You have to dig for it but a while back friedcat said the platform would be available for the first dividend payment.
For ages he said the platform would be ready before first dividend. But this is BTC land - where deadlines come and go without explanation. |
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The bond is nice and liquid. The other two make sense to short. I am using the BTC as a portion of my personal loan. cheers.
S.DICE possibly worth shorting but you need to be really careful shorting bASIC. If Avalon fail to deliver in bulk and BFL DO deliver then a short MAY pay off - but if batch 2 Avalon ship on schedule then you'll likely end up losing fairly heavily on a short of bASIC. Unlike most other mning companies bASIC still has most of its share value in existence (Due to not having spent most funds raised) - so scope for shorting it is pretty limited as the vast majority of its price is in actual BTC. That makes its price more stable than many other companies where 1 BTC of share price is only backed by 0.5 or less BTC of assets (your own company is actually currently trading at around its asset value - but many others are trading well above it). |
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And to everyone directly asking friedcat when the platform will be released, he states that very thing in his very last post. The 28th.
You sure about that? I just re-read his last announcement post (and haven't seen another since) as all it says is to stop trading during the 28th so it doesn't clash with dividend payments. I see nothing about the trading platform going online then - and seems I'm not the only one who isn't seeing that anywhere. |
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What's the total amount of assets loaned to Bakewell? What is it for - shorting?
Would imagine he's using it as a cash loan. The assets he's borrowed make very little sense to short (BTC-BOND buys back at face-value on request so is essentially stupid to short). Most likely he's going to use them as collateral for a BTCJam loan (that converts them to cash without having to sell and buyback with the costs/risk associated with it). It's an expensive way to raise cash - so clearly he's desperate for whatever reason. Were they loaned to him personally or to his mining company (makes no odds as far as default risk is concerned - if he's going to scam he'll obviously scam the company too)? I know his company took a loan to raise the last cash needed to buy an ASIC - not sure if that's what this was for, or if that was yet another loan. |
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Am i the only chump in here with NO mining equipment??
I don't have any mining equipment (obviously I own some PCs but don't mine at all) - last time I mined anything was LTC about a year or so ago. |
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ZIGGAP still owes people on BTCJAM over 900 bitcoins.
Links? / OP care to comment on this? The initial owner of ZIGGAP did take out that loan to start the company, however that loan was taken out by HIM and not by the company. The funds from this IPO are for the company, and not for him. Ergo the funds from this IPO are not going to be used to pay the loan. So someone else started Ziggap and has now sold it - and you (new owners) didn't take on the loan? How do we know you won't sell it again - and this time the next owners won't take on paying dividends to the shares? Once a company has skipped on its commitments once it's hard to have confidence it won't do it again - especially when there's no record anywhere I can see of a change of ownership (i.e. for all we know the 'new' owners could be same as the 'old' ones - and the change of ownership just an excuse to default on the loan). This really should have been explained in your OP - rather than dragged into the light by someone else later. The same bitcoin-otc identity is being used on both the loan and in this IPO. From BTCJAM: Credentials OTC: aethero Forum: ZIGGAP I hardly need to point out the sad history of bitcoin companies which get sold and then suffer a catastrophic failure. There is also the action of handing over the user data to a new owner without informing the customers. Looks like they sold all the IPO shares so it doesnt really matter but just from a few things Ive discovered here I would avoid using their site and/or investing in it. Theres too many red flags. Nah, the company wasn't sold at all. I got that impression from his talk of an "original owner" - as though there'd been a subsequent owner prior to the IPO. But still amusing how he claims a loan defined as a business loan and taken out in the name of ZIGGAP was somehow a personal loan to one of the multiple individuals/team referred to in the loan description and discussion. What seems to have happened is they tried raising funds via a loan on BTCJam, it wasn't selling out fast enough so they split it into two loans - one of which got filled. They then abandoned trying to fill the second loan and did this IPO instead and are now trying to reclassify the loan as a personal loan. Reclassing the loan as personal one makes little odds so long as it's paid - and with no assets declared for the company they can strip its existing wallets to repay it (which is why it's always a gamble investing in a company that doesn't produce ANY accounts whatsoever prior to IPO - you can quite easily be buying something with zero assets). The rush to grab funds whilst giving minimal information is always a red flag to me. Though it by no means always means scam - just means they want cash before people dig too deep or have the time (or information) to do proper math. |
