Check the order of magnitude maybe?

No need for that - as Giga has already provided an email address for his lawyer.  As far as proof of delivery is concerned, that's only of relevance if delivery is denied.  It may shock you to learn that you only have to prove things when the other side disputes them.  Now often lawayers will attempt to put the other side to "strict proof" - where they essentially say that they ask for everything the other side says to be proven without committing themselves to accepting or denying it.  It doesn't work like that in small cases.

Obviously (I hope) anyone sending such an email would either want a response or would keep hounding on here about it and resending it until giga acknowledged receipt.  He asked for questions to be sent by email - all they're doing is following that instruction and, at the same time, making a statement that they intend to claim once the raised issue is resolved.  Then it's just a case of waiting to see what reason Giga's lawyer gives why the other party should pay costs arising because of Giga's error without any option to cancel the agreement.

Nah - there's more than two.

I just don't tend to bother with things that are so obviously shit like this and save my efforts for ones that are a little bit more convincing and so might actually get a few victims.

If you're no longer selling silver then why were you, a few days back, saying that you were unable to sell silver (that was your stated reason why you wouldn't use your cash to buy more)?  As I said back then - if you don't put up Asks you WON'T sell silver.  We BOTH know the reason you won't buy more is because, right now, Silver is a bad investment.  And it HAS been for a while - but you can't really admit that when you've been pumping it as a great investment - to the extent of making an extra thread called (from memory) something like "Why you should buy TU.SILVER now".

At least you DO now have one thing to seperate yourself from other online Silver shops.  You'll only sell silver when it's expensive - whereas the rest sully themselves by selling even when it's cheap - how shabby of them!

A bit of advice to you and others in your position.

IF your position is that you'd LIKE to claim the benefits of the bonds but can't/don't want to bear the costs of affidavit etc then send an email to Giga, his lawyer AND to someone reputable you know (who would later be willing to assert they received it).  In that email state that you assert claim to the bonds/contracts but do not believe the onus of bearing the costs of affidavit etc should rest on you given that HE added that requirement AFTER the contract had been purchased.  You could also offer that, if it isn't economically viable for him to cover those costs, then you are willing to cancel the contract entirely in return for the original investment less dividends to date back.

You then have a claim on record of ownership - AND have registered a dispute over who is liable for the costs.  Any arbitrary date he then sets for end of claims is NOT going to apply to you unless/until the dispute over who has responsibility for the cost of affidavit etc has been resolved.  Don't make the mistake of believing that if someone (or their lawyer) offers you two choices (do as I say or get nothing) that those ARE your only two options.

You could also copy his local Trading Standards (or whatever the local equivalent is) in on the email - but would need to explain a bit more of the background if you did that.  In general such bodies take a dim view of companies that attempt to add extra costs to something after it has been sold.

For those not aware, GMP (listed on Crypto) have Avalon orders in.  With Avalon set to massively increase prices for batch 3, GMP decided to raise massively the price at which they sell new shares.  That's not a bad move at all - as pre-ordered/early-batch Avalons ARE now trading at well above what they cost, even allowing for the change in BTC/USD rate.  It acts to ensure that existing investors get to reap the increased market value of the assets bought with their invested funds.

Not sure what relevance this has to TU.SILVER though.  Your bonds have a face value defined as 1/10th oz of silver - that hasn't changed and can't change.  There's nothing else that investors have any contractual right to which CAN be protected.  Putting your fingers in your ears won't change the price of silver anywhere else - it'll just make your claims of being a coin shop and/or a cheap way to buy silver look progressively more ludicrous.

You may also want to update your summary etc on Bitfunder.  At present it says:

"How it works
We calculate the price of silver in bitcoins and add a small markup for shipping and vault storage."

No mention that you then treble it for other reasons unrelated to silver.  This IS mentioned in the details - though no indication is made that the majority of the price you charge is for the other stuff with silver only a minority of what is paid for.

It also says:

"The lowest price in BTC
Compare our prices to most online coin shops and we believe you will choose TU.SILVER."

Not sure it's fair to say MOST online coin shops are more expensive than you.  There may be some that went out of business a few years back but left their website up that ARE more expensive.

And it also says:

"TU.SILVER is a low risk bond that is callable as 1/10th of an oz. of .999 fine silver."

Not only is that inconsistent with your claims of not being a security (if YOU explicitly refer to it as a bond, how is NOT a security) but how is it low risk?

