Have to say it's nice to see a decent set of accounts that seems to contain the information they should.  Haven't had a chance to go over them properly and analyse the numbers - but at least I now CAN, which is more than can be said for most other securities.

If anyone has some time and basic web-development skills they should register a domain such as IanBakewell.com and get this info up there.

A nice picture of him on the front with SCAMMER & THIEF in big red letters above, plus links to all the info.  Then start linking to it everywhere - and visiting it daily and within a few months anyone Googling his name will find it.  Then he'll start getting asked questions by those he knows in RL putting a bit more pressure on him.

Not a web-developer myself - and am not owed anything by him anyway - but if someone wants to do it I'll happily pay for domain registration/hosting.

Also, has anyone contacted the second-life lot?  If I recall right he was also running some business in there - someone found it when there was previous controversy about him.

Yeah, I got a tiny amount less interest today than yesterday despite having the same loans out.  I did no margin-trading yesterday and took out no laons myself, so it's pretty easy to see that the calculation is wrong.

Here, again are my loans:

USD    29.19032581    1798.0%    12 months    No    Renew loan   Notify
USD    2110.08319976    1798.0%    12 months    No    Renew loan   Notify
USD    152.63    1798.0%    12 months    No    Renew loan   Notify
USD    3638.7240986    1798.0%    12 months    No    Renew loan   Notify
USD    2422.5448393    1798.0%    12 months    No    Renew loan   Notify

That's 8353.17 at 1798% per year.

8353.17*17.98/365 = 411.479
90% of that (Bitfinex takes 10%) should leave me with 370.331

Which is exactly what I got yesterday:

Interest Payment on wallet deposit    370.3316       8723.5152    14 Apr 01:11

But today, with those loans out all the time (and in fact another small one out for a short period of tiem as well - less than an hour I think so it likely got no interest):

Interest Payment on wallet deposit    354.9011       9147.4236    15 Apr 01:10

Now there's no way someone closed one of those then retook exactly same amount at same rate - not with much cheaper loans around.  Plus my offered rate isn't same anyway - so they couldn't do that even if they tried.

The answer is that the loans didn't calculate on one hour.  If you take the amount I should have got (370.33) and multiply it by 23/24 you get exactly the amount I actually received (354.9).  It's actually accurate to 4 dec places if you calculate it properly.

So there's still some issue with loans not being calculated very hour - and stiffing lenders.

Well indeed - but I wouldn't have made that statement were I leaving all the earnings in there.

Pretty terrible thing to call it - given the history of the "fund" that used the same name.

There's not too many options for where you can hold a USD position.  Wasn't going to leave it on BTC-E as already got far more there in BTC/LTC positions across a few accounts and have no clue who runs that.

Faced with a bunch of options - none of which I fully trust - I opted for the one that pays a return.  Alternative was to cash out - which, from BTC-E, would have meant taking a big haircut and having a real pain getting the USD back into BTC later.  MtGox isn't an option - as their lag makes any position there illiquid when it matters the most (and I don't trust them any more than any of the other sites anyway).

Holding funds in various dodgy sites is part of the risk of doing business in BTC - at some stage one will vanish with some funds, you just have to spread the funds so no single site/operator vanishing will hurt too much.  And, of course, you have to be making enough profit to justify the risk.

At 4.5% per day, the site only needs an average life-expectancy of 25 days or so for putting cash there to be +EV.  As its been around for a fair few months already it doesn't seem an unreasonable risk to take.  It's no different to me trading horrible securities - sure, I'll get burned from time to time, but my profits to date for my fund show that it can still be a successful strategy.

If you go to the website there's a button at the top right for Support.  Click there any fill in the form - just copy/paste what you typed above basically.  He may check those before he next looks at this thread.

Thanks for the link - have posted there, but seems like the issue was already explained : just Raphael underestimated the extent to which he'd give some lenders haircuts.  No big deal.

Just to add to this, I'm in the same boat as simon - had posted about it here:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=175210.0

As I didn't find this thread and couldn't work out how to get an invitation code to register for the bitfinex forums.

