Bitcoin Forum

Brand new listing, pending on btct.co

ASICMINER-100PT - issued by Rodyland

Rodyland can be contacted via PM on bitcointalk.org
or via email at rodyland.asicminer@gmail.com

This asset is a fractional (1%) pass-through for ASICMINER, the ASIC MINING company, to be listed on BTC-TC (btct.co)

Purpose

    The purpose of the ASICMINER-100PT is to allow people with smaller account balances to purchase an interest in ASICMINER shares without committing large proportions of their funds to the purchase.  This passthrough also provides a practical way for ASICMINER-PT shareholders to reinvest their dividends in ASICMINER shares.

FAQ / TL;DR

Q. Who are you?
A. I'm Rodyland on the bitcointalk.org forums, email rodyland.asicminer@gmail.com.  Been a follower of bitcoin since 2011, and want to do something active, positive and useful for the community.  I have provided my personal contact details to to BTC-TC, so that I may be contacted in case of emergency.

Q. What are the shares?
A. Each ASICMINER-100PT share is equivalent to 1% of an ASICMINER share, held in trust by the issuer, and listed on btc-tc.

Q. How big is the IPO?
A. Minimum of 2500 shares.  If less than that number are sold at IPO, the issuer reserves the right to refund all purchases and cancel the IPO.

Q. What do I get if I buy a share?
A. Each share is entitled to 1% of ASICMINER dividends, after adjustment for management fees (max 5%).

Q. Do you really hold the shares?
A. Pre-IPO: a source of shares has been secured, but are not held by the passthrough.  The issuer is also committing part of his own personal shareholding to the IPO.


Post-IPO: yes, within a week of IPO.  The address holding the shares will be made public.  The private key holding the underlying shares will be shared with a trusted 3rd party so that in the event of disaster, all shares can be distributed to their rightful owners.

Q. Can I transfer my ASICMINER shares in?
A. Yes, and it's free.

Q. Can I transfer my ASICMINER-PT shares in?
A. Yes - details depend on getting burnside (owner of ASICMINER-PT) to transfer the shares out of ASICMINER-PT.  If the issuer holds shares in reserve, a straight swap deal may be available.  There are no fees for transferring shares in to ASICMINER-100PT.

Q. Can I swap my ASICMINER-100PT shares for ASICMINER shares?
A. Yes, for a minimum transfer of the equivalent of 10 ASICMINER shares, for a fee of 0.5 bitcoin.  Smaller transfers are not offered.

Q. Can I swap my ASICMINER-100PT shares for ASICMINER-PT shares?
A. Yes.  If the issuer holds sufficient ASICMINER-PT shares, a straight 100-for-1 swap may be available for a 0.1 bitcoin fee with no minimum transfer size.  Otherwise the requirements and fees are the same as for swapping for ASICMINER shares.

Q. What's the stuff below?
A. Actual Terms and Conditions, which everyone should read before investing.

IPO Terms

    For every 100 ASICMINER-100PT shares made available at IPO (or part thereof), one ASICMINER share will be obtained by the issuer and assigned to an address to be published.
    The private key associated with the underlying ASICMINER shares will be shared with a trusted 3rd party.
    The issuer has access to a number of ASICMINER shares that will be made available to the issuer after the IPO.
    If the transfer to the issuer fails or any part of the IPO is unsuccessful all ASICMINER-100PT shares purchased will be bought back by the issuer at the IPO price unless the issuer is able to secure another source of ASICMINER shares.
    ASICMINER shares will be transferred to issuer to cover the IPO within 7 days of IPO, and the address holding the issuer's ASICMINER shares will be made public when transfer from friedcat is confirmed.
    If the IPO volume does not exceed 2500 shares (the equivalent of 25 ASICMINER shares), the issuer reserves the right to terminate the IPO due to lack of interest.


