)

For some reason twitter wants to replace "ASIC.COOP" with "http://t.co/HqBwgQHl"

Why twitter, why? Just give me the raw text data that I asked for, please!

In any event, for now just building a look-up table for the symbols that twitter thinks are urls, a la text.replace('http://t.co/HqBwgQHl', 'ASIC.COOP').

Sry, just wanted to vent about how much twitter pisses me off. That is all :-X

Well, .coop is a really popular tld didn't you know!  Of course Twitter should interpret that ticker as a url!

Am I the only one a bit worried by a sudden 20% fall in prices in a few days? Is everything ok?

That was a volume of like 10 shares or so. I had to liquidate *some* of my holdings. Nothing to worry about.

Real thanks for the info!

Hopefully low volumes will be only a memory, if citokyne delivers the results he's making us hope for :)

im concerned about the dip in prices for mining bonds recently.

I'll be going over all of this stuff in the monthly update on Sunday, but it seems that I should say something now. We are relatively safe from most of the storm: I have sell signals on only approximately one fifth of our holdings (that is, for these assets further price declines are expected), whereas we still have strong buy signals on the vast majority (~80%) of the portfolio which is continuing to deliver gains.

That said, I can certainly see from my research that there is a strong bear market right now in most GLBSE assets, which is precisely why I lifted the 20% per asset allocation limit - so we can avoid the mess and find the few pockets of winners and focus on those.

Also, regarding liquidating holdings - as per the FAQ, just PM me with how many shares you want bought back, and I'll buy them back at the NAV minus 1% the week of the new month. As of yesterday when I updated the NAV each share was valued at 1.0755 BTC, but of course I'll be updating this again on Sunday. So I wouldn't be selling at the crazy low prices that other people are trading shares at... the only reason this is occurring must be because some people don't want to wait for the next buyback period.

As always, I will keep you posted.
-cyto

I'm guessing many will regret not investing more here.

Yes, this looks very promising. I will reinvest more when I can.

Too bad I was in a hurry to get out. Better snatch up those .90 cent shares while you can.

Might even give you a nice profit snatching cheap shares and cashing out on Sunday!

Thanks Honest Bob!  I picked up a few at those prices even though I had already heavily invested in MOVETO.FUND.  I won't be selling any time soon though as I figure that anyone able to make some scratch in the past month's environment at GLBSE must be doing something right.

I had some spare time today so I'm issuing the monthly report a day early. I also decided just to go ahead and make everything public, it's just easier this way. If you spot an accounting mistake, please notify me ASAP. If you want shares bought-back, just PM me and I'll buy them this week at the buy-back price.

Also, as a note, I take my fees in terms of shares (since I would just reinvest them anyway), rather than as BTC. I always round down when I do the calculation to favor my investors.

MOVETO.FUND Monthly Report 7/1/2012*
*Report issued 6/30/2012 (one day early)

Portfolio (Using last trade prices as of 6/30/2012)

SYMBOL	SHARES	PRICE	VALUE
TYGRR.BOND-B	10101	0.101	1020.201
COGNITIVE	1560	0.57786	901.4616
FPGA.CONTRACT	62	0.319	19.778
BDK.BND	5946	0.101	600.546
PUREMINING	3209	0.2299	737.7491
TYGRR-TECH	153	2.05	313.65
GIGAMINING	247	0.9702	239.6394
NCKRAZZE	2000	1	2000
BTC	0.06467349	1	0.06467349

Valuation
Total: 5833.08977349
# Shares before fees: 5687
NAV per share before fees: 1.0256883723
Last HWM: 1
New HWM: 1.025688372
Earnings per share: 0.0256883723
Fees per share: 0.0051376745
NAV per share after fees: 1.0205506979
Buyback Price: 1.0103451909
Fees in BTC terms: 29.217954698
Fees in share terms (rounded down): 28
# Shares after fees: 5715

Summary
We are experiencing our first bear market on the GLBSE, and therefore it has been a difficult month for nearly everyone involved in the Bitcoin financial markets. We were up significantly last week, but some of our assets took a bit of a dive over the past few days. It is times like these that I am happy to have a system to rely on since it takes the emotion out of the equation. Luckily, most of our portfolio maintained strength throughout the entire month, and therefore I am happy with the majority of our purchases and the future stream of profits I expect from them. The model issued a sell signal on only about a quarter of our holdings, and so for these assets I am attempting to get out of at reasonable prices. Unfortunately, this is nearly impossible given the lack of liquidity on the GLBSE, so until then all coupons from weak assets simply get redirected to strong assets.

At the moment, there are very few quality assets on the GLBSE. I am continuing to pull down data every day for analysis, so hopefully some new promising opportunities will present themselves. Until then, we will remain fairly concentrated to protect ourselves from the potential for further declines in the majority of GLBSE assets. I expect a much higher return during the next month of operation, but even with a small return this month I believe we did well considering market conditions.

I will keep you posted. Take care,
-cytokine

Lol, of course the day after I post results we get a nice market rally :). In any event, this is just more evidence that this next month should be a significant improvement, since we picked a low point in the NAV per share to do the report. I will start updating the NAV per share more frequently (once per week) to ensure that we do not dilute when raising money. This will also keep everyone more up-to-date with the fund's progress.

I had some fun dealing with FUDsters today. :P You can read my rebuttal here (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=91508.msg1008954#msg1008954). Needless to say, I can answer pretty much any question anyone throws my way because I know what I'm doing and I do what I say.

In any event, we got a very strong buy signal on a new asset today! There are a couple other new ones that I'm also looking at as a long-term play, but my short-term indicators have not moved into buy territory quite yet. I may nibble at these anyway though.

Additionally, some of our assets which had sells on them have since moved into such strongly oversold territory that I'm holding them further since I believe they have bottomed out for now (i.e. their relative valuation is now in line with other similar assets). This is the main reason I expect this month to have significantly better performance than last, but as always, it's up to the markets.

Thanks for reading,
-cyto

Thanks for the book recommendation, looks decent. As long as you aren't promising/claiming consistent returns (I'm not sure that you are), I won't rain on your parade. The ponzis already here are too blatant. How about some subtlety for gosh sakes..

No worries, everything is good :). It's just that I had several others that were saying similar things to me over PM, so I decided to put it all to rest in a single post.

I think Pirate just has everyone all emotional, and for obvious reasons.

As expected, we've been getting some nice rallies in our stronger assets. It just took a bit longer for them to occur than I initially expected, but the market is finally coming around.

NAV per share updated to 1.068447755

I will update the NAV per share again next week. Most likely I'll continue to do this every Friday.

Thanks,
-cyto

This looks great, I will probably buy ~150 shares or so in about a week.

:)

I also plan on buying this.

Good job!

Update today

I'm *considering* a minor modification of the share contract (which would naturally require me to open a 1-month long buy-back offer at the full NAV per share as per the share contract) in order to allow us to invest in a fully insured pirate deposit (via CPA) with a small percentage of our capital - see the insurance discussion here (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=92999). Please note that with this opportunity we will still have zero pirate default risk, which is a position I have maintained since the start of the fund, and have no intention to ever go against. Regardless, please review this idea and give me your feedback, because I not wish to taint the fund in any manner if investors believe this deal would in some way go against our philosophy. I absolutely will not invest in this without your blessing, so please comment.

Many thanks,
-cyto

I think maintaining zero pirate default risk is best for the fund, as long as you don't have a better use for the coin (i.e. normal trading).

I have plenty of coin in btcst, so for me, finding bitcoin investments that are not dependent upon pirate is important.  I don't expect a default, but diversify just in case.

If Pirate were to default I suspect the overall market would get hit, which would still affect your nav and share price, so don't think that avoiding direct exposure will completely insulate MOVETO.  If you have some dry powder at that time (even if only via the insurance payout), and your system really is good, you might be able to pick some bargains, ultimately sending the nav soaring when things recover.  :)

Ok, so I thought about this and your feedback for a long while, and believe it is best for the fund that we continue to be 100% pirate-free in every sense. So I will not do the insurance deal with CPA.