My loans were all at exactly the same rate (WAY over VIR) and I received about half the interest I should have got.  Had exactly same loans still open yesterday and got the full amount (well about 5% under what I calc it should have been but near enough not to matter).

Not too fussed about it - with the returns I'm making some issues are inevitable.  In fact they're desirable - as if there weren't occasional problems the site would be swamped in USD and we'd not get such good rates.

Here's mine for the record:

Currency    Amount    Rate (% per 365 days) *    Expire in    Auto-renew (lending offers)    Actions
USD    29.19032581    1798.0%    12 months    No    Renew loan   Notify
USD    2110.08319976    1798.0%    12 months    No    Renew loan   Notify
USD    152.63    1798.0%    12 months    No    Renew loan   Notify
USD    3638.7240986    1798.0%    12 months    No    Renew loan   Notify
USD    2422.5448393    1798.0%    12 months    No    Renew loan   Notify

And here's the interest payments for the last 2 days.  Yesterday there WAS one more loan of a small amount for a short time and I have shorted BTC a few times - but only in small amounts and with it being BTCl oans ay tiny rates it would have had a trivial impact.

Interest Payment on wallet deposit    186.3949       8539.6236    13 Apr 01:10
Interest Payment on wallet deposit    370.3316       8723.5152    14 Apr 01:11

As I say, I'm not fussed about the small loss - but it definitely IS the case that some people got around half what they should have.  Will provide my account name by PM/email if you (Raphael) want to look into it - but don't bother about it unless there's something you'd like to check out.  Obviously I don't post my account name here.

Yubikey is ONLY vulnerable to physical theft.  That's not such a concern to me - computer's hard drive is encrypted so if they steal computer and yubikey they still have no idea what it gives access to (or what my passwords are).

Biggest plus of it is it's so much easier.  I use it for every transaction - as I don't have to type in any codes or anything, just touch it and it types the code in.  Using Google 2FA is far more tedious and intrusive - which I guess is why most sites haven't even implemented authorising at a transaction level.

I use Yubikey on BTC.CO/LTC-GLobal and Google 2FA everywhere else that I can.  Yubikey is miles easier in my view - I'd happily have every transaction on all sites verified by Yubikey.  I'd go insane doing that with Google 2FA.

That said, you do raise an issue - that if I want to access BTC.CO/LTC-Global from my smart-phone then I have to disable Yubikey first.

You can use Yubikeys on as many sites as you want - unless they insist that they you purchase from them and run their own Yubikey servers.

To put into prspective how bad the borrowers keeping those loans open is:

At present there's $700k total out on loan at an average rate of ~270% per year.
Yet apparently a handful of different borrowers have all been happy to pay me 1798% per year for the last few days and continue to do so blithely.

There's now no real USD on offer at less than 1000% - so the chance to swap out the loans for cheap ones has now gone.

Here's what I think actually happened (which is why I'm not bothering to make a fuss about it):

During one of the spells where Gox became unresponsive the positions taken out with the loans got force-closed against an illiquid internal Bitfinex market - whilst they still had margin if the proper prices were taken into account.

At the point my loans were closed and the auto-loan put up to lend the cash back out.

The victims of the forced closure complaiend or the error was noticed (positions aren't meant to be force-closed whilst Gox is unresponsive - and losses incurred as a result of this have been refunded previously) and some time later their positions were reinstated (presumably at a cost to Bitfinex) - and as my cash hadn't been loaned back out (due to the price being way over the new rates) my loans just got reinstated as well.

But of course I then missed out on the interest on them.

The borrowers would be heavily in loss - but not actually bust - but would lack the margin to take out new loans to replace mine, so are stuck with my rates.

If this is approximately correct then, as my cash wasn't in demand whilst the loans were closed, I don't feel like I actually lost anything - and as I'm continuing to get 4.5% per day when everyone else is getting under 1% I'm not unhappy with the outcome.  But some transparency on the loans is definitely much needed.

Well here's the summary of it.