The face value of it is 1/10th of an oz of silver.  The price that you sell at is OVER DOUBLE that (around treble now).  How is the rest of the value (other than the silver) "low risk"?  What's the mechanism for redeeming the rest?  The only way in which it's a low risk is that there's NO risk of them ever getting any of that value back if they redeem the share for silver.

There's nothing inherently wrong with running an investment fund that holds a lot of silver.  But there's definitely something VERY wrong with actively misrepresenting it as a way to obtain silver at a reasonable price.  If you've decided no longer to sell silver (other than to the occasional idiot willing to pay 3 times spot) then openly state that and stop pretending to be a silver shop.  Silver now represents (using YOUR formula for calculating the silver element) a MINORITY of what people buying your shares pay.  It's NOT your primary business any more.

Right - which logically shouldn't lower the price by more than the difference the bad luck has made to this month's dividend.  Which is essentially no change given that the price trades in a band much wider than that every day anyway.

The rise in BTC vs USD price is a better reason for the price to drop really.  Not because there's any proven link between BTC price and S.DICE price - but because anyone holding S.DICE who believes BTC is in a bubble should likely sell the S.DICE and convert to USD then buy back in after the (what they believe to be) bubble collapses.  I don't subscribe to that theory myself, but at it has some logic to it.

Think anyone with half a brain knows it's the expected profits that matter not the actual results (unless there's reason to believe double-spend or something is happening).  Of course that (people with a half a brain) is only a small minority of members here.

Well the sensible approach from the start would have been to have had 2 securities.  One representing the investment part which then issued a second security representing silver.  Then the silver asset could be priced at silver spot + storage/shipping/markup etc and the investment one grow or contract based on how profitable the silver trading was plus the results of whatever other investment activites usagi got involved in.

It could still be done now of course.  Way would be to create a 2nd security and issue all current investors a share in each.  Then the silver one would be priced on silver and the other on the remaining assets - with no need thereafter to keep same number of each obviously.  That would leave people who bought shares just to get silver with a share of other assets they didn't want - but at least they could then sell them rather than now where they kind of, sort of own other assets but have to surrender all claim on them if they ever want to redeem shares for (very expensive, as a result) silver.

Of course there IS a problem if accounting/seperation of the two elements were done seperately.  The losses made from buying silver and having to repeatedly mark it down in value and price until it sells wouldn't be able to hidden.  But anyone who repeatedly invests with usagi should be used by now to the value of their investments vanishing - so it wouldn't be that much of surprise to them.  And they can always just value in USD and claim a profit that way if they want (or value the silver in silver - meaning they can't possibly make a loss).  And at some point BTC will fall anyway - I assume usagi is going to keep predicting it every week until it happens : even a stopped clock is right twice a day after all.

The real problem is that usagi is trying to use the share BOTH to represent silver being sold AND to represent shares in the investment fund.  That inevitably leads to either over-priced silver or devaluation of investments - as there's no way to sell the shares representing silver cheap (relative to other silver sellers) whilst keep those representing invesment high (there only being one set of shares).  Everything else stems from attempts to reconcile two completely opposing objectives into one (plus maybe some from the impossibility of trying to sell something that is devaluing fast at a profit whilst competing with those who don't actually hold it in stock).

That's why my very first criticism was basically that the silver selling MUST be seperated from ownership of the investment.  Of course usagi's reply was then along the lines of 'you don't understand' - his typical refrain whenever the inconsistencies in his statements are pointed out.

Well their value has dropped because silver has fallen in price and BTC has risen vs USD.

Which may be where this idea of selling at a price inflated by imaginary/unrelated/double-counted elements came from.

After all - if you're going to sell something which falls in value AND hold it in stock then only way to make a profit is to massively mark up your price compared to competitors who either drop-ship OR value things in USD rather than BTC.  Then you just have to make up a story why somehow your massively over-priced stuff is worth more than the same stuff for much cheaper elsewhere.  Hence the pretend shares of non-contractual investments (contract does NOT specify any obligation to maintain non-silver assets at any level relative to shares or book value) and the fairy-tale valuation method in the spreadsheet.

I'm assuming you actually have the spreadsheet as you know the .098 number.  If so, you just have to look at what price (in BTC) was paid for silver and then the price it was sold at to see why the original system was going to cost usagi a ton.  Under the new system usagi does OK - provided, of course, he can find enough victims investors willing to pay over double spot for silver coins.