The following reasons come to mind:

- The thing is, even if we made a small 100% insured pass-through, it still *taints* the fund in the sense that returns cannot then be compared to other non-pirate / pirate investments.

- We miss opportunities to snag great non-pirate investment that will continue to deliver gains long after the pirate ship has sailed.

- If pirate defaults (or even if he just winds down his operations and returns funds) there would likely be a mad rush into non-pirate investments, driving prices up and yields down, so we want to already be holding these investments rather than waiting for an insurance payout.

So to reiterate: I will not do the deal, and we will continue with the current share contract and remain 100% pirate-free in every sense.

Many thanks,
-cyto

+1  I invested in this fund specifically for lack of pirate exposure. Not only for the risk either... I want to know for sure what business my investments are supporting and that they are ethical.  Not making any allegations whatsoever but I can't be sure if there isn't full disclosure from the issuer.

Thanks for the feedback. I get the feeling a lot of investors feel this way - so it's good for me to fully understand this.

Anyways, glad we got that cleared up. Now: up-up and away we go! :o

Lately, something has been concerning me regarding most BTC funds.

Due to this economy being so small, it appears that many investors cross-fund each other, making them sort of codependent and probably more fragile.

Are some of this fund's capital invested in ventures independent of this forum/GLBSE?

I hope that makes sense.

Thanks,

curious bob

I think that's a great point. That's one additional reason why I didn't do the CPA deal, because CPA itself is backed by various bitcoin institutions pledging capital, which themselves are likely backed by loans and securities (some of which people are probably buying insurance on, creating some circular dependency). The web of interconnectedness here is probably quite mind-boggling if it could be visualized.

However, the level of risk is mitigated by the high dividends of GLBSE assets - with more risk comes more return, and the market reflects that: we have bitcoin currency risk, default risk, no real legal recourse in the event of a default, etc. But if we can get up 30% or so in a few months, then if 10% of the fund defaults we're still up around 20% in total. That's kind of the point of the fund, since you can get higher returns than a bitcoin bank ( which "guarantee deposits" ), but with more risk since you're taking on the market directly.


Not right now. We do everything on the GLBSE except for one outside investment (which is here on the forums). I've considered investing with various bitcoin banks to give us increased stability, but their returns are too low and defeat the purpose of the fund (you can always allocate some of your capital to various bitcoin banks anyway if you want more security/stability with a lower return - in fact, I strongly recommend this provided the bank is safe and trustworthy and has a high asset to deposit ratio).

If you have any other ideas that you want the fund to look into feel free to post it here, but of course you should probably just snag those for yourself if they're promising ;)

I'm very happy with this fund so far... great work Cytokine!  Just wondering if shareholders are going to get a comprehensive report concerning the funds assets?

Absolutely! I'm going to do the monthly report this weekend. Monthly reports are public and include full financials, performance information, and commentary.

For a sample, see last month's report here (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=82869.msg1000802#msg1000802).

Class act. Thanks!

Stupid question: what is NAV?

Net asset value

And he actually gives the nav per share, so if you want the nav, multiply by the number of shares outstanding

Thanks for catching this, I'll go back through my posts and add "per share" where I refer to NAV to eliminate the confusion. I'll also have to fix this in the GLBSE share contract.

MOVETO.FUND Monthly Report 8/1/2012*
*Report issued 7/27/2012

Portfolio (Using last trade prices as of 7/27/2012 @ 10:00 AM EST)

SYMBOL	SHARES	PRICE	VALUE
TYGRR.BOND-B	13601	0.121	1645.721
COGNITIVE	2000	0.79	1580
FPGA.CONTRACT	62	0.205	12.71
BDK.BND	5946	0.1015	603.519
PUREMINING	3209	0.21	673.89
TYGRR-TECH	153	2	306
GIGAMINING	259	1.165	301.735
NCKRAZZE	2400	1	2400
BTC	0.03383413	1	0.03383413
ABM	18	0.15000001	2.70000018
TEEK.B	160	1.09	174.4
IBB	6	0.64	3.84
ZIP.A	139	0.69	95.91
BTC-MINING	1	0.96	0.96
MPOE.ETF	4	1.1	4.4

Valuation
Total: 7805.81883431
# Shares before fees: 6675
NAV per share before fees: 1.1694110613
Last HWM: 1.025688372
New HWM: 1.1694110613
Earnings per share: 0.1437226893
Fees per share: 0.0287445379
NAV per share after fees: 1.1406665235
Buyback Price: 1.1292598582
Fees in BTC terms: 191.869790242
Fees in share terms (rounded down): 168
# Shares after fees: 6843

Summary
This month was a great time period for us. The markets rebounded sharply from an oversold condition, creating a large net gain for us. I am quite happy that we finally got some price increases in our stronger assets - namely, in our large holding of COGNITIVE shares - which is what I had expected a long while ago due to its relative undervaluation to other mining assets. Our weakest asset is FPGA.CONTRACT at present, but luckily we own very few shares of it anyway.

I have learned a lot this month about how to operate on the GLBSE, and the differences between that and the S&P500 which is the arena I am more accustomed to. The largest difference, of course, is one of volume: with such light volume, short term trading is essentially impossible, and therefore you must be very careful what you buy - because you're probably going to be stuck with it. The lack of liquidity on the GLBSE is in stark contrast to the S&P500, where I am used to being able to hold a position for only a few days and then exit quickly. On the GLBSE, however, we cannot do this: consider PUREMINING, which was never meant to be a long-term hold for us, but rather had become extremely oversold and thus a great candidate for buying and flipping. However, there are virtually no bids at all in the marketplace, so it is becoming difficult to unload. Luckily, GIGAMINING's upgrade path to ASIC provides a perfect counterbalance to our PUREMINING position: if ASIC delivers, then GIGAGMINING becomes TERAMINING and we gain from that to offset losses in PUREMINING, and vice-versa if ASIC is significantly delayed.

Finally, it is worth mentioning that as the number of assets on the GLBSE increase, it is taking longer and longer for me to pull down data each day. Hopefully the GLBSE APIs will improve in the near future and this won't be an issue. However, depite the huge increase in the total number of securities, it still amazes me how few are truely great long-term investments - that is why we're still fairly concentrated. A few news buys did come up this month, which we're wading into, most notably ZIP.A which is our first asset purchase that is not related to mining or a bitcoin-denominated bond. This type of pure equity represents more risk since currency fluctations can have more of an impact, so I'm being extra careful with this investment.

I will keep you posted. Take care,
-cytokine

Doing some major surgery today, which is exciting! It's time for some changes.

Things have been steady for us for a while, but now we need to rotate a lot of the portfolio out and buy into promising new companies, and sell off some of the old ones that have turned to crap. Except of course for trusty old COGNITIVE, which is probably my favorite asset on the entire GLBSE (it has a great yield, is low risk, is tied to btc value, has increased in value substantially since we bought it, and represents actual ownership of a company rather than just a bond which may be callable later). I've also made some minor tweaks to the model to give us a better look at the overall market.

FYI one of the reasons I like doing monthly updates rather than weekly is because inter-month I don't want to publicly talk about what I'm buying - otherwise others may bid up those shares. It's best that I just do what I need to do each month and then let you know about it after the month is over.

That's all for now :)

How is COGNITIVE that different from NASTY (other than length of operation) both seem to be the same idea.

Shhh...  ;)

Ahm... what about this nice -4% here? was it a side effect of the "restructuring" you announced?

This is due to the fact that I use the last trade price for each asset when I do the NAV per share, and GLBSE assets are volatile, especially due to the huge gaps between the bid and the ask. The two main culprits for this particular dip are COGNITIVE and PUREMINING, but nearly all assets were affected somewhat negatively this week, and for obvious reasons:

We were up a huge ~15% last month primarily due to a rally from an oversold condition, so it's entirely normal for the market to mean revert after big moves, especially when the base BTC value has jumped so dramatically in real terms lately (which is strongly deflationary from our perspective, but means the USD value of your shares has greatly increased). Nothing in the markets moves in a straight line; it is the nature of a fund that you are exposed to this volatility. I expect the fund's NAV to vary each week, both up and down, but what I care about is maintaining the long term upward trajectory, not short-term fluctuations which are impossible to avoid.