When it was obvious BTC was about to crash I moved some over to Bitfinex, converted it to USD and loaned it out.  It's typically hard to check whether you're getting the correct interest - as a lot of loans are for short periods of time and at different rates (I adjust the rate I offer to try to be as expensive as I can whilst loaning out all the USD).

First few days interest was pretty much exactly what I expected.  Then the main crash happened.

The day in question I had exactly the same loans out all day.  I know noone borrowed more - as I had none on offer plus noone would be paying the rates I'd been charging in a crashing market.  And I know that for absolutely sure - as the rate I was offering was different, so if a loan had closed and a new one opened then the replacement would have been at a different rate.  Because of this (and with all loans being the same rate - 1798% per year) it was pretty easy to work out what interest I should have got.  And that amount was slightly under $400 (on $8k or or so on loan).  But I only got half of it for that day.  Now I DID do a small bit of margin-trading myself (going short) - but the interest rate on BTC is absolutely tiny in comparison and it was for a small amount for a short period - so would have barely changed what I received.

This morning I still had the same loans out - but got about 5% under the expected amount (conceivable that's about right).

There was one more wierd thing that happened.  I have auto-reloan  turned on : so if a loan I've made is paid back then the funds are put back up on offer.  On the morning after receiving the low payment my loans section showed me as having $6k+ up on offer to lend.  But it still showed all my loans as active.  It's as though the loans had been closed/force-closed then somehow reinstated without the auto-loan getting cancelled.  The auto-loan does NOT auto-cancel in some situations anyway - e.g. if it puts up an offer then I move the cash out of the deposit wallet then the offer shows up in my list (but can't be filled) even though I don't have the cash available to lend.

So the obvious explanation, consistent with the evidence, is that the interest is actually correct - as for some lperiod of time MOST of my loans were actually repaid.  But then, somehow, they reappeared (and it was NOT new loans - as my new offered rate was different).  Those loans are still all active.  Provided they keep paying me ~4.5% per day (and the funds are there when I want to withdraw them) they can stay active forever for all I care.

I would have posted about it on the bitfinex forums - but seems you need an invitation code to sign up there and nowhere can I find where to get one.  The loans/interest system is totally opaque - as yet there's zero way to check what was on loan when or at what rate - you just get a single payment once per day at about 01:10.  It just happens that mine were totally stable and I could immediately work out in my head (confirmed with calculator after) that I'd only got about half what I should have.

So long as the cash is all still there I'm not that fussed about a $150 error - far more concerned that the loans aren't covered.  As I really can't see why someone would borrow to go long at ~$175, then sit there paying 5% per day (4.5% to me, 0.5% to site) in a basically static market at ~$100 for the last 3 days or so.  Especially when they could swap the loans out to cheaper ones if they had half a brain (or they could have - there's not a whole lot of USD on offer right now for cheap).  Of course if they have no margin left (or a negative margin) then they can't swap loans or do squat except close - and from THEIR perspective there's no point in that as it leaves them busto so they may as well hang in and hope the BTC price gos through the roof and they go back into the green.  Far more concerning, obviously, if the site is letting people do this - but if they want to do so then I don't have any great objection provided they have the cash to cover the losses themselves.

Nah, it's only 2.5 times as high (less if you trade a decent volume).  Bitfunder only charges a fee to the seller, BTC.CO charges both sides - so halve the Bitfunder rate when comparing.  And use .25% instead of .2% for BTC.CO if you don't use a Yubikey (I'd recommend you use one even without the fee discount - it's more secure and easier than Google 2FA/a PIN).

Which securities is it you believe options are being sold on?

I'll put you out of your misery.

The calls and puts aren't naked - they're covered by the bond-holders money (with MP covering the rest when there's not enough raised from bondholders).  I'm puzzled what you thought the bonds were being sold for if the cash wasn't being used to cover the options - to give money away for free?. 

All settlements are in BTC - so BTC can cover both sides of the trade.

WEEKLY REPORT




Not much change in the NAV/U since my previous post - we made a few percent more trading profit but LTC rose over 20% vs BTC and pretty much cancelled that out.  So we haven't quite got back to the previous HWM yet (we're still about 3% or so below it).  We ended the week with 8.16% growth with LTC only falling slightly vs BTC over the week as whole - so trading profits were over 7%.  A very good week in my opinion.