The spreadsheet DOES contain all trading information - I think every transaction related to the fund is in there.  And nothing I've seen leads me to believe any of those transactions are fake.

Where the problem arises is in the interpretation of the data to arrive at a value.

Usagi sees no contradiction between:

1.  Claiming TU.SILVER is just a silver shop and that buying its shares as a means to get silver is somehow cost-effective.
2.  Valuing (and charging for) that silver as though the shares represented ownership of a bunch of other assets as well.

Add in some elementary errors in the valuation and it becomes even more comical - as even if you accept the (contradictory) assertions about what the shares represent ownership of, it still isn't internally consistent (Total value of assets does NOT equal number of shares * supposed value/share).

CRITICISMS OF / QUESTIONS ABOUT THE FUND

Earlier today I received a PM expressing some ciriticism of (and asking some questions about) this fund.

I do NOT respond in depth, by PM, to such messages - I prefer all such discussion to be public.  This is for two reasons:

1.  By answering in public I avoid having to address the same issue repeatedly in PM to multiple individuals.
2.  I have nothing to hide - so why would I want it done in private?  If I'm wrong about something I've no problem whatsoever with it being pointed out and me acting to resolve whatever the issue is.

I therefore asked whether the person PMing me would be willing for me to respond in public to their comments but without revealing their identity (so as not to embarass them).  They were fine with that.  I have no problem at all with someone PMing me questions/criticism and me responding to it in public without revealing their identity.  In many ways it's actually a hood way to do things - as by not revealing their identity I am forced to address the issues they raise rather than attack the questioner.  I will not reveal the identity of anyone who wants to raise issues in this way - nor will I confirm or deny whether such posts are any specific person unless someone is accused of being the PMer, denies it in public AND asks me to confirm that it wasn't them (when I'll honestly say whether or not it was them).

The below quotes are from the PM without any modification from me.  I have excluded some parts of the PM which did not deal with LTC-ATF and hence would not be of relevance if addressed in this thread.

Hopefully this at least provides some light entertainment for readers.

FABRICATING NAV/U


This refers to the values in the spreadsheet in the OP of this thread - not to the values given in the weekly reports.  The PMer simply hasn't read (or hasn't understood) the explanatory notes below the spreadsheet there.

The period in question is the one ending 10th March 2013 (the week LTC massively rose from .003 to .00725.

Column 4 is the NAV/U of the fund at the end of the week before deduction of any management fee.  This is the actual NAV/U (before fee) the fund had - and is what management fee is based on.  There's a subtle clue this is the actual NAV/U in the use of the word "ACTUAL" above the column.

Column 8 is the one that our mysterious friend takes great exception to.  Despite us having made a loss for the week it shows a very significant increase from the value at the start of the week.  How can this be so?

Well, column 8 is a crude esitmate of what NAV/U would have been had the exchange-rate not changed.  As the exchange-rate DID change (very much so) this is a lot different to the actual result at the end of the week.  Do note, first off, that this value is NOT used when calculated management fee.  It is NOT used when calculating buy-back price.  It is NOT used as the starting point for the next week (that is, of course, the actual NAV/U after deduction of management fee).  Nowhere is it claimed that this IS the actual NAV/U nor is it used anywhere AS the actual NAV/U.

Why is this value reported at all?  Well there's two reasons why it's reported:

1.  The actual results in any week (profit or loss) depend upon two factors :
a) How I do in trading,
b) How the LTC/BTC exchange-rate moves - if LTC increases then our NAV/U will drop and if LTC decreases vs BTC then our NAV/U will increase.

This column gives an estimate of what my trading performance was when the impact of exchange-rate movement was discounted.  In the week in question I made a killing trading - but that was still not quite enough to compensate for the loss in NAV/U caused by LTC's steep rise vs BTC.  Hence the massive discrepancy between the actual NAV/U and this number.  If you look at weeks where LTC fell vs BTC you'll see the opposite - that this column is lower than the actual growth for the week.

2.  This column is used to calculate the maxium rate we could safely offer on bonds based on past performance.  The capital raised by bonds and the liability incurred in respect of them cancel one another out in terms of exposure to exchange-rate variations.  Because of that, when calculating what rate we can safely offer, we have to look at profits recalculated to at least approximate removal of exchange-rate variation.  Imagine a situation where every week I made a loss trading but LTC fell steeply vs BTC.  In that scenario clearly I shouldn't be selling bonds at all - as trading isn't making a profit - yet the actual NAV/U of the fund would rise giving the illusion that the bonds were doing well for us. 