Finally, it's worth mentioning that the current high water mark is 1.1694110613, so I don't get paid a single bitcent until I beat this level. If my investors aren't making money, I don't make money either.

Another major change coming this week, or next at the latest...

Thus far, I've been running the system based on actual trading prices, which makes perfect sense for a liquid exchange. However, since the GLBSE is so illiquid, I need to look at market depth - that is, rather than treating each asset as a separate entity for analysis, I need to look at every ask price for every asset as a separate entity, so that we can pick up the best asks every day on the entire GLBSE.

The problem with our current approach is that we end up paying higher prices for good assets, and it would be better to buy these assets when the occasional "dump" occurs; however, the problem with placing bids based on volatility is that it sucks away all the time value of money: sure, we may pick up a great price if we bid well, but all the time waiting for the bid to be hit costs us. So I'd prefer us to be market takers and pay the fees, but have zero time value cost and, of course, the knowledge and advantage of knowing exactly which asks on the GLBSE represent the best investment each day.

I think this will give us a huge leg up once this is implemented. I'll let you know when it is done.

Ok, so here's how it's going to go down.

I am very happy with all of the assets that we currently own - all of them have a very high positive expectation. We have done a great job of filtering out the "crap" from the GLBSE and picking up the winners. Additionally, I have verified that all of the mining assets we own have ASIC upgrade paths or include the purchase of ASIC equipment as part of their growth plan. So I am not worried about anything that we own, with one exception: PUREMINING*

PUREMINING has a negative long-term expectation, yet was originally purchased because it has hit a strongly oversold level, which often causes a price bounce and thus a mean-reversion trade is possible to perform. On the S&P500, I am used to doing this all the time (it's a key part of how my system operates), yet on the GLBSE there just isn't sufficient liquidity to do this type of trading activity.

I believe it was an operator error on my part to attempt a mean-reversion trade on the GLBSE and thus I am chalking it up to a learning experience, and so I will inject 400 BTC into the fund to compensate for expected further losses from this particular asset for fund investors. Eating losses like this is only something I will do if the error is on my part; if we do the right thing and the investment doesn't work out, then that's a completely different scenario. So I don't expect to eat losses ever again for the fund since I now understand how the GLBSE operates much more clearly, and we will not attempt to perform any short-term trades in the future (unless liquidity vastly improves, but that is likely years away).

I'll get this done this week.

Thanks,
-cyto

*Also FPGA.CONTRACT, but I already liquidated that and we barely owned any shares of it anyway.

Well, after Googling it, what you call "mean reversion" is something I personally do sometimes, and even without sophisticated algorithms is often a good way to make rapid returns on a few BTC ...just not with hundreds (or even tenth, probably) of them.

In truth, I hoped you had noticed already that "extremely low liquidity" means something. However, you've been doing well nevertheless, hopefully you'll be doing even better now that you've adjusted the algorithm, and personally compensating for losses really does show you care about us -so I'm still strongly in  :)

Definitely. The position was taken on very, very early on (the very first month of operation), and a lot of things have changed since then both in terms of the markets and in terms of adapting our strategy to the GLBSE.


Thanks! I certainly believe strongly in our approach. Many others have been burned by being too incautious with the GLBSE. In the recent past, it was very easy to make money because you could buy just about anything and make a profit (especially with the BTC/USD price level at $5 for so long), but those days are gone.

In a way, this is good for me because I think after solidifying our strategy we will shine more relative to other banks and funds as it becomes increasingly more difficult to make profits consistently.

NAV per share updated to 1.17268084

Also, an update:

While working on improving the code that examines the asks, I found another bug that needed to be fixed. The code is becoming spaghetti now and I really need to refactor it, so the ask-examining feature is being postponed until I can clean up my act. It's okay really though, because I already do this by hand through examining all the assets each day, but maybe towards the end of the month I can get this feature in and automate the process.

Also, I cancelled the sell of PUREMINING, because at 0.14 the yield on it is now extremely high, and I think ASIC may be delayed. We own so little that we might as well hold it. Regardless, the 400 BTC has been injected as promised, and due to nice rallies on our other assets, you lucky dogs are now way up this week.

As you probably already know, there has been some drama lately surrounding BTD, REBATE, and ZIP.A with the "disappearance" of JRO (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=93445.msg1092885#msg1092885). We do own a large holding of BTD, but Alberto seems to be a very honest guy (I had a discussion about this with DeadTerra) so I'm OK with this holding due to the high yield. However, it looks like ZIP.A is likely to have some sort of a buyback, although I don't know what we'll get for it. Regardless of the outcome, it's only about 1% of our portfolio anyway since I was cautious getting into it.

So, in closing: we are firmly back on track now and I look forward to finishing out this month with new highs!

-cyto

Pirate closed, funds should start be returned by monday, until then markets are on the loose. Time to ride this beast!  ;)

True, true! It's a sad day for sure, but this day was coming for some time. I'm hopeful though that I can raise more capital as a result, yet at the same time I am grateful that I had some time to gain experience with the GLBSE game whilst still small. It will be very interesting to see if many of the "non-pirate" bond offerings wind down as a result as well. It's also possible that bond yields may fall in general... I'm thinking competition for capital was keeping yields high. It could lead to a lot of refinancing/buybacks even for issues that are not directly related to pirate.

Even more interesting is what effect (if any) on the price of bitcoin pirate exiting will have. I'm hopeful that it will steady out for a while now that the pirate bubble is gone, which would be really good for us: the game, as I see it, is to increase the number of coins you have as much as possible before they get too expensive. Of course, that probably depends on what this (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=101011.0) is.

This is exactly how I see things.

I wouldnt be so sure about Alberto and I would avoid any and all future projects proposed by JRO.

I agree completely. My last post was based on my discussion with DeadTerra, who has a very strong positive opinion about Alberto's honesty. However, based on more recent news and events, I am now in talks with usagi of CPA to insure these bonds ASAP. And yes, I will definitely filter out all future assets associated with JRO by default.

That said, due to the influx of capital from pirate closing down, we'll soon have significantly more holdings, and so this will greatly increase our diversification and dilute the effects of any one asset becoming a problem.

Honestly, I hate this drama shit. All I want to do is run the strategy, but instead I have to run it and investigate every new trade signal to see if it's telling me to buy into a scam or not. It's (almost) making me miss the normal stock market. The GLBSE is awesome and the profit potential is huge, but it's like playing with fire at the same time.

At some point in the near future, I plan on having a little fireside chat with everyone about our goals and solidify a mission statement with the optimal risk/return profile and money management strategy going forward. I'm thinking a good idea right now would be to look for some kind of third party asset auditor (the Starfish perhaps) that could rate things and then have a minimum rating requirement and automatically filter out everything that doesn't meet that standard.

I just sent 100btc your way and Im slowly liquidating my glbse hioldings for the same reasons . I want to set and forget it as Im getting an ulcer trying to trade  :)

Very strong is a over exaduration, I said something of the lines he seems legit and as far as I know hes honest xD
I don't go to absolutes anymore after all this mess with JRO and stuff.
//DeaDTerra

With all the pirate funds gone and ZIP.A and BDT under a cloud I think your fund is going to be one of the top 3 assets on GLBSE shortly  :)

Yep :D. Although, there are many much larger funds and banks than mine... Starfish has some 60K I think, and I think Gamma is probably comparable, but these just aren't listed on the GLBSE.

In other news though, I'm almost done refactoring the code - in this case, it was a total rewrite. It's so much cleaner now and elegant, using the linux philosophy of having separate tools each with a separate job: one for getting data, one for constructing price bars, one for doing indicators, and one for overall execution. It's great because with this code base I can very quickly adapt it for other markets just by pointing the data feed to a different place. The ask-code should be much easier to plug in now, and at that point I'll be feeling much better about things. I'm also excited because I got the strongest buy signal I've ever received on any asset this month (I'll discuss this in the next monthly update after we've done some more buying).