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it simply wouldnt make sense to attack
That's not the point at all. Whats your point? And who should be the one to attack in your opinion? Sorry, I didn't want to expand because this has been discussed ad nauseam already; you can dig up the forum for other threads discussing it. First off, I'm as sure as you are that ASICMiner won't break the network, in any plausible scenario. Most of the concern boils down to trust in the proof-of-work concept. In other words, any singular entity (even if altruistic) holding majority hashing power nullifies the justification to use proof-of-work. You need to only imagine what you will see in the press when this happens to get that it's bad for Bitcoin. Would you really want to be in the position where you have to convince the whole user base that everything is fine? Besides, you only covered the possibility of a malicious owner. How about a cyber attack? How about a physical attack? There is no reason to try to imagine all scenarios and debunk them one by one. It really doesn't matter. In the end, we prefer to use precise algorithms to be immune from our own fallacy of imagination. With this perspective, I think we can stop discussing whether we should discuss it. It's very straightforward and relatively easy to produce a solution. It's not as simple as you make it out to be. If one party controls over 50% of the network then it makes no difference whether they: Mine solo Mine on one pool Mine split across various pools They STILL have the capability to mount a 51% attack any time they choose to. Whether, when choosing not to, they mine solo or mine on one or more pools is totally irrelevant - as the capability to 51% attack still exists. Pretending that the issue is addressed by sharing mining across various pools is just that - pretence. The issue is unchanged and not addressed. If there IS a solution to the problem then it is absolutely NOT addressed by debating how someone with 51%+ should spread their mining - that's solving an entirely different issue (how to pretend that a centralised system is decentralised by giving temporary control to other people and fantasising that noone notices the transfer of control is revocable). I'm just glad that IF someone is going to end with over 51% (and I doubt it's going to happen at all) it's ASICMINER not the scammers at BFL (yeah - only one of them has ever actually been convicted), the liars at Avalon ('shipped' has a different meaning to them than to the rest of the world - to them it just means 'are about to start assembling if we raise enough cash') or the drunkard/liar/scammer at BASIC. |
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I presume the Novacoin attacks intend to suppress the coin until people move away to something else. This is perhaps having the opposite effect as since the price has been pushed very high probably by an artificial pump, the miners are generally unable to mine the coins that would have otherwise pushed the price back down.
Given the result of these attacks maybe you should reassess who's likely to be behind it. Seems to me the main beneficiary of any attempt to disrupt mining would be those already holding a significant amount of coins and/or those with significant NVC mining power. So why are you so fast to presume the attacks are done by someone else? |
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Would you rather spend 1 BTC today or 3500 FRC for a game?
Which do you think will hold or gain in "value" in the next 2 years?
There's no difference - if we assume 1 BTC has same value now as 3500 FRC. If I only have 1 BTC and 0 freicoin then I'd spend the BTC. I would NOT convert the BTC to FRC then spend the FRC. If I had 0 BTC and 3500 FRC then I'd spend the FRC. If I had 1 BTC and 3500 FRC then I'd spend the FRC - but if I wasn't going to buy the game I'd convert the FRC to BTC, making the end result identical to if I'd had 2 BTC and 0 FRC in the first place. The problem with the idea is that people use BTC to save/hold cash and FRC to do transactions is that if all my savings are in BTC why on earth would I want to convert to FRC before spending them? Unless FRC becomes more widely accepted by merchants than BTC there's zero reason for anyone holding BTC to pay via FRC and incur a second set of exchange fees. Only other reason to use it would be if it grew in value faster than BTC - i.e. the entire concept behind it totally failed. If BTC appreciates in value faster than FRC then there's no way I want to EVER hold FRC rather than BTC unless it's for some purpose that I can't achieve with BTC. |