Post-IPO Terms

    For every 100 ASICMINER-100PT shares on issue (or part thereof), one ASICMINER share will be held on file with Friedcat until such time as ASICMINER is listed on a public exchange.
    Should ASICMINER list on a public exchange, one ASICMINER share will be held on such exchange for every 100 ASICMINER-100PT (or part thereof).
    Each ASICMINER-100PT share is entitled to 1% of the management-fee-adjusted dividend payment of an ASICMINER share.  (That is, for each ASICMINER share, the management fee is deducted from the dividend payment and then 1% of the remaining is allocated to each share.  Per-share dividends will be truncated to 1 satoshi precision).
    A management fee of X% will be levied on each ASICMINER dividend payment where X is determined by the number of ASICMINER shares currently managed by the pass through.  For 50 or less shares (eqivalent of 5000 PT shares), the management fee shall be 5%.  For over 50 shares, the management fee shall be 4%.  For over 100 shares, the management fee shall be 3%.  For over 200 shares the management fee shall be 2%.  For over 500 shares the management fee shall be 1%.
    The management fee will be waived for the first 4 dividend payments of the passthrough.
    Payment of dividends will be made within 2 weeks of their issuance from ASICMINER.
    Dividend payments made more than 72 hours after their issuance from ASICMINER will have no management fee attached.
    Passthrough shares have no voting rights in ASICMINER.
    More pass-through shares can be issued, provided there is sufficient backing.  For example, if there is sufficient demand, the issuer may attempt to secure more ASICMINER shares, with the PT shares to be sold either on-market or off-market.
    If the passthrough ever holds enough shares to be awarded an ASICMINER board seat, any financial benefits obtained thereby (for example, free mining hardware) will be spread equally amongst all shareholders as special dividends, at times determined by the issuer.  Special dividends will be announced with at least 1 week's notice on the ASICMINER-100PT "News" page on the BTC-TC website (and optionally on the ASICMINER-100PT bitcointalk.org thread).

Transfer and Redemption

    The issuer supports transfer of ASICMINER shares into ASICMINER-100PT, and redemption of ASICMINER-100PT shares for ASICMINER shares, under the following conditions.
    Shares of ASICMINER-100PT can be redeemed 100-for-one for ASICMINER shares for a 0.5 BTC fee per transaction.  Any ASICMINER share redemption must be a multiple of 100 ASICMINER-100PT shares, and a minimum redemption amount of 1000 ASICMINER-100PT shares (10 ASICMINER shares) applies.
    ASICMINER shares can be transferred to ASICMINER-100PT, by transferring ASICMINER shares to Rodyland via friedcat.  Each such transaction will incur no charge by ASICMINER-100PT, and each ASICMINER share transferred shall result in 100 ASICMINER-100PT shares being credited your account.
    The above ASICMINER share redemption rules apply to personal ASICMINER share holdings, as registered with friedcat.  If and when ASICMINER shares are listed on an exchange, the issuer envisages that methods of transfer will change, but the underlying principles will not, however no promises can be made at this stage.
    The issuer will endeavour to hold a small number of ASICMINER-PT shares on BTC-TC.  If a shareholder wishes to transfer shares from ASICMINER-100PT to ASICMINER-PT and the issuer holds sufficient shares in ASICMINER-PT, transfer to ASICMINER-PT (100 ASICMINER-100PT for one ASICMINER-PT) will incur a 0.1 BTC fee (per transaction), and minimum transfer size requirements will be waived.  
    If insufficient shares in ASICMINER-PT are held by the issuer, a transfer to ASICMINER-PT will be handled as if it were a personal withdrawal.
    All share redemption and transfer requests must be in writing, and will be processed weekly at 12:00 UTC Fridays and at other times as deemed necessary by the issuer.  

Asset Termination

    Should the issuer of ASICMINER terminate the asset, any funds received through this asset termination will be distributed in full without any fee taken.
    During the IPO process should the issuer become unable to secure ASICMINER shares to fully-back ASICMINER-100PT the asset will be terminated and all ASICMINER-100PT shares will be bought back at the IPO price.
    The issuer reserves the right to close down the asset for any reason with a 30 day warning.  Should this right be exercised, every reasonable attempt will be made to transfer the assets into the direct control of the ASICMINER-100PT shareholders using the met hods described in the Transfer section above (waiving all fees and limits).  Any shareholders the issuer is unable to contact or unable to transfer the shares for within a 90 day window will receive a forced buyout at market prices at the end of 90 days following the closure. Any shareholdings that would result in a fractional ASICMINER share will be subject to forced buyout 90 days from closure.
    Should the issuer of ASICMINER choose to list ASICMINER on the BTC-TC exchange it may be necessary to terminate this asset.  If this is the case the ASICMINER-100PT shares will be automatically redeemed on the exchange for ASICMINER shares.  Holdings that would convert to fractional ASICMINER shares would be subject to forced buyback as per the asset closedown clause above.