The only thing keeping me up at night now is this whole BDT fiasco. I truly think that the problems with the platform as easy to fix, so it all just depends on Alberto's honesty. Right now I'm waiting to update the NAV after we get our coupons, which Meni promises are coming tomorrow along with the late bonus.

I've been thinking about the issue of trust and lack of GLBSE-auditing/ratings, and I think perhaps that avoiding IPOs completely may be the most risk-adverse approach, because the history of an asset is very important (with the exception of high rep issuers of course, such as Goat etc.). I haven't made any decisions yet on this; I don't know what is going to happen yet in the immediate future with BDT, and I don't yet know what my actions will be depending on the situation. Lets just see what happens tomorrow.

In the meantime, I'll ask my shareholders: what is your opinion? I am here to serve you after all, and to get the ulcers so that you don't have to :-\

Patrick isnt on GLBSE   :D

It's a good idea to diversify into other markets although I havent had much to do with cryptostocks or MPEX. Their might be good value in becoming a sort of "broker" so people dont have to open accounts at these other stock exchanges they only need to buy your fund on glbse to get the exposure.

I think its wise to avoid new IPO's untill they become established stocks as the recent price rise has seen a  rash of scammy-looking ones appear including an obvious scam called TIMESHAREAFRICA.

Ive heard rumours there is a bitcoin credit rating agency coming which might help. I dont know to what extent the pirate stuff was the cause of the bitcon price rise so we could go back to the $5- $8 range for awhile which would attract more glbse investment. Depending on the major announcement in september of course.

Excellent idea. I'll have to look into their APIs and see how easy it is to pull in data from there.


Agreed, and you can consider it done. I was thinking that around three months is a good wait time for new issues to season. Unless others disagree, this should be our new policy, with obvious exceptions for very high rep issuers. And, it will help greatly with sleeping at night. Of course, ZIP.A had been trading much longer than that... so not all scams are avoidable, but our exposure can be strongly mitigated. I'll modify the OP when I do the NAV update (and I'll also remove the now unnecessary "no pirate exposure" clause and replace it with a"no JRO exposure" clause :))


Yep, that would be perfect. Then we just filter out everything below a certain rating: bam.


That would be ideal for us. I really don't want bitcoin to go up in price yet. The thing is, I'm so bullish on its long-term potential that I'm just hoping we'll all have sufficient time to accumulate enough coins before the critical-mass point.

Starfish et al peaked around 58k.  With the wind out of the PPT.assets it should be back closer to 35k quite soon.  Depends on how the next week and month play out.

Anyway, the MoveTo Fund is an important part of the economy.

I really appreciate the transparency and professionalism you bring to the table in this frontier market cytokine.  I agree with you on all points mentioned concerning IPO and strategy moving forward. 

The Starfish seal of approval! Woooooot!

Seriously though, this means a lot to me coming from you, with your impeccable reputation.


Thanks silver. Personally, I absolutely can't stand the non-professional issuers out there. They can cause a lot of pain and misery for people. I've been on the other end of that kind of crap so I know what it's like, and I never want my investors to have to feel that way. Communication with your investors is the key, really: they need to know exactly what's going on with their hard-earned money, good or bad.

NAV per share updated to 1.1848085612

Note: all is well with BDT (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=93445.msg1114170#msg1114170) :)

I backed my opinion with an investment a few weeks ago.  Only a few hundred, but have placed money not just words on this.

:)

The contract has been updated with some very minor changes. Most notably, I am removing the "will not be involved with pirate" clause since it's no longer necessary since pirate is unwinding his operations; additionally, due to recent public information, I have purchased some passthroughs which are selling for huge discounts which should give us a nice quick profit of 30%+ on a very small amount of capital. Obviously, since this temporarily goes against our historical non-pirate stance, I am insuring these investments 100% with my own money, so it is at no risk to the fund: heads you win, tails I lose. But it's just far too easy and profitable a trading opportunity to pass up, and has given us the ability to swap out of our (very few) losing investments such as PUREMINING without suffering further capital loss. We are not, of course, selling any of our winners for the sake of a short-term trade, and so the fund will continue to focus on its normal mission going forward. Note that this modification means that I will offer to buy back any shares at today's NAV per share of 1.18480856, and this offer will be open for one full month.

Here's the new contract:

(0) Each IPO share represents a 1 BTC investment in the fund.
(1) The fund trades and invests primarily in securities on the GLBSE, but may also invest in opportunities outside of the GLBSE.
(2) 80% of earnings are reinvested for fund growth, and 20% are paid out as fees to the fund operator. Fees are paid once a month on the first of the month.
TO CLARIFY:
The 20% fee only applies to the differential between the last high water mark and the new high water mark. This means that I only make money when my investors make money. For example: if we have a losing month, that
means I have to make that money back and then some before I can get paid. (This is also known as a performance fee.) There is no management fee.
(3) The fund operator will buy-back shares on the first of every month upon request to ensure liquidity for exiting MOVETO.FUND. Each share is valued at the NAV per share minus 1% to cover redemption expenses.
(4) New shares may be issued at any time at the NAV per share to ensure liquidity for entering MOVETO.FUND
(5) This contract may be amended in the future provided the operator alerts all investors and offers to buy back shares at the full NAV per share at the time the contract was modified. The buy-back offer must be open for one full month after any modification.

I love unregulated markets <hug>

Bad wording on my part, it is not insider information, it is public information:


The MoveTo fund has never made any trades based on insider information. The fund is mostly automated and that is what drives our investment decisions; this short-term pirate trade is a one-off thing, and these types of trades are probably going to be very rare going forward.

Good to know... however I did not mean that snarky... but more literal.

Yeah, I know you meant it in a good way :).

But, I still have to be careful. I'm sure you understand.

 :D :D

Excellent  :)

lol guys don't get too excited, we're talking about less than 200 BTC right now, or about 2% of the fund... so yeah, not as exciting as it sounds, but we just don't have much liquid funds. In the past when a short-term opportunity arose I could usually borrow the funds to snag the opportunity in a bigger way, but none of the BTC banks are lending right now :(. Of course, if there are still good pirate-panic-prices out there over the weekend when we earn our bigger coupons (NCKRAZZE+BDT), then we'll snag them.

Also, it seems that a lot of banks and deposit takers are freezing or even closing operations during this transition period. For example NCKRAZZE, who has been a great rock for a good portion of the fund, is planning on returning funds shortly (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=81927), and both the Starfish BCB and the BDK are forgoing deposits and halting new loan issuance until the dust has settled. It's going to be an interesting next few weeks...

No, he stated that if pirate defaults he can pay back 35%. Sounds like some great returns for your fund.

Hah I was still editing my post... in any event, no, he has told me that he will pay back in full even if pirate defaults, just that it might take longer for him to liquidate everything:



I have no worries about Nick.

He'd have to have liquidated all of his assets and all of his mining hardware to cover deposits of three months ago? And you have no worries because he says its highly unlikely? Then I have more worries about you than him.

#1 I trust Nick's character, which I had cross-referenced by other very trustworthy forum members.
#2 Based on this, I believe Nick that if pirate does default, he will sell off his GLBSE assets and mining equipment to cover the debt (or perhaps we could even negotiate a deal, depending on the assets, to have them directly transferred).
#3 I also believe a pirate default is extremely unlikely, again, based on information about how pirate generates his returns.

Now, if I was depositing money with Dank (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=93003.0) or Rusty Ryan (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=96163) then you'd have a real reason to worry, but not here. We have deposited with Nick since the very start of the fund, so if you strongly feel this way then you should not have invested with us. We have to take some risk; I cannot generate returns by sitting on coins in cold storage.

 I would definitely be concerned if you had anything invested with those. I am confident you can pick the correct investments or otherwise I wouldnt have invested with you tl:dr thats what we pay you the big bucks for  :D

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=102651.0  (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=102651.0) this stuff is going to help good traders  :)

  Should help vastly improve liquidity and help make the move to cytokine's A-game.