We're back to 85% cash - having dropped as low as 60% during the week.  The percentage of cash we have at the time of a report should not be misinterpreted as meaning we don't actually use the rest of the capital.  The easiest site to show this isn't the case on is actually Bitfunder - as it's very easy to get an estimate of total trade volume there.  This report shows we only have 14.6 BTC worth of securities on Bitfunder and 88 BTC in cash - but how much do we actually trade there in a week?  Well, Bitfunder fees are charged based on your volume of sales in the last 60 days - the more you sell the lower the rate you get.  Here's our stats:

Pricing tier's are by last 60 day sales.
This period you have sold: ฿350 worth.
Bonus Discounts: 0.00%
Actual Trading Fee: 0.80%

We need 500 BTC of sales in last 60 days to drop to next tier.  But from this we can estimate what we sell on average - and it's 350/60 or slightly under 6 BTC worth of sales per day.  So in a week we, on average, have been selling about 40 BTC worth of shares (and obviously we have to buy those as well - which is maybe 30 BTC worth of buys).  And our volume is increasing - at the start of the month our average for last 60 days was almost exactly 300.  So although we currently only hold 14.6 BTC of securities we can estimate we've actually bought and sold around three times that much during the week.  Which hopefully is a useful illustration of how misleading it can be if you look at the spreadsheet and then start interpreting the results as if we were an investment fund rather than a trading fund.

If LTC stays around current range and BTC settles down a bit (i.e. Gox starts actually working for more than a few hours at a time) then I'll probably release some more bonds this week.  We've been tight on liqudity on specific sites at times - the worst instance being running out of BTC on BTC-E after one of the sales back to the fund.  Why do we need BTC on BTC-E when that happens?  Because when someone sells back to the fund that reduces our LTC - and hence the percentage of the fund that is in LTC.  I then buy LTC on BTC-E to get us back to around the 15% LTC mark (I tend to act when it dips below 12% or gos over 18%).  If I don't rebalance immediately then we end up gambling on the exchange-rate with the funds that should have been converted - and can end up either making a significant profit or loss on the repurchase of the units.  Which isn't what I want to do.  In this particular instance I had funds of my own on BTC-E at the time - so just lent 20 BTC to the fund whilst I waited for funds to arrive there from elsewhere.

I'm not sure yet just how many bonds I'll sell - but we won't go over the 200 BTC face-value mark this week unless something unforeseen occurs (like a whole bunch of new securities being released somewhere).  I have no intention of issuing new units this week - that won't change unless LTC falls under .015 vs BTC (which is where I'd start considering it - though it would have to go a fair bit lower than that for there to be any great need to sell more units).

Why do I try to keep us at 15% BTC exposure?  Well that's actually two questions in one - here's the answer to both.  I'll assume everyone already knows we have to keep SOME BTC exposure to ensure the safety of our bondholders in the event of a collapse in the LTC price.

Why do we keep a fixed percent?  I try to keep a fixed percent so investors (including myself) can plan the exposure of their own investment portfolio KNOWING that they can estimate the extent to which LTC-ATF value will be impacted by sharp changes in the exchange-rate.  If I let the rato fluctuate (for example keeping us near the minimum to keep bond-holders happy) then it would be very hard to work out what BTC exposure LTC-ATF had after any change in the exchange-rate.  As it stands, investors can be confident that LTC-ATF will always stay in the vicinity of 15% BTC exposure - and that LTC doubling vs BTC will mean somewher in the area of a 10% fall in LTC-ATF NAV/U and LTC halving vs BTC a 10% rise.

Why is the fixed percent 15% rather than, say 10% or 20%?  When managing our BTC exposure there's three main requirements I face:

1.  That exposure remains fairly constant.
2.  That bond-holders are always protected in line with their contract.
3.  That I minimise our exposure without breaking points 1 and 2.