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Surely that's not too hard for you to understand? The unstated assumption in my analysis is that the transaction volume for Litecoin is four times that of Bitcoin. Regardless, Litecoin is still crap. So you're assuming it has 4 times the transactions then complaining that the block chain being 4 times the size is the problem? If that argument makes sense (it doesn't) the surely the current situation where there's a lot LESS transactions on LTC means LTC is the better currency? What a dumb argument to make. |
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Explain to me why litecoin max block size is "10 times worse" than bitcoin? litecoin has 4X more blocks... I thought Litecoin used 1 minute blocks, my mistake. I updated my post. So, the max block problem is only four times worse. Here's why: If having a maximum block size is a problem, then both Bitcoin and Litecoin will suffer from it. Litecoin does quadruple the maximum rate of allowable transactions, from Bitcoin's 7 per second to Litecoin's 28 per second. But 28 is still quite low for many purposes. Both Litecoin and Bitcoin will need to raise the maximum block size at some point. With Bitcoin, a miner has 10 minutes for it to download a new block, while there is 2.5 minutes for Litecoin. Let's say that a block takes the average node 10 seconds to download. In Bitcoin that corresponds to 1.67% of the time between blocks. For Litecoin, it is 6.67%. Now imagine that we double the block size (a conservative measure). The amount of time consumed by downloading now becomes 3.33% for Bitcoin, and a whopping 13.33% for Litecoin! The Bitcoin network has lost 1.6% of its total hashing power, while Litecoin has lost an astounding 6.66% of its hashing power. Every increase in the block size will hurt the total hashing power of Litecoin four times as much as it would for Bitcoin. The reason that hashing power goes down when block size goes up is because mining cannot begin until the new block has been downloaded. Since the time between blocks is constant, any increase in the time required to download will cause a decrease in the amount of time available for hashing. This is true for both Bitcoin and Litecoin. The point is that the "developers" of Litecoin are not really developers at all. They took Bitcoin and simply hacked it without having the knowledge and experience of true cryptocurrency developers. Litecoin is a fucking joke. Major math fail above. The amount of data that needs to be stored in the block chain for X transactions is essentially identical for LTC and BTC. Difference is that LTC spreads it over more blocks. As far as block-CHAIN size is concerned, the LTC chain will grow in size faster due entirely to there being more blocks generated NOT because of transactions. If BTC and LTC had the same number of transactions per hour (and it was a large number such that the per-block overhead was pretty irrelevant) then each LTC block would be 1/4 the size of a BTC one - but there'd be 4 times as many of them. That ends up being the SAME amount of data downloaded per hour. IF your argument is that LTC having block-sized doubled more times makes it worse then problem is that IF there were sufficent transactions to NEED that extra space then you're arguing that LTC is worse because it does it slowly whilst BTC can't do it at all. THis bit shows your ignorance at its best: "With Bitcoin, a miner has 10 minutes for it to download a new block, while there is 2.5 minutes for Litecoin. Let's say that a block takes the average node 10 seconds to download. In Bitcoin that corresponds to 1.67% of the time between blocks. For Litecoin, it is 6.67%." Well if it takes the same amount of time to download for both and we already know there's 4 times as many LTC blocks then you're comparing an LTC with FOUR TIMES the transactions/hour of BTC to BTC then whining that it would be 4 times as bad. Hardly a surprise is it? If there's 4 times as many blocks then each block is going to contain 1/4 the transactions and be about 1/4 the size (assuming same rate of transactions/hour) and will take 1/4 the time to download. Surely that's not too hard for you to understand? |
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With the recent IPO of ZIGGAP, I was wonder how to Value a company when making an IPO.
Are most companies using a P/E Ratio?
Or just selling for as much as they could get?
Given ZIGGAP Valuation based on the information release, it may make sense to sell my ownership in a bitcoin company that is currently privately owned.
What are you looking for when buying a bitcoin company?
Please discuss this
Thank you
There's no rational basis on which to value an IPO like ZIGGAP. They have no past performance of any significance and haevn't bothered to release even basic information like a current balance sheet. So it's more gambling than investment. |
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ZIGGAP still owes people on BTCJAM over 900 bitcoins.