More liquidity would be great for us. However, as for the particular features, we probably wouldn't use most of them except for maybe occasionally margin and lending securities at high interest rates.

Generally speaking though I'm not a huge fan of leverage. There's enough risk out there as it is and we don't need to compound it.

Making the APIs better and faster would be a huge help though. It's taking much too long each day to update the data. I added a manual pre-filter list which has helped greatly since most of the GLBSE is crap anyway so no reason to bother with data for those assets.

We may do a small amount of shorting in the near future, but only in a very careful and controlled manner, and using a much smarter way of doing it than via the GLBSE's shorting feature... and also, I would only short as a hedging method, never as a purely profit making enterprise (unless some special circumstances arose of course).

btw, NAV per share updated to 1.19739576

Good to know.  At almost 20% growth since IPO I'd like to say that is an A-game if I ever saw one. Thanks!

Who has two thumbs and is jelly they missed the IPO?


<------ This guy

Thanks guys!

BTW, Important announcement regarding the fallout and resolution of the BS&T default

I figured I should comment at this time about pirate seeing as how he's basically front-page news in the bitcoin financial markets. As everyone knows, this fund has been free of pirate default risk since inception, and the roughly 20% gain from the IPO has been accomplished without any pirate returns.

In the OP, which I updated today, it states:

It is true that I did very recently buy some TYGRR.BOND-P for mere bitcents on the coin as a risky speculation, but am insuring this 100% using my own 6K+ shares of MOVETO.FUND as collateral (soon to be around 8K shares once I move over some more of my personal funds, at which point I'll have 100% of my bitcoin wealth in the fund). I have a hedge in place for this speculation, so we'll see what happens. If on September 11th we don't have a small profit from this, then I will simply retire some of my own shares to compensate for this most certainly misplaced speculation, which was based on information about how pirate claims to generate his returns.

That said, I really don't want to waste time thinking about this pirate crap any longer. Again, all our deposits and investments have been free of pirate default risk to the best of our ability to determine, and so while there may be some fallout from his default (I'm in talks right now to aquire GLBSE assets from Nick Rasse), I have a mission to achieve with this fund and I'm going to continue to do my best to preserve and grow your capital moving forward. After tabulating the fund's spreadsheet, I expect that the NAV per share will likely remain unchanged over the weekend due to a sell-off in the general markets (panic most likely), and of course I'll be doing a full monthly update with the financials. I have also decided that - as a result of such a large scandal - the best idea for us moving forward is to increase our level of conservatism and diversification to reduce the potential for us ever getting whacked by a scammer.

I would also like to take a moment to reaffirm my strong belief in integrity, transparency, and communication, which are all things that Pirate lacked, regardless of if he's just a plain-old scammer or just a guy whose overly risky financial bets went wrong. I will continue to serve you and the mission of the fund to the best of my ability, so lets move onward and upward and leave the pirate ship behind to sink into the sea.

Thanks guys.
-cyto

PS: On a constructive note, I think this event is just more proof that ratings agencies are strongly needed (as I've said before), because my strong point is trading and selecting investments in a technical and data-driven fashion (not to be a professional scam detector), so I would strongly prefer a 3rd party to handle asset ratings so that we can just use a simple filter to reduce our risk. I expect this service is coming soon.

Ratings would be helpful and so would more in the area of DROs (dispute resolution organization). I am aware of judge.me but not much else but arbitration is obviously an important component of moving forward in bitcoin based business.  I'd like to see more contracts with more attention to how disputes will be resolved.

   +1 This is an ethic which will lead to long term riches far beyond what a pirate could imagine... plus the benefit of the ability to look in the mirror with esteem.

I would like to borrow up to 140 shares of MOVETO.FUND. In consideration of this loan, I will pay the lender BTC0.0175 per share, per week for use of your shares. This is roughly 1.5% per week based on the current NAV. This offer expires on August 31 at 11:59PM. I need it to happen by then because Cytokine will only buyback shares of MOVETO on the first of the month and GLBSE lacks any sort of liquidity to enable me to sell these shares without his backing.

The nitty gritty:
I can return your shares to you at any time I wish. You agree that you have no expectation to demand premature return of your shares.
The longest I can hold your shares will be until January 31, 2013, though I think I will return them sooner.
Interest payments of BTC0.0175 per share, per week will be made on Tuesdays. The first and last week's interest will be pro-rated to the nearest day.
You must transfer the shares to my GLBSE account by 11:59PM on August 31, Eastern Time Zone

Counterparty Risk Analysis:
I have hundreds of bitcoins on deposit with forum deposit takers. To Wit:
BTC100 in Starfish demand deposits (Patrick)
BTC200 In the Kraken fund (Patrick again)
BTC50 With Victor Escudero
BTC130 with Hashking in 8-week CDs of varying maturities (not pirate pass throughs)

Additionally, I have a few hundred BTC in my personal wallets and plenty of USD in real bank accounts if I need to buy more bitcoins.

I also have multiple OTC transactions valued at several hundred dollars. Ratings here (http://www.bitcoin-otc.com/viewratingdetail.php?nick=IveBeenBit&sign=ANY&type=RECV).

The point I'm trying to make is that I stand by my agreements and have plenty of capital to cover in case things go wrong for me.

I am also willing to escrow if you insist, but we'll have to renegotiate my weekly interest payment to compensate me for the hassle.

Please PM me if interested. This is basically "free money" (via interest payments) for anyone who plans to hold MOVETO.FUND (i.e. not sell it prior to January 31) long term.

Finally, I am not interested in making a deal for fewer than 50 shares. The maximum I will take is 140 shares.

Thank you.

I will provide you 140 of my personal shares. Please send me a PM with your GLBSE username and include PatrickHarnett so that he knows you are providing both your Starfish deposit and your Kraken fund shares as collateral. You must agree to hold these for the duration of the loan since I trust Patrick to turn them over to me in case you do not return the shares of MOVETO.FUND. I will send you an address for the weekly interest payments.

Thanks for the quick response. I'm sure we can work something out in private.

I was not able to come to an agreement with IveBeenBit, so if anyone else wants to take him up on his offer then please do so.

Note that I will be doing the monthly update this weekend, so you should probably wait until I update the NAV again before initiating any side arrangement since I will be incorporating the monthly fee based on our recent growth.

Thanks,
-cyto

FYI I clarified the section on withdrawals in the contract, as well as the section regarding the special buybacks that may be requested after contract modification. The issues in these sections were brought to my attention rather rapidly through my conversation with IveBeenBit.

As always, there is an offer available for all current investors to liquidate at the current NAV due to the contract modification.

Updated contract:

I made a "final offer" to Cytokine. If he rejects it, I will also have to withdraw my offer to borrow shares & pay interest from the public as I originally proposed, due to ambiguous wording in part (3) his updated contract. Specifically, if he has 1 week to buy back the shares, and changes the NAV in the middle of that week, does he purchase back at the price when you initially requested the buyback, or purchase at the NAV in effect at the moment he sends you the bitcoins?

I was really trying to work out a run of the mill short sale for 140 share and to do this requires the liquidity that his buyback program offered.

Since I don't know how he will interpret rule (3), I am withdrawing the offer since it's getting to be too much uncertainty at this point.

Cytokine - the private offer I sent you just now still stands.

Good luck everyone. I apologize that I cluttered your thread.

That is a good point. I update the NAV per share every weekend, and so no I cannot just randomly change it during the week. But it's not that way in the contract, and it probably should be.

EDIT - Fixed the contract above @ https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=82869.msg1148655#msg1148655


The problem is that the GLBSE is extremely illiquid yet has very high yielding assets. That's why I am forced to take time to do share buy-backs when they occur. The fund, like a standard hedge fund, is really designed for long-term investors, not for short-term trading in and out of the fund.