Exclusion of Guarantees

    This pass-through makes no guarantees should any issues arise with ASICMINER's issuer. Should ASICMINER issuers requires any fees/process to claim or transfer shares arising from any issue/event, fees will be paid in full in the name of the pass-through holders from future dividends.


Revision history:
2013-05-01, Initial version
2013-05-02, added email contact
2013-02-02, added FAQ
2013-02-05, added escrow holding of PT shares, contact info
2013-02-07, removed escrow (just not feasible)

Good luck with this endeavor. Get ready for lots of questions and your input of time to run this. Best wishes.

Cool idea.

I might be interested if there was someone else running this.  I am also not a fan of management fees, hence why I stick to DeadTerra's BitFunder passthrough

There is someone more reputable managing an asset like this, that also already owns a significant amount of shares to get things started.

It's okay, we won't make you buy any. Or will we?  :o

You know, building a service with the btct.co/bf API that allows purchase of fractional shares for anything would be cool.

Thanks everyone for your feedback.


If I'm reading correctly, you are complaining about the section on transfers from this passthrough to ASICMINER-PT?

I think you're reading in to this more than is there.  If I don't have ASICMINER-PT shares on hand to swap for  ASICMINER-100PT shares, then people can still redeem for ASICMINER shares.  And they can redeem their passthrough shares directly into the waiting hands of burnside, who will gladly convert them to ASICMINER-PT shares.

The relevant section is quoted below, I think it's quite clear, but then again I wrote it:


Maybe I should have used the word "redemption" rather than "withdrawal", but to me the meaning is clear.


I have access to enough shares to get this started.  You're not the first to ask, so I think I will have to post proof.  What sort of proof do you think would suffice?  A message signed by the address holding the shares?

Is the other person managing an asset like this on btc-tc (is the asset live)?  If you would be so kind as to ask them to PM me - I don't see the point in duplicating work on the same exchange.  Even if it's on another exchange it would be good to compare notes.

As for my reputation - well, this is part of me trying to build some.


Short of pure volunteer work, someone has to pay for the time required and costs of managing an endeavour like this. 

If you know of someone with higher regard that would be interested in joining me as a partner in this venture, I would be most interested to hear from them. 


I agree with those saying that building fractional share purchases into the service would be a cool feature, however I doubt it's an easy thing to implement or manage.  Maybe if this passthrough gets off the ground, and maybe if it's a roaring success, the owners/implementers of btc-tc would change their systems to build these features in.  In the meantime, this is what I'm offering.

You mean you?  :)

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=192498.0
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=192499.0

Seriously, good luck, I hope it's a success.

Running a PT as popular as ASICMINER takes a significant amount of time.  As an investor, it is in your interest to compensate the manager for their time.  It keeps them motivated to do things like issue the divs on time and answer your emails.  ;)   (all of DeaDTerra's other passthroughs have a 5% fee.)

This is also a unique service you can't get elsewhere.  I think the target audience (people that want to invest less than 1.2 BTC at a time) is going to appreciate the unique service being provided and not going to mind the management fees much.

I am curious as to how the brokers that allow this pull it off.  Do they just always keep a few shares of every asset on hand to split out fractionally in-house?

That would almost certainly be the case.  No share settlement facility I'm aware of (and I'm aware of several - I work in the industry) allows partial shareholdings.  Any fractional holding would almost certainly be a broker-backed equivalent of a passthrough.  If anyone can point me towards any such thing in the "real world", please send a link - I'm quite curious.

I'll look into the technical requirements and run some use case models.  Appreciate the input!

Added an FAQ section - the rest of the document is pretty wordy.  I'll be putting the FAQ on a page on btc-tc when the stock goes live.