A comparison which may help understand this is to think of Satoshi Dice.  If you look at graphs of its performance you'll see two lines - a red one (showing expected profit based on the odds) and a black line showing actual profits.  When assessing the value of the share you SHOULD be looking at the red line (exception being if you believe any variance is down to double-spend attacks).  Our actual NAV/U is the black line - it's what we actually got.  Column 8 is the red line - which IS what matters when looking at the rate for bonds: as capital raised from bonds is NOT subject to the difference between the red and black lines caused by exchange-rate movement.

This was all explained anyway in the notes below the spreadsheet.

A PONZI?


Not sure what to say to this other than thanks - though of course the 67 figure is NOT the actual NAV/U (if LTC falls much further it probably will be).

If it would make investors more comfortable I am, of course, fine with taking a one-time bonus of say 30-40 LTC per share so they don't have to share the stigma of having made ponzi-like returns.  And if you want it to be really scary you should look at the returns that have been made if the units were to be valued in BTC or USD.

More seriously, if LTC-ATF is a ponzi then it has to be the first one that rarely sells any new units and constantly has a bidwall up at a few % under the stated value of the shares.

If anyone has serious concerns that the claimed funds belonging to LTC-ATF don't exist then it's actually pretty easy for me to prove otherwise.  Most of the time 80%+ of the assets managed by the fund are in cash.  I can, at any time, show all of that cash by placing pre-agreed bids on the various sites I trade on (it's a bit of a pain on Bitfunder - as have to cancel my other bids to do it).

Additionally, ANYONE can ask the operators of exchanges where I trade to conform ANY statement I make about our assets or trades.  I've stated it before - and repeat it again.  If I say I have X BTC on Bitfunder/BTC.CO/LTC-Global then Ukyo/burnside have my permission to confirm that without any further reference to me.  If I say I have assets worth Y BTC/LTC on sites the same applies.  This blanket permission only extends to confirming the truth of statements I've made - not to revealing further information that I haven't disclosed.

I'm fine with taking ANY reasonable action to confirm that the fund holds the assets (with the value) that I claim in my reports.  However any requests for such verification by ME MUST be made in public and then the fact that I was correct confirmed afterwards (you can ask exchange operators to confirm things privately without involving me - so I don't care about that).  I will NOT reveal details of securities held but, if someone seriously makes such a request, will see if I can find a way to prove it without doing so (ideally get the exchange operator to confirm it in public).

Logically there's actually no need for me to prove all assets exist anyway.  If I can show 80% + exist as cash and another 5% exist as shares in assets we run pass-throughs to (those are already disclosed anyway) then we're already at 85% of assets.  It would be a stretch of even the most hostile critic's imagination to believe I could have made a 300% growth whilst holding absolutely no securities at all (300% is roughly what growth would have been if the securities I say we hold don't exist - just the cash and pass-through shares).

Anyway, apologies to all offended by the fund's profitability.

LTC-ATF.B1 - FATALLY FLAWED?

Although not explicitly stated, the following points relate to LTC-ATF.B1, not to the fund itself.


Oh dear - we have a bad case of lack of understanding here.

If the fund wants to sell bonds and there's sufficient demand to do so, then we do not raise the rate paid.
If the fund wants to sell bonds but noone is willing to buy then we do raise the rate paid.

We do NOT sell shares (bonds) to meet demand unless we can actually use the funds raised.  Similarly we will NOT raise rates unless we are unable to sell bonds without doing so.

The idea that "we will increase dividend to meet demand" is just horrible.  We do exactly the opposite of that.  Dividend will be raised if (and only if) there's no demand to meet.  Dividend is NOT increased to MEET demand - but to CREATE demand when none exists.  To date there's been plenty of demand and so absolutely no reason to raise dividends.

This is all explained in the contract - in the very first overview section where it says:

" Bonds will initially be offered paying a 0.6% per week dividend - then the rate will be gradually increased as necessary until demand meets supply. "

Demand has never yet fallen below supply - so there's never been a need to increase it.  Rather trivially, if demand is already above supply (which it is - as we have no bonds we're stuck trying to sell) then raising the rate could only move demand FURTHER away from supply and not any nearer to the two meeting.  I'll admit I'm a bit surprised that we haven't had to raise the rate yet - but I'm not going to complain.

I can only speculate on why our correspondent thought the rate would be raised when demand was clearly already at or above supply level.