I understand you would like to take your monthly fee based on recent growht, but there was a growth really thism month?
I am pointing to the 2400 BTC what you lent to NCKRAZZE. He promissed he will not put it into pirate, but after pirate defaulted he stoped paying interest and principal withdrawal not alowed. I understand why we should be patient. Because until you declare you may naver have that money back it is still counts in the NAV of MOVETEO.FUND and you can collect the fee based upon it.

Please do not start bullshiting as Nick does and do not get your monthly fee with much confidence untill he situation is cleared. He owes the people with 18,000 BTC and unknown how many of it at with pirate because he is nott willing to show us what he has for depositors. I am afraid all of them.



At the bottom of itt all, would you poprovide us a NAV that takes into consideration that NCRAZEE may never pay, because the loan to him is very very uncertain.

Ok and a valid point, so I will not collect any performance fees until the situation with Nick has become clear. This implies that the high-water-mark will remain locked at last month's high of 1.1694110613 until such time that Nick repays or otherwise we are given proof of his ability to repay. However, I will maintain the value of Nick's debt preserved at 2400 BTC at this time until we have further information because it would be greatly unfair to reduce the NAV prematurely and thus dilute all of my current investors (since then new investors would be able to get a "free ride" as Nick begins his repayment).


Are you one of my long-term investors? If so, you would have realized by now that one of the things I pride myself in is never bullshitting anyone, and I would appreciate it if you treated me with the same level of professionalism and respect that I treat my investors with. I am always honest and transparent. That said, Nick was obviously not honest with me, but I have done my best to avoid pirate exposure in the fund. Considering that I own 8K+ shares of the fund which comprises the entirety of my bitcoin denominated net worth, it's impossible for you to claim that my interests are not aligned with those of my investors. If you worry about Nick's creditors, then you should also understand the amount of stress I incur daily from running this fund and having this level of responsibility.

Yes. In the absolute worst-case scenario that Nick completely shafts us and renegs on the entirety of the 2400 BTC, then at this time that comprises exactly 20% of the portfolio and thus the NAV would be reduced to the IPO price of 1.0 BTC per share.

I do not think this absolute worst-case scenario is likely and believe that such an assumption is a case of catastrophic thinking, but you also must realize that the reason interest rates are so high is precisely because the risk is high, and so of course some fallout and drawdown is inevitable at some point in this fund - I have never stated otherwise. But please also consider that this whole pirate fiasco is literally the greatest financial crisis to ever hit bitcoin, yet even if we were to take a 50% haircut on Nick (thus giving us a 10% drawdown) then even under these conditions I will have outperformed my competitors in the realm of bitcoin funds. Even better will be that with pirate gone we will continue to grow without that kind of systemic risk lurking in the background. If you don't believe me, then simply take a look at what's going on with my competitors right now, and I think you'll quickly see how much better I'm performing.

Finally, I would like to say that I'm getting kind of tired of non-constructive verbal abuse from people that only complain once they have the advantage of perfect hindsight. Individuals are few and far between, however, that are willing to take the risk of imperfect foresight, but that's simply the nature of reality and what one must accept if they are to invest. I have thus far given more free money to my investors than I have taken in fees, by a ratio of 2 to 1 (I injected 400 BTC, while thus far have taken only around 200 BTC in fees to cover the huge amount of both stress and coding work that I have put into this fund). Money does not grow on trees, and there are only two legitimate ways to attain it: by doing work or by taking risk. The purpose of the fund is to make money from the latter, but we cannot move forward by falsely believing that we can have our cake and eat it too.

Fair play Cytokine. Sorry if I was a little harsh on you but I needed answers on these issues. Thanks for the explanation. I am happy to see there are honest people around to.

Just as a comment, it's not just Cytokine getting it in the neck.  There are a lot of nervous and panicky people around as they learn (rather rapidly) the economics of bitcoinland.  Pretty much every person who has offered a fund/bond/deposit is getting it - some more than others.  My observation is Moveto.Fund is being open about the situation even if that is painful and stressful exposing itself to additional criticism and that is a big plus.  I have different questions over in Starfish BCB, but I beleive the approach is correct.

MOVETO.FUND Monthly Report 9/1/2012

Portfolio (Using last trade prices as of 9/1/2012)

SYMBOL	SHARES	PRICE	VALUE
COGNITIVE	2101	0.64	1344.64
BDK.BND	4339	0.1015	440.4085
TYGRR-TECH	153	1	153
ABM	12	0.36	4.32
BDT	2476	1.04	2575.04
TEEK.B	347	1.0	347
IBB	6	0.55	3.3
ZIP.A*	139	0.51	80.81
MPOE.ETF	4	1.4	5.6
CPA	127	0.08	10.16
NASTY	987	0.75	740.25
TYGRR-BOND.D	479	1.0	479
GOLD	1	0.01	0.01
MOORE	1	0.509	0.509
CIUCUI.BOND	59	0.1	5.9
OBSI.HRPT	1	0.102	0.102
TYGRR.BOND-P**	2000	0.4	800
TEEK.USD	2	0.1	0.2
GMVT-BOT	1	0.14	0.14
BTC	0.4318697	1	0.4318697
STARFISH	2200.6334	1	2200.6334
NCKRAZZE*	2400	1	2400

Valuation
Total: 11581.5347697
# Shares: 9749
NAV per share: 1.1879715632
Last HWM: 1.1694110613
New HWM: 1.1694110613***

* Indicates security is in technical default
** Insured at 0.4 BTC per share
*** High-Water-Mark locked since no performance fees are being charged this month until the situation with NCKRAZZE is resolved.

Summary
There is not much for me to say at this time given that there were sufficient posts made here over this past month that everyone knows exactly what is going on. I hope some clarity emerges over the month of September so that we can get back on track.

Whatever happens, I will keep you posted. Take care,
-cytokine

I'm exhausted but I finished up a major code refactoring. Everything is all nice and clean now and multithreaded so it's a bit faster. It also has a manual pre-filter to ignore a ton of junk assets which really helps to speed things up.

I haven't added the asks and probably will not since the last trade price is more meaningful now that liquidity has mildly improved. I have also added in more prudent asset filters, which became a necessary modification to the system given the high risk of GLBSE issues. Additionally, I'm hoping that after the pirate situation is resolved liquidity will improve further as people move more funds into the GLBSE.

Anyhoo, just for fun here's a fresh set of debug outputs from the new/updated version 2 of MOVETO.FUND's backbone:

I re-read this and wanted to preface it by saying I mean this constructively, I'm just not sure how to say it nicely:

I think your NAV/share is going to tank and you are being too optimistic.

TYGRR.TECH is in liquidation, you're probably not going to get 1 btc/share.
ZIP.A is dead, should be marked to zero.
TYGRR.BOND-P is not averaging .4.  It looks like it will go to zero.
NCKRAZZE is having major pains.  You are his biggest fan, but that's not going to get your BTC back.
TEEK.B is struggling, though it may not go to zero.
TYGRR.BOND-D when BOND-P fails goat will be struggling making this one questionable, you have more than 90% of the outstanding shares of this issue
BDT's price is holding up, but there has been some drama and its unlikely you'll get more than 1.0 for any significant number of shares.

I'm looking at this and projecting a low-end nav/share of 0.8 btc (if pirate and everyone dependent upon him fails to pay it could go lower but I doubt it).  Likely nav/share right at 1.0 btc (hoping Nick can liquidate expeditiously).  If you manage to keep it over 1.1 btc/share it will be a miracle (e.g. pirate pays).

I wish you would post MOVETO's full holdings more frequently (though not so often as to give away your strategies).

I also wish you the best of luck and hope the worst case doesn't happen.

Some points have to be corrected, for fairness:
TYGRR.BOND-P is really worth 0.4 as it's insured with his own money; that means if Pirate pays MOVETO.FUND benefits, if not the loss is Cytokine's.
TEEK.B has had losses and the interest reduced, but It seems TEEK is willing to follow the contract and gradually buy back the shares for about 1, by filling each week the asks below that price up to 15% of the outstanding bonds.

I do share the other concerns, though, and I am glad I sold my shares at 1.19 :) Looking forward to invest again in the mid term future, hopefully.