Links? / OP care to comment on this? The initial owner of ZIGGAP did take out that loan to start the company, however that loan was taken out by HIM and not by the company. The funds from this IPO are for the company, and not for him. Ergo the funds from this IPO are not going to be used to pay the loan. So someone else started Ziggap and has now sold it - and you (new owners) didn't take on the loan? How do we know you won't sell it again - and this time the next owners won't take on paying dividends to the shares? Once a company has skipped on its commitments once it's hard to have confidence it won't do it again - especially when there's no record anywhere I can see of a change of ownership (i.e. for all we know the 'new' owners could be same as the 'old' ones - and the change of ownership just an excuse to default on the loan). This really should have been explained in your OP - rather than dragged into the light by someone else later. Who said the company changed ownership? Right now this account is speaking as the company which is composed of a team of individuals. Who has skipped on any commitments? Is the loan behind? Or late? Or defaulted? The point that I'm trying to make is that all personal assets or liabilities and company assets or liabilities are kept strictly separate from each other at all times. The owner of ZIGGAP took that loan, not ZIGGAP. ZIGGAP is composed of multiple individuals but was started by one individual. Well what you say here doesn't match what was said in the BTCJam listing. It's listed there as a business loan not a personal loan. And there's NOT an "initial owner" - it says "Ryan and Stormy Schreiber," : or are "and Stormy" the two middle names of the owner? If there are two people, one named Ryan and the other Stormy then which of these is the "initial owner" who has responsibility for the loan? And does the other one know that he was never one of the owners? Your (if it's you) responses to questions there further make it clear that the loan is to a business not an individual - discussing things such as what happens if the business fails. Now it may well be that you intend to honour the debt and are now trying to CONVERT it into a personal loan: but spinning it as though it was always a personal loan (albeit used to invest in a business) just doesn't wash. A loan FOR a business is not the same thing as a loan TO a business. How could Ryan or Stormy have taken a loan AS a business when the loan was used to create the business? It didn't exist before that. Do you see how there are first and last names up there on the loan, but there are none anywhere on the IPO documentation or the website? SO who was the "initial owner"? You claim it was a personal loan - yet one of your first responses in the BTCJam listing is: " Hi User #007, Nice nick! This BTCJam listing is an investment in the form of a business loan. Though it is highly unlikely, there is always a possibility that some sort of freak accident may occur that results in ZIGGAP failing. There are very few things that I can think of that could cause this to happen, besides something extreme like an unexpected death. However, since we are a multi-person team even in the event of a death the rest of the team could take over and continue the business. In the highly unlikely event that the business model itself fails we can always revert back to what we were doing with QuickBitcoins.net, which has been proven to be successful. Regardless the business would continue and the loan would be paid back." That clearly states that a team/company has responsibility for repayment, NOT an individual. Are you seriously saying you think your response there could be read as the loan being to a single person? Is this "initial owner" - with the interesting middle names of "and Stormy" also schizophrenic - referring to himself as "we are a multi-person team"? If it was a personal loan then only the individual borrowing would have responsibility to repay. Ryan and Stormy are Husband and Wife. They file joint tax returns, live in the same house, and for all intents and purposes are a single financial unit. The main point is that throughout the BTCJam listing it is portrayed as a loan to a business not to an individual - to the extent that even after "an unexpected death" the loan would be repaid (it's unstated but reasonable to assume that even after an expected death it would as well). Now the argument could be made that this was just explaining how the business would continue - rather than how the loan would be repaid - however, were this a personal loan then: 1. It should clearly have be stated that the loan is NOT to Ziggap but to a (specified) individual. 2. Instead of discussing how the business would avoid failure, the focus should have been on how the individual would repay IF the business failed (which is irrelevant if the loan is to a business - but totally relevant if the loan is to an individual). |
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ZIGGAP still owes people on BTCJAM over 900 bitcoins.