As for the idea that selling at below NAV/U would line my own pocket - that's just dumb beyond belief.  The bonds can be sold back to the fund on request at 99% of face value.  It would be terminally stupid of me to sell them at under that - as it would be trivially exploitable by people buying them then immediately cashing them back in causing a loss for me.  The right to do that was reserved explicitly in case the rare situation arose where a significant profit could be made immediately if extra capital were available.  That situation has yet to arise - and likely will never do so.

Further, the value of each bond is exactly 0.01 BTC regardless of who buys how many at what price.  NOTHING I do can lower that.  Yes - the market price CAN be lowered by me selling more bonds but short of never selling any there's no way around that.  And it can't fall far below 0.01 - as the fund is committed to buying back any priced at .0099 BTC or less anyway.  To the extent that I can I DO try to protect existing bond holders.  So I'm tending now to sell into bids rather than place asks (as we have no urgent need for cash) so as not to bid down the asks of investors who want to sell.  And sales of new bonds are pretty much done for now anyway.

If you view the bonds as some investment that will grow in price then you're looking at them wrong.  They're issued at will by LTC-ATF and SHOULD always trade not too far from 0.01 BTC when the LTC/BTC exchange-rate is stable.  They're a way to gain BTC exposure whilst generating a modest but predictable and reliable return - not some speculative growth thing.

BONDS NOT SUSTAINABLE?


Well IF I were investing in stuff you may have a point.  But LTC-ATF does NOT invest in stuff.  We trade stuff.  You're looking at LTC-ATF as though we were one of the failed GLBSE funds - that bought crappy mining securities at market rates then sat on them whilst they lost value.  We just don't do that.  There's a reason most of our assets are always cash - I mainly buy stuff when I expect to be able to sell it at a profit quickly.  So most of our assets are cash committed to buy orders that rarely fill - and when they DO fill, we don't sit on them waiting for them to lose value, we sell them for a profit, rinse and repeat.  There have been a few exceptions to this - ASICMINER which we held for a long time then sold for a 600%+ profit and DMC which we held for a few weeks then sold for a 100-200% profit.

If we buy something and I can't sell it at a profit then I sell it at break-even or a loss.  I don't sit on it watching it drop in value (not for too long anyway).

Yes - a lot of the stuff I trade in HAS crashed in price.  But most of the time it hasn't crashed enough to prevent us selling at a profit.  Timing is the key - and understanding the way in which most investors (over)react to certain things.

The key value determining whether we can continue paying 0.6% on LTC-ATF.B1 is whether our growth/week adjusted to remove exchange-rate variation falls below a certain value.  If we were maxed out on bonds then that value is around 2%.  As we're not even near maxed out, at present trading profit would need to fall below about 1.5% per week for me to start becoming concerned.  Whilst I don't expect profits to continue at 10%+ with LTC higher vs BTC I don't see any danger of them dipping that low.

We need to be careful not to conflate two different things:

a) That there's no logical reason for us to make a profit.
b) That I'm lieing about our assets.

When you seperate those two you should actually realise that I absolutely CAN afford to pay the rates as ONE of the following is true.  Either:

1.  My reports ARE (at least approximately) correct in terms of our assets - and hence we're very clearly making sufficient profit to pay the cost of capital.  That you can't understand how it's done or duplicate it is YOUR problem, not mine.  I'll take any reasonable steps to prove that we HAVE made this profit - but don't expect me to write a detailed How-To guide on it.

OR

2.  I'm totally wrong/lieing when I report our assets (with most being cash it would pretty much HAVE to be lieing) in which case I'm running a ponzi/scam and so also CAN afford the rates.

There's NO scenario in which the rates can't be paid.  The issue of whether this is a PONZI was addressed earlier.


GLBSE ASSETS NOT WRITTEN OFF?


OBSI.HRPT was marked down to zero value right after GLBSE closed.  It continued to be listed in the weekly reports for a while - but at a value of exactly 0.  That accurately reflected the fact that we still (at least morally) owned those shares - and also that they had no likely value whatsoever.  Writing them off does NOT mean that we abandon all claim to them should Obsi suddenly show up with a van full of cash and hand it out to his shareholders.  The value of 0 reflected the fact that I assigned no meaningful likelihood to that actually happening.

Not sure what's at all contentious with that - if I'd claimed to write them off but left them on the books with a non-zero value then you'd have a point.  But that ain't what happened.