Thanks Francesco for filling in these details for me.

Yes, it is a worrisome time in the bitcoin financial world, and trust me I am also deeply disturbed by the systemic crisis caused by pirate and the myriad of financial instruments that were "secretly" exposed to his operations. What's happening now is akin to realizing that the king has no clothes, and we're getting everyone nice and naked to see who is still swimming and who is not. It's giving me great information on who I can trust and who I cannot going forward.

That said, regarding marking things down: right now I just mark everything according to the last trade price. If I did it any differently, then everything would just become subjective and I don't want to go down that rabbit hole. We will take losses when they occur, but I don't want to mark anything down based on a speculation or guessing because that's unfair to my shareholders. For example, eventually Goat will buy back TYGRR.TECH and we'll mark it at whatever we have to at that point, and so on. Trust me, I've been messaging him repeatedly about buying this back so we can get it cleared ASAP. If there's a different approach I should take however, then definitely let me know, as long as it's objective and fair to everyone. I am always open to suggestion as I have learned a lot of good stuff by listening to my investors.

At this point since I am the majority shareholder I'm really the one holding the bag at the end of it all no matter what happens going forward, but at the same time I am also much more optimistic than everyone else seems to be at this time. We shall see what happens. Whatever you decide to do, just remember that it's your decision and to take responsibility for it. That is my philosophy, and a lesson that many are learning at this time.

Last trading price could be 10 percent different within hours or even minutes. Have you considered to mark according to 24 hours average or 5 days average? I think 5 days average at most cases represent better the value of a given asset, unless there is a default. Since you do your calculation weekly 5 days average would work fine for you I think.

Thanks vendor, that's a great recommendation. That would certainly eliminate a lot of the volatility while still being an objective measure of valuation. I'll start doing this then for the NAV unless other investors disagree. I think the 5-day average is probably the best since that's where most of the noise occurs IMO.

EDIT - OP updated to reflect the new method of calculating the NAV

Just an FYI guys I'll be doing the NAV update tomorrow.

BTW Goat retired TYGRR.BOND-D last night, so I took the liberty of buying up all of the outstanding sell orders of MOVETO.FUND below the NAV per share. So for those of you who wished to exit at this time, you are out.

However, for those who may wish to enter at this time: I have temporarily suspended sales of the fund until the NAV is updated tomorrow. The rationale is that I want to see how this pirate situation plays out this weekend before resuming sales. Thanks.

What is happening this weekend?

Nothing apparently.

NAV updated to 1.1758086495

And the credit crunch continues...

Nckrazze says 3 years to pay back and jokes that he's 9 years old.  Has he sent you *anything*?

BDT is on shaky ground, and it looks like you hold nearly half the outstanding shares.

If those both go to zero then MOVETO's nav will be a little below .7 btc/share (based on the holdings posted on the first).

Please tell me you've made some amazing trades in the past 10 days.

Just noticing, I wouldn't pay a penny for BDK.BND either

As far as I know Nick is going to be slowly making payments until the position is eliminated. We will not be earning any interest though, but will reinvest the payments into other stronger securities. I'm looking to sell back BDT soon as well.


I'm going to try to negotiate a sale for this, but Kluge is making plans to repay as well by, for one thing, getting a job. Sad I know, but I do trust him to uphold his debts, and unlike Nick he has promised to continue making interest payments.

Yes I know pirate has screwed up a lot of people, and a lot of deposit takers lied and were secretly, non-transparently and dishonestly investing more than they could afford into him (and we're definitely affected by this), but please try not to take it out on me. We will eventually come out of this credit crunch and survive and grow. I will not stop with my mission by running the spreadsheet every day to decide on new positions, to mark the NAV according to the 5-day average trading price for each asset we own, and help take steps to increase transparency in the bitcoin investment world. I believe that, thus far, I have set a good example by being honest and putting my own money on the line right there with my investors. Despite the fact that some were dishonest with me, I have always been honest - it's in my own long-term interest to be honest anyway, not to mention that even if I were dishonest, I would have my assets frozen by Nefario and be immediately doxed by other members. All scammers deserve prison in my opinion, and nothing less. They make me literally sick to my stomach.

Sorry for the rant, but I'm pretty pissed right now at what is going on in the community.

Kudos for that.  And thanks for answering our tough questions without stooping to the petty name calling that's prevalent in other threads.


Rightfully so I'd say.  You're not the only one.

I am sorry if it seems we are judging or blaming you; I do believe you're making your best. It must really be a nightmare to have responsibility for other people's money these days, however good your strategies could be in a sane market.

Thank you Francesco, I really appreciate this comment.

You have every right to be pissed at the dishonesty displayed and nothing to be sorry for cytokine.  Any successful trading strategy is dependent on a foundation of half decently trustworthy issuers.  The majority of GLBSE offerings at this emergent stage have a ways to go yet to put it mildly.  I'm still optimistic for the future and feel that recent events have shown who is who and served as a wake up call going forward. I'm confident these markets will bring real innovation and profits and already have in some cases.

How can you make investment decisions when the majority of the market is dishonest ?

Im a little disilusioned with the whole bitcoin investment scene right now :/

Thought this was worth quoting because it is a common experience, and probably in higher proportion with Bitcoin than normal currencies.  Yes, some people lied and passed funds into Pirate, and others simply screwed up or stole funds sucking a lot of coins out of the economy.  I can understand the shit cytokine is experiencing because I've had it as well, and sticking with it rather than hiding or claiming some "hack" is to be commended.

You were all warned that exactly this would happen. But instead of keeping the bitcoin safe in the blockchain, refused to believe it and chose to do absolutely nothing. Just kept waiting and waiting, until it was gone. How is that commendable?

Bullshit.  cytokine and the investors in this fund (myself included) were very aware of the pirate risk and did everything possible to avoid exposure. Keeping bitcoin safe in the blockchain? really?  So instead of growing the economy and supporting bitcoin businesses we're supposed to hoard it all away where it does nothing but sit there?  The problem so far has been fraudulent activities by trusted members, not people wanting to support the fledgling economy and willing to take some risk. 

RSM - https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=63257.0 - just needs to sell ~250 shares @BTC0.30 each to be operating at 48(MH/s)per share on delivery of our ASIC's.  I know were not issuing dividends until we receive the hardware but that's a better (MH/s)per share rate then most if not all our competitors.  Were planning on issuing 300 new shares on Monday at BTC0.30 each to take us to >51.6(MH/s)per share.  Although if we can shift another ~1400 shares at BTC0.30 we would be operating at >54(MH/s)per share or 1(GH/s)@<BTC5.55.  Just thought I'd let you know.  We've been operating over seven months now and I know Nefario personally. 

Damn, our first big draw-down due to some major selling across the board on the GLBSE. All of this is related to the fallout from BS&T's default no doubt: my guess is that people are mass selling in order to meet creditor demands.

However, since a lot of issues are now trading significantly below their face value, it does appear that we could eventually have a nice snap-back rally when things finally recover. For now, it's good to get the pain over with, even though it's unpleasant.

NAV per share updated to 1.08576037

(BTW, I'm using the 5-day average price for each asset now instead of the last-trading price when calculating the NAV per share. This is how we're doing it from now on as per the FAQ.)

very aware of the pirate risk? I have quotes of cytokine saying a pirate default was "highly unlikely". He did everything he could to stay in denial because the returns were Too Good To Be True.

Furthermore, giving away your bitcoin to HYIP scammers is not "growing the economy" nor "supporting bitcoin businesses", unlikely you call ponzi scamming a business. Unless you do due diligence and invest in *real* projects, not "arbitrage" and "mining farms". Maybe when so-called investors stop being so willing to get scammed, it will be worthwhile for entrepreneurs to start actual businesses instead of more HYIP funds.
 

I agree mostly but I'm pretty sure mining bitcoin is a real business in any rational sense of the word. Granted that fixed m/hash bonds seem pretty useless in an environment of rapid difficulty increase and evolving technology like we've seen recently.  What "real" business" do you invest in? or do you just leave it in the blockchain?