Links? / OP care to comment on this? The initial owner of ZIGGAP did take out that loan to start the company, however that loan was taken out by HIM and not by the company. The funds from this IPO are for the company, and not for him. Ergo the funds from this IPO are not going to be used to pay the loan. So someone else started Ziggap and has now sold it - and you (new owners) didn't take on the loan? How do we know you won't sell it again - and this time the next owners won't take on paying dividends to the shares? Once a company has skipped on its commitments once it's hard to have confidence it won't do it again - especially when there's no record anywhere I can see of a change of ownership (i.e. for all we know the 'new' owners could be same as the 'old' ones - and the change of ownership just an excuse to default on the loan). This really should have been explained in your OP - rather than dragged into the light by someone else later. Who said the company changed ownership? Right now this account is speaking as the company which is composed of a team of individuals. Who has skipped on any commitments? Is the loan behind? Or late? Or defaulted? The point that I'm trying to make is that all personal assets or liabilities and company assets or liabilities are kept strictly separate from each other at all times. The owner of ZIGGAP took that loan, not ZIGGAP. ZIGGAP is composed of multiple individuals but was started by one individual. Well what you say here doesn't match what was said in the BTCJam listing. It's listed there as a business loan not a personal loan. And there's NOT an "initial owner" - it says "Ryan and Stormy Schreiber," : or are "and Stormy" the two middle names of the owner? If there are two people, one named Ryan and the other Stormy then which of these is the "initial owner" who has responsibility for the loan? And does the other one know that he was never one of the owners? Your (if it's you) responses to questions there further make it clear that the loan is to a business not an individual - discussing things such as what happens if the business fails. Now it may well be that you intend to honour the debt and are now trying to CONVERT it into a personal loan: but spinning it as though it was always a personal loan (albeit used to invest in a business) just doesn't wash. A loan FOR a business is not the same thing as a loan TO a business. How could Ryan or Stormy have taken a loan AS a business when the loan was used to create the business? It didn't exist before that. Do you see how there are first and last names up there on the loan, but there are none anywhere on the IPO documentation or the website? SO who was the "initial owner"? You claim it was a personal loan - yet one of your first responses in the BTCJam listing is: " Hi User #007, Nice nick! This BTCJam listing is an investment in the form of a business loan. Though it is highly unlikely, there is always a possibility that some sort of freak accident may occur that results in ZIGGAP failing. There are very few things that I can think of that could cause this to happen, besides something extreme like an unexpected death. However, since we are a multi-person team even in the event of a death the rest of the team could take over and continue the business. In the highly unlikely event that the business model itself fails we can always revert back to what we were doing with QuickBitcoins.net, which has been proven to be successful. Regardless the business would continue and the loan would be paid back." That clearly states that a team/company has responsibility for repayment, NOT an individual. Are you seriously saying you think your response there could be read as the loan being to a single person? Is this "initial owner" - with the interesting middle names of "and Stormy" also schizophrenic - referring to himself as "we are a multi-person team"? If it was a personal loan then only the individual borrowing would have responsibility to repay. |
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ZIGGAP still owes people on BTCJAM over 900 bitcoins.
Links? / OP care to comment on this? Now you know where your invested coins are going to...... BTCJam. Don't be surprised if the OP vanishes with your coins. Obviously. And they shouldnt be paying ANY dividends while still owing their original creditors. Why not? It's perfectly acceptable to have accounts owing and still pay dividends. Let's check: https://btcjam.com/listings/584Borrower Reputation 100% Positive: 147 Negative: 0 +bitcointalk +bitcoin-otc otc nick: aethero This loan is in good standing. So I don't see why he can't also run a company that pays dividends. Yeah, there's no reason why having debt should prevent paying dividends - the vast majority of companies have debt of some kind, no matter how profitable they are. What's wrong is that the debt was incurred in the name of the company but wasn't disclosed when selling the IPO: but then disclosing financial details has never been a strong point of BTC IPOs. |
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ZIGGAP still owes people on BTCJAM over 900 bitcoins.
Links? / OP care to comment on this? The initial owner of ZIGGAP did take out that loan to start the company, however that loan was taken out by HIM and not by the company. The funds from this IPO are for the company, and not for him. Ergo the funds from this IPO are not going to be used to pay the loan. So someone else started Ziggap and has now sold it - and you (new owners) didn't take on the loan? How do we know you won't sell it again - and this time the next owners won't take on paying dividends to the shares? Once a company has skipped on its commitments once it's hard to have confidence it won't do it again - especially when there's no record anywhere I can see of a change of ownership (i.e. for all we know the 'new' owners could be same as the 'old' ones - and the change of ownership just an excuse to default on the loan). This really should have been explained in your OP - rather than dragged into the light by someone else later. Who said the company changed ownership? Right now this account is speaking as the company which is composed of a team of individuals. Who has skipped on any commitments? Is the loan behind? Or late? Or defaulted? The point that I'm trying to make is that all personal assets or liabilities and company assets or liabilities are kept strictly separate from each other at all times. The owner of ZIGGAP took that loan, not ZIGGAP. ZIGGAP is composed of multiple individuals but was started by one individual. Well what you say here doesn't match what was said in the BTCJam listing. It's listed there as a business loan not a personal loan. And there's NOT an "initial owner" - it says "Ryan and Stormy Schreiber," : or are "and Stormy" the two middle names of the owner? If there are two people, one named Ryan and the other Stormy then which of these is the "initial owner" who has responsibility for the loan? And does the other one know that he was never one of the owners? Your (if it's you) responses to questions there further make it clear that the loan is to a business not an individual - discussing things such as what happens if the business fails. Now it may well be that you intend to honour the debt and are now trying to CONVERT it into a personal loan: but spinning it as though it was always a personal loan (albeit used to invest in a business) just doesn't wash. |
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ZIGGAP still owes people on BTCJAM over 900 bitcoins.
