I appreciate the feedback.

As indicated in the listing documents, I believe the opportunities are severely limited; but they're not entirely absent. Potential participants in the fund who need to know specific investment strategies in advance -- or need to know about them while they're still being executed -- should not participate in the fund and should probably steer well clear of hedge funds in general.

Potential participants who read through the full document and this forum thread will have already read my response to the Ponzi question, and they will also be aware that I have no interest whatsoever in trying out various schemes or suggestions to prop up confidence in a pseudonym. They will be aware that they are dealing with a real live person, with a real name and real accountability and real laws to follow. And they will be aware that as a UK limited company, we have a legal obligation to keep proper records and to submit accounting to the UK government, as we have been doing for more than a decade.

I would recommend that anyone interested in participating in the fund should first read through the listing documents provided at the exchange -- including the FAQ -- and perhaps also the earlier discussions in this thread, to get a better understanding of how we'll be reporting.

I haven't set a specific date yet, but I would expect it to be roughly 1 month after the fund kicked off.

I appreciate your feedback, and you may be right that another round would find participants relatively quickly. For the time being, though, we're going to press ahead with deploying the capital, and we'll see how things look again in roughly one month's time. We can always release a further tranche down the road if there is demand; there's no hurry.

As of a few minutes ago, the final shares from the initial tranche have been allocated. It took around 30 hours for the 20,000 shares to go.

Because only a relatively very small proportion of that activity took place during today's business day (UK time), however, I believe the initial demand for the fund has been adequately met, and therefore we won't plan to release any further tranches at this time. As described in the fund's listing documents, however, we may do so in future, should the fund begin to trade at a premium to the most recently published NAV.

Many thanks to all who participated!

It looks like 720 shares currently remain from the initial 20,000. I don't have any plans to release further tranches immediately in response to the first tranche selling out, should it do so. As outlined under the "Subscriptions and Redemptions" section, however, we may do so in the future, should the shares begin to trade at a premium to the most recently reported NAV.

Many variations exist, and I'm sure other people would make the relevant judgement calls in different ways. Folks should not participate in the fund if they have any reservations whatsoever about its structure.


As I indicated in the thread about the mechanics of the IPO, I will review the listing Saturday morning UK time and will close the initial ask order if any shares remain at that time; I didn't specify an exact number of hours to go. The offering has now been