My investors have no pirate exposure, nor have they ever had pirate exposure to my knowledge. The Nick Razze deposit is a special case because he was dishonest with all of his depositors, but it does appear that we will ultimately be getting our money back. While I am not at all happy with how things are going this month, I believe we are doing surprisingly well on a relative basis considering many other people have been completely ruined, directly or indirectly, by the pirate default. We have survived it, which I am very happy with. As long as we can get through this difficult period of drawdown, I have no doubts about our future growth prospects.

It is true that I did not believe pirate to be a HYIP since his business model appeared to be the high volume selling of coins from depositors to large clients in exchange for "other" coins, but I could have been very wrong about that. Regardless, it doesn't really matter, because I had a talk with my investors about pirate on several occasions, and we all agreed to maintain a position of zero exposure, which I have stuck to.

Finally, regarding running completely to cold storage: it is certainly a solution to the scamming problem, but your solution denies capital to legitimate bitcoin businesses. For those who are willing and wanting to take on that risk in exchange for growth potential, providing this funding is a necessary part of the economy. That said, I do believe that cold storage is an essential savings vehicle for each person, but it's up to each of them as individuals to determine what percentage they wish to allocate there. I do not under-leverage the fund in this way because there is no one-size-fits-all solution, not to mention that it makes no sense (the whole point of cold storage is to do it yourself so that you have to trust no one).

I keep a healthy percentage in cold storage, the rest are allocated toward my best efforts at supporting the economy. Without some trust and mutually beneficial relationships, there is no economy.  But above all, trust enables people to do business with each other. Doing business is what creates wealth. (http://www.forbes.com/2006/09/22/trust-economy-markets-tech_cx_th_06trust_0925harford.html)

 I dont know if its possible to have a functioning economy without enforcing property rights and contracts. What we have seen is people constantly breaking contracts with no recourse for anyone who has one broken.

 The question is how can you use bitcoin and make people stick to the contracts they sign ?

imho if the minimal function of government is to enforce contracts and ensure property rights.

Government is just a(n) (arguably poor) monopoly provider of these services. A requirement for an IPO or listing on anything above pink market should be designation of arbitration and insurance services providers.    The current political environment and early stage of the bitcoin game makes it difficult to provide these services in a meaningful way yet but also clearly provides opportunity to profit for those with a penchant for creative solutions possibly even making use of Distributed contracts (https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Contracts)

Of course as long as contracts are unenforcable, those "service providers" are just as suspectable to either being scammed or being scams themselves as any other bitcoin company, so this doesnt help at all.

If you want to help grow bitcoin, the best and easiest way is simply spend bitcoins (and repurchase them). Investing is fine if there is something worthwhile investing in, but I just dont see it. I see almost nothing but mining assets and ponzi scams. Mining might be a real business, but you cant grow it, as its a zero sum game, it will always yield 50/25/.. BTC per 10 minutes.

Depositing coins to the highest rated dood offering x% per week is not "doing business", and its not supporting the economy. Its a transfer of wealth to hyip scammers. Do you really want to support the economy, or are you just looking for the highest easy return?


Check out Project Development. There are lots of potential products and people working on real businesses there. (I have one of my own that I work on).

NAV per share updated to 1.08957716

It is with great sadness and regret that I must announce my plan to close down the fund, for the following reasons:

(1) NCKRAZZE has stopped responding to my PMs. I now suspect the worst from him. :(
(2) Although it looks likely that BDT holders will be repaid, it also looks like it will take many weeks to months for this to happen. Nefario is leading the charge here, thank god.
(3) Generally speaking, it now appears that nearly every asset was either a scam itself (BDT, ZIP.A), or a pass-through into another scam (NCKRAZZE,TYGRR.BOND-P). The only good assets seem to be TEEK.B, COGNITIVE, NASTY, and OBSI.HRPT
(4) I have not made a dime from this operation (all "fees" were repaid in the form of bailing out the PUREMINING position), and net-net have lost a significant sum.

It is clear now that the bitcoin financial sector is premature/undeveloped, and I feel both embarrassed and disgusted by the massive scamming going on and depressed at the fallout that innocent people have had to suffer. I don't really want to harp any more on it than that. The sad thing is that the underlying investment approach I'm using has been working (although it cannot detect scams, which seem to be pretty much everywhere) and did have some home-runs that I didn't really touch on (such as giving me a timely sell signal on GIGAMINING, which we successfully exited right before it fell 50% in value).

Regardless, I have made up my mind to take up the sh*t assets on behalf of my investors. Before I outline the exact plan, first of all, here is the current portfolio:

Portfolio (Using 5-day average trade prices as of 9/30/2012)

SYMBOL	SHARES	PRICE	VALUE
COGNITIVE	1809	0.438	792.342
BDK.BND	3820	0.064	224.48
TYGRR.TECH	153	?	?
BDT	2473	?	?
TEEK.B	316	0.5	158
ZIP.A	139	?	?
NASTY	669	0.362	242.178
OBSI.HRPT	5152	0.041	211.232
TYGRR.BOND-P	2036	?	?
NCKRAZZE	2400	?	?

I own 5768 shares, which leaves 1472 shares out in the wild that need to be recalled. So here is what I'm thinking: transfer in your shares of MOVETO.FUND back to the fund (use "cytokine:MOVETO.FUND"). PM me with the time of the transfer, the # of shares, and your GLBSE account name. For each share of MOVETO.FUND that you return, I will transfer to you:

1 share COGNITIVE (5-day avg price of 0.438)
2 shares BDK.BND (5-day avg price of 0.064)
3 shares OBSI.HRPT (5-day avg price of 0.041)
Your choice of 1 share TEEK.B (5-day avg price of 0.5) or 1 share NASTY (5-day avg price of 0.362, but in my opinion very undervalued at the moment), a second share of COGNITIVE, OR choose from any of the ? assets.

To encourage everyone to get this done quickly, it's going to be first-come first-serve as to who gets to choose which assets. After all shares have been exchanged back into the fund, then I will keep the remaining assets in exchange for my 5768 shares (which means no doubt I'll end up holding all the crappy defaulted stuff). It sucks for me, but I'm going to do the right thing here. Again, if you're *prefer* any of these assets, let me know.

Thank guys, and let me know if you have any questions. At a minimum, this short and small experiment was a major learning experience.

I was hoping for a good news... so sad to see you go. Thanks for trying, and best luck for the future.

It looks to me as if everyone and their dog was just running around scamming people out of "management fees" for their "investment expertise" without anyone actually creating anything worth investing in, so that all these scammers simply ran around investing in each other's scams.

Maybe someday when their are hundreds of real businesses being traded there will be room for some kind of "fund management" company but until then maybe the whole economy would be better off if all the "experts" would simply debate in public the merits and demerits of the one or two actual businesses available to invest in and reach a consensus between them as to whether any are actually worth investing in and if so which.

Then the readers can decide for themselves whether to heed any of the advice.

It might also help for some of the "experts" to manage their own personal portfolios profitably for a year or two, maybe making those public as part of the debate, so that evnetually over time readers can see whether any of them actually managed even to avoid losing their own nesteggs.

It is commendable that this particular manager seems to be taking responsibility, kudos on that.

-MarkM-

I lol'ed.

You were on the wrong platform.


http://polimedia.us/dtng/c/src/134654389322.png


This is very true. Forum retards belong on the forum not pretending they're financiers on "exchanges".

Me too - not sure in which universe OBSI.HRPT have a 5-day average of over 0.09.

Maybe it's insured up to that value.

Sorry, that was a mistake (it wasn't updated in the spreadsheet from last time). Fixed.

Thanks guys for helping me do this quickly.

BTW, 1170 1093 1062 493 283 233 224 shares still outstanding.

At least  BTC exchange rate doubled since june.

Details PM'd.

I appreciate all the kind things people have said. I don't have time to respond to all but I wanted to share some of them and thank you. I removed the names from the PMs to keep your privacy (unless you're OK with me publishing them, then let me know.)

Better luck next time.

Another one I liked, thanks