Links? / OP care to comment on this? The initial owner of ZIGGAP did take out that loan to start the company, however that loan was taken out by HIM and not by the company. The funds from this IPO are for the company, and not for him. Ergo the funds from this IPO are not going to be used to pay the loan. So someone else started Ziggap and has now sold it - and you (new owners) didn't take on the loan? How do we know you won't sell it again - and this time the next owners won't take on paying dividends to the shares? Once a company has skipped on its commitments once it's hard to have confidence it won't do it again - especially when there's no record anywhere I can see of a change of ownership (i.e. for all we know the 'new' owners could be same as the 'old' ones - and the change of ownership just an excuse to default on the loan). This really should have been explained in your OP - rather than dragged into the light by someone else later. |
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Who is ZigGap and what do we do?ZigGap is made up of a team of dedicated Bitcoin service professionals located in the eastern United States. The word Ziggap comes from the Korean word for wallet ( 지갑 ). ZigGap stands on top as the most trusted method for purchasing BTC, and plans to offer the widest array of methods to buy Bitcoin. We are currently seeking to expand our payment options to include cash payments by LocalTill (Bank), ZipZap (700,000 locations worldwide), and debit card + PIN payments by PayLeap. Current payment methods include: MoneyGram (USD) Western Union (USD) Chase bank deposit (USD) (In Development) National Australia Bank Deposit (AUD, NZD, EUR, GBP) International Wire Transfer (Many) Only options available to your location based on your IP may be shown. Operators superb OTC rating: http://bitcoin-otc.com/viewratingdetail.php?nick=aetheroShares of ZigGapZigGap is comprised of 50,000,000 shares in total. 1 share of ZigGap on BitFunder represents 1/50,000,000th of monthly profits after all costs. ZigGap shares offer no voting rights. Shares of ZigGap on BitFunder do not represent real world shares of the company. 2,500,000 shares will be retained by ZigGap to maintain a growth and expansion fund. Should it be determined that the growth fund is not needed, all amounts held by the growth shares will be equally distributed per share at the following dividend, and the shares may be posted for sale. As of the time of this writing, up to 35,000,000 will be released over time to the public on a varying time scale. These funds will be used to secure agreements with processing companies, deposits, and other necessary needs. Should the company be sold, the full amount of the purchase price will be evenly distributed amongst the 50,000,000 shares. No salaries will be paid as an expense, and are only paid as dividend payments. The first "Early-Bird" 10,000,000 shares have been posted for 0.00005 BTC each. Additional shares will be sold at no less than 0.0001 BTC each. DividendsDividends will be paid between the 1st and 5th of each month for the prior months profits. A monthly statement will be provided at or around the time of Dividend payout. First public dividend payout will be for the profits of the month of March at the beginning of April. Forced BuyBackNo forced buyback may be enforced for shares of ZigGap. HistoryFeb 2013: Volume: $22,824.56 Profits: $907.52 (Current Month in Progress) (Note: ZigGap has only been online a couple weeks in private beta.) (Note: Current month amounts will be periodically updated.) Who are this "team of dedicated Bitcoin service professionals"? How can you be "on top as the most trusted method for purchasing BTC" when "ZigGap has only been online a couple weeks in private beta"? Are you saying people who haven't even used the service trust it more than all alternatives? "Operators superb OTC rating: http://bitcoin-otc.com/viewratingdetail.php?nick=aethero" - GPG-signed message would be appropriate if you're laying claim to an ORC rating. Or is this account already established as being linked to that ORC account? (I genuinely don't know if it is - as I shouldn't need to check if someone claims an identity that can be proven by cryptographic signature). Are funds raised in the IPO going into the company or being taken out by the issuer(s)? That isn't plain in the OP. Are you registered as an FSP? |
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Mining stocks and maybe the bonds issued by them seem to be the only thing currently besides gambling that seem to be stable enough to survive in a bitcoin only economy.