15% happens to be the lowest round number that meets all those requirements.  If I set the target any lower then, in the event of LTC falling a lot, I'd end up unable to keep us at 15% exposure without breaking our commitment to bondholders BEFORE we even reached the point at which we hit the requirement to recall bonds or issue new units.  If I set the target any higher then we'd be gaining unnecessary exposure.  I won't bother running through the math - but it's pretty simple to do if anyone wants to check it out.

As always, if anyone has any questions about why I do things the way I do - or why seemingly random values set by me are where they are (as with the 15%) then feel free to ask.

No management fee this week - as we haven't yet got back over the old HWM.

As a (slightly off-topic) side-note to the above.  It does occur to me that in future such situations it COULD be possible to have agreements for judge.me to arbitrate to be made binding.  That would require signing a contract for their services and lodging funds with them to cover the cost of them arbitrating in any dispute.  Only one half the fees would need to be lodged - with the other half lodged by whoever subsequently made a complaint.  Not sure they'd do that - but would have thought it could be worked out and actually provide some useful protection (in that an enforcable judgment could be made if they became unresponsive).

Until that happens, agreements to use judge.me are worthless in the event one party just stops responding (other than as additional evidence of their bad-faith).

Yes - but him promising you that judge.me could arbitrate isn't sufficient for them to get involved.  Go read their site.  Both parties have to sign an agreement with judge.me (and pay fees) before they'll do anything.  It's just another promise he made that he can break - and judge.me have no standing to to jump in without his consent made to them.  Plus they wouldn't want to anyway - how do they make a profit from (say) finding him in the wrong and awarding costs against him? 

You do realise judge.me is a private for-profit organisation, not part of the legal system?  Their ability to make judgments relies on both parties signing a contract with them in advance - which contract can then be enforced via the main-stream legal system if not adhered to.  And their profit comes from them making sure they get their fees lodged with them in advance.

So unless you can persuade him to signup with judge.me that idea's a total loss.  And why would he do that?  He knows what the outcome would be - so if he were willing to do that then he may just as well save himself their fees and either pay up or acknowledge his debt.

Question is: are those actual profits?  It's easy to dividend out some of your capital (by not deducting all costs before claiming a profit) to try to attract interest in your shares.  Also remember their sales are in USD (even if transacted in BTC they set prices in USD) - so with BTC having fallen sharply the same USD sales as in rpevious perod would generate more BTC profit.  Whilst that's great it has to be taken into account when looking at growth - as we can't expect BTC to lose 2/3 of its value every week.

Some weeks back they paid for advertising on reddit.  If thats not counted in when working out profits then the figures are rather deceptive.  And that's a problem I've seen on lots of BTC "businesses" - that they calculate profits in a very perverse manner.

What I want to see in accounts is a statement of all accounts at the start of a period and then a statement for the end - with profit being the difference between the two.  Unfortunately what we often get (mining companies being the worse for this) is income less immediate operational costs being all called profit - and dividended out causing a fall in book value.  That leads to the situation where new investment regularly has to be raised to continue paying out old investment - a business model that has only ever worked well for ponzis.  Alternative being a fall in share price followed by collapse when capital is finally depleted (see Ziggap).

I'm hoping that isn't the case here - and these represent actual profits with no loss to the capital of the company.  But I'm not optimistic that's the case given the rush to shovel out more shares without even publishing the accounts.

Incidentally, has anyone worked out what "overwhelming demand" these shares are being sold in response to?  Does the company have an overwhelming demand for more capital maybe?  It certainly isn't an overwhelming demand for more shares - as there's only two sizable Bids up at non-trivial prices.  And both those are well below last IPO batch price.  There was one decent sized panic-buy after the dividend was paid but otherwise no indication of any significant demand whatsoever.

Did you try closing by routing it as a Bitfinex-only order?  If you don't route it and Gox is down then the order won't go through - as it assumes you want the best price so waits until Mtgox is up.

Bitfiex also screwed up interest payments last night - got about half what I should have got.  Hope it's just some cockup in calculating (and will get straightened out tonight) and doesn't mean that half my loans are to people who are out of margin but haven't been force-closed so have nothing left to pay interest with (or to return my principal).