The only other GLBSE assets we had were ASICMINER and Bitbond.  ASICMINER we sold last week for a very good profit on the .1 each we paid for them.  Bitbond I sold very shortly after they relisted - we managed to sell them for more than I had them on the books for (and, in fact, more than we originally paid for them).  We were one of the very few who managed to sell our shares before it became obvious to everyone that Rando was just another scammer.

As a final note - please be aware that I am NOT going to engage in relaying a stream of PMs debating/discussing my response to questions.  I'll take questions - and answer them here anonymously.  But if you want to debate/discuss my answers then I'm afraid you have to man up and put your name on it.

I've now looked at the Book Value calculation page of the spread-sheet.  All I can say is what a mess.  Guess DT was having a bad day when he decided it was fine.

Here's SOME of the pretty basic errors in it:

1.  Unsold silver is double-counted.  The valuation of each share starts off as being the Ask price for silver (shown in the excerpt I posted above).  To that is then added a portion of the value of the unsold silver.  So right away, before anything else is done, shares have been valued at more silver than is actually possessed.  In theory it's possible some other value then negates that - but having looked at the other pages there's no apparent deduction that would correspond (and absolutely no reason to be doing it this way even if there were).

2.  The calculated Book Value is for ALL issued shares - whether sold or not.  That's just horrible - as it means the simple act of selling a share so as to receive exactly book value would change the book value.

3.  Unsold silver is valued at the Ask price in the excerpt I posted earlier.  That includes BitFunder fees and a markup.  Neither of those should be in the valuation of unsold silver because:

a)  Bitfunder fees will NEVER go to the fund even if the shares are sold (should be obvious why).  So at no point ever will they be realisable.
b)  Intended markup when sold should NOT be in a valuation of unsold silver.  You don't mark BTC you hold up by the profit you expect to make investing them - and you shouldn't mark silver up by the profit you hope to make selling them.

It's trivially easy to prove that the calculation is wrong in two ways:

1.  Add up the book value of all current holdings (silver, cash, invetsment position, kitty).  Now divide it by number of shares.  Do you get Book Value?  No you don't - whether you divide it by all issued shares OR sold shares you don't get the same number.  How can the total book value be different to number of shares * book value/share?  It can't.  That it IS different is because one or the other (actually both) are totally fucking wrong.

2.  Modify the data to represent selling a single share and receiving EXACTLY book value for it.  Does book value change?  Yes it does (and I tried both ways - selling a newly issued/backed share AND selling an already issued one).  So it's wrong.  Note that if selling an issued share at BV reduces BV/share then there's a pretty serious problem anyway.

The BV usagi calculates does NOT represent the value of one issued share OR one sold share.  I've no idea what DT thought it represented when he approved the books - but it would seem whatever checking he did failed to include the two simple tests I just listed (in fact #2 isn't ALL that simple as you have to adjust a fair few data items).

Even if it DID represent the BV of a share then the system is still screwed - as anyone wanting to buy silver through the fund (its supposed main purpose) has to buy the silver at a price that includes all the investment junk then sacrfice all those other elements when redeeming for silver.  That makes it impossible for the fund to sell silver at a good price without losing BV.  That at present those wanting to get silver through the fund have to pay an additional premium for pretty simple errors in the calculation of BV just adds insult to injury.

On a side note I received a PM request from usagi to delete my previous excerpt from his spreadsheet.  I am declining that - as there's nothing particularly confidential about silver spot prices, MTgox rates or a very simple calculation using those.  There ARE some parts of the spreadsheet I won't publish - such as the identities of people who bought silver (why this was left in a spreadsheet given out to ANYONE other than usagi beats me).

I have those sheets too.  And would you believe it - the final book value is STILL below the price you charge.

Not that it SHOULD have any relevance - but you still can't make up your mind what you're selling.

Is it silver?  Well in your (now locked) thread about FinCen compliance you state in the final post that you're a silver store - which would tend to suggest you just sell silver.  And when someone redeems shares all they get is silver.

Or is it ownership to some extent of other assets as well?  Well your pricing seems to suggest so - as does your repeated refence to some book value that contains elements that far exceed just 1/10th oz of silver plus associated costs.

When you make your mind up WHAT you're actually selling then it's likely we can make some sense of your pricing policy.