How are mining investments more stable in the face of an unknown number of ASICs being released at an unpredictable pace? Mining is about the most predictable form of BTC investment around - it'll lose money (all the time it's profitable more people will start mining until it ceases to be profitable - meaning a loss for investors unless you find one of the rare investments where operator's pay comes from profit not turnover when you'll break even or make a tiny profit). Only the very first wave of ASICs or those investments with some significant edge (manufacturing ASICs, very cheap power etc) will ever make any noticeable profit for investors - the rest just earn cash for operators whilst losing investment capital. The general problem with BTC investments is that with BTC being deflationary by design very few fiat-denominated investments stand any chance of producing (BTC-denominated) profit - they can make fiat-denominated profit but will still be likely to end up worse than idle BTC would. That will tend to balance out long-term -as deflation will be curbed by a lack of utility (reducing demand), leading to a state of equilibrium. But we're some way off that (like a few years). Investments like this are sort of good for the community/BTC as a whole. Although the odds are very heavily in favour of investors making a loss (that's by no means uniquie to BTC - most startups fail period), at least by doing so they're spreading the word about BTC. It's unfortunate (when it comes to investment) that BTC is deflationary - as even when I see half-decent investment opportunities I KNOW that statistically I'm better off with BTC in my wallet than investing (if BTC succeeds the idle BTC will appreciate in value more than any traditional business - especially considering a 90% failure rate, if BTC fails then either way I've lost - so why invest?). Note that I see a strong distinction between investing (buying shares to make a profit from the dividends or growth of the company) and trading (buying to sell higher and make a profit from the market). Something like this I'll happily trade (buy the early-bird shares and flip them below 2nd batch price) but without assets backing the shares there's no way I'd personally invest. There's definitely far worse investments around though (e.g. the two blatant scams currently listed on Bitfunder). Unfortunately the difference between "scam" and "investment" when it comes to bitcoin is so thin as to be virtually identical. Bitfunder doesnt have a feedback system either so its difficult to know what is legit or not. Sadly most of it is shit. There's a couple of VERY obvious scam IPOs on Bitfunder (NOT this one). Anyone (as is the case here) who makes a thread and answers critics is taking a very positive step to affirm themselves as not being in the scam category (it's not impossible - and the fail category still has wide-open arms). Of course there's a huge grey area between scam/failure. Where does a business fall that the operators should know will never generate enough profit (or will make a loss) to make investment worthwhile - whilst doing precisely what was described in the IPO? Is it a scam or a failure (NOT saying this one falls into that group)? How about when an operator has good intentions but is incompetent (very wide-spread - not just in BTC land)? |
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This is why exchanges with public asset lists are important (for example, BitFunder). Even if BitFunder suddenly shuts down, asset issuers will be able to know who owned what.
Ah yes, thank you for this link. But I guess you also have to rely on the asset issuers themselves honouring the contracts made on any individual stock exchanges - ultimately they could just neglect to pay a dividend for 1 month. How would you enforce that? And without any formal contracts or if a stock exchange went down, how would you trade out of the stock at a future date? Asset issuers can default at any time without needing the exchange to go down. In GLBSE's case the lack of any provision of investors' details provided a convenient window for issuers to vanish/claim ignorance (or do a Gigavps and charge a hefty fee for recognition of your claim - pricing smaller non-US investors out of their holdings). That excuse has gone with BTC.CO and (to an extent) Bitfunder (the asset list there is incomplete - as it only includes investors who opted in by providing a BTC address or ticking a box to allow sharing of their email address) but the capability for issuers to vanish is ALWAYS present and, without enforcement of contracts, can't be seriously mitigated. All the time there are issuers there will be issuers who default. The rate of default/failure has to be factored in when deciding what rate of return is acceptable for investments (over-simplifying, if 10% of assets default/fail per 3 months then you have to make 11% profit per 3 months on the 90% just to break even - so anything paying less than ~ 4% per month should be ignored unless you have good reason to believe it's in the 90% not the 10%. Those numbers are illustrative not intended to be taken as fact - actual default/failure rate may be lower or higher: my money's on higher, dependent on how you define default/failure.) |
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