Wait so are we really about to have 2 new pass throughs that do exactly the same thing??

Burnside can you please pick one and deny the other.

I believe there are two Satoshi dice listings on btc-tc?

I think the plan is to let the market decide which passthrough provides the features that are in demand.

Impossible to do given they're unique offerings.  (Someone should do a point by point comparison.)

We do also have precedent for multiple passthru's, despite their similarity.  I lean more toward letting the issuers decide if they want to compete, and letting the market make the most of what is available.

BTC-TC Admin's Note:  Rodyland and I are linked up on linked in.  I have Rodyland's number and have talked with Rodyland on the phone.

This is not a promotion of the offering, just stating that Rodyland was willing to give up his number and undergo a very brief interview.

Cheers.

To all those able to vote on btc-tc, this asset is now open for approval:

https://btct.co/security/ASICMINER-100PT

The good shareholders of LTC-GLOBAL have done their duty and picked holes in my offering, and as it is my commitment to provide what the market wants, I am fixing those deficiencies.

The ASICMINER shares held by the passthrough, backing the shares on issue, will be held in escrow.  I am currently searching for a trusted escrow provider willing to perform such a duty.

Thanks.

I am very interested in this solely because you will be allowing transfer of fractional shares to PT/Real shares which TaT doesn't.Definitely understand a small fee though.The only reason I haven't bought any of his yet. Will be watching this closely.

Glad to hear it. I too think that share transfer is a valuable feature.

I am still waiting for the owners of btc-tc to vote to approve my listing.

I think you still need to address the issue raised - that you were trying to sell shares in the pass-through without owning any shares of ASICMINER.  If that's been resolved then you need to amend your contract to reflect the change.  Last update you gave here was that you were looking for an escrow - if one was found that it could be a good idea to say so (and have them confirm it).

As far as I can tell that's the only stated reason why anyone hasn't voted yes - so maybe if you address it you'll get the votes you need.

Please reread the offer.  The ownership issue has been addressed, some time ago.

It was never my intention to sell shares without already having the necessary backing. It was my intention to find extra shares to back the IPO to avoid selling my personal holdings. At all times i had my personal holding as a fallback**. And since I have been unable to secure alternatives, these personal shares are now committed to the IPO should it eventually happen.

Furthermore i have committed to making the address holding the PT shares public - something none of the other PTs I'm aware of have done.

If you can point out where in my offering the language used isn't clear I would be very appreciative.

**EDIT: The transaction history on the address shows that I've owned those shares some time before I announced the launch of this PT.

Sorry for hijacking, but I wanted to be clear that TAT asserts ownership of all shares it sells (and more). At the moment I do so on request, but on Wednesday I will be issuing a full report of all holdings I have on all exchanges, and with Friedcat, and how anyone can verify what I sell.

Realised I didn't address this specific point in my previous reply.

After discussion with multiple escrow providers, it was concluded by me that this is not an option.  One of the points of the PT is to provide the escrow.  One of the not-insignificant pieces of work is managing shares into and out of the escrow (especially in a PT like mine that supports transfers), and managing distribution of dividends from the escrow to the shareholders.  To contract (and pay for) a 3rd party to provide share escrow on behalf of the PT is just not a feasible option.

As a backup for disaster recovery I will be providing a copy of the PT's private key to a trusted 3rd party - details are still to be decided, it's not worth even discussing if the IPO doesn't happen.

If providing my own shares into the IPO, making the address holding the PT's shares public, and providing my personal IRL contact details (including phone number) to burnside is not enough transparency, then so be it - I can't think of anything else that I would be willing to offer that would change your mind.

Would have thought providing the address linked to the ASIC-MINER shares (to prove you have them) and signing a message with the address (to prove it's yours) would be fine.

I tend to agree that having an escrow is pretty pointless - if people don't trust you at all then they should just not buy your shares.  Proving you actually have ASICMINER shares (rather than just promising to buy some - as was initially the case) was the more serious issue in my view : pass-throughs should own the underlying assets before selling them on.

I am glad we're on the same page.

The lack of proof of ownership was pointed out on day 1, and fixed promptly (although it seems I failed to record the specifics of when that change was made).