Or should I PM DeadTerra and ask "What do shares of TU.SILVER actualy represent ownership of - and how are all elements of that paid out when a share is redeemed?  How is the answer to that consistent with claims that TU/SILVER sells silver at a competitive price?".  Do you think he could actually answer that?  If so, wouldn't it make more sense to post the answer here?

So these extra calculations somehow add over 100% to the price you charge the public?

You seem to have a problem understanding DeadTerra's role in this.  All he does is verify that your accounting is accurate.  He's not vouching for other things - like that you charge a reasonable price for silver you sell.

Do you seriously think he COULD explain why you add well over 100% markup to a price that already includes shipping, coin markup, Bitfunder fees etc when determining the price you sell at?  An auditor does NOT determine whether a company sells goods at a 'fair' price - they determine whether what you've recorded as being your financical transactions is actually accurate.

You've slipped back into your old ways - of answering criticism by repeatedly saying "You're wrong" and "I've explained this before".  Without once having explained why you need a 100%+ markup on silver you sell - or how that is, in any way, competitive or a good price for silver.  Or, for that matter, what (if anything) ownership of a share of TU.SILVER represents above 1/10th of an oz of silver (easiest to explain this by defining what they get back in addition to 1/10th oz of silver when they redeem a share).

DeadTerra can't explain WHY you do things the way you do (at best he could relate a hear-say version of what you've told him).  So when my questions are 'Why' then there's no point me asking him.  If I spot a simle arithmetic error then obviously I'll PM him - but I'm not actually interested in that anyway.  As all your shares apparently represent is 1/10 oz of silver + an undefined donated dividend (raised from funds investors neither own or have any future guarantee of the existence/scale of) then the only thing investors actually need to know is that you have enough silver to back the shares.  All the rest of it is pretty irrelevant - what you do with unsold silver that YOU own and investment funds that YOU own is of no relevance: other than when you try to pretend that it's somehow owned by investors (to justify a steep hike in price) whilst at the same time categorically stating that YOU personally own it.

Exchange-rate : .0093
Adjusted NAV/U : 60.907
Bid at : 59

Just a brief mid-week update.  LTC has fallen vs BTC since my last report - which has obviously manifested itself in some NAV/U growth.  Before projected management fee NAV/U is up by 6.8% so far this week - but the bulk of that is due to the exchange-rate movement with actual trading profits so far only at about 2.3%.

There's not actually anything wrong with that - provided the bid is at less than the cost of buying silver elsewhere.  Coins DO trade at a significant markup to spot.

Problem is, of course, that the tiny spread he intended to run just doesn't work if actually left up as orders.  As the BTC/USD rate can easily move far more than that spread during a few hours - making it very easily for a trader to exploit by buying from out-dated Asks then selling into Bids when they get updated.  That's why it just can't run how it started out - when it actually DID have a tight spread and good prices.  For about a week.  That week is, of course, the only time I've traded the shares

My guess is he that the stupidly high prices right now are mainly to try to trick people into buying and exercising options - there are/were options up which could be bought and then exercised at just UNDER the current Ask.  Only need one idiot to fall for that to make up for the profit on selling a load of silver at genuine competitive prices.  But regardless of the motive, the current Ask price makes a total mockery of any delusional claims to be in any way competitive with other silver sellers on price.

Hmm, maybe I did miscalculate the price - or perhaps I didn't factor in things like shipping, the markup on coins etc properly.

Shame there's not some spreadsheet that could work all of that out.

But wait - what's this?  Seems to be usagi's books - complete with a tab to calculate the bids/asks at which TU.SILVER should trade taking into account markups/fees etc.



Seems like your OWN books say you're charging more that double the correct rate (the boxed cell is what usagi's spreadsheet indicate would be the correct sell price).  Why the over 100% markup?

Do note that the fonts may differ slightly as I imported into Excel - but the content is 100% from a pretty recent copy of your own books.

Still laughing?

AS I'm handing out free advice, here's another bit.

The reason you can't sell stock COULD just possibly be this:

Asks
Quantity    Price    
50    ฿0.14010

Now I know some silver bugs have various problems but I'm sure most of them have a decent idea of what the spot price of silver is and can use a calculator.  And that's OVER DOUBLE it even at yesterday's BTC price of $45 - let alone the current much higher rate.

Now either:

A.  That IS your ASK - in which case you may want to get within 50% of the price everyone else charges for silver: you may claim to have good prices but 50% over what even expensive competitors charge is NOT competitive.

OR

B.  That's NOT your ASK - in which case of course you won't sell it if you don't put up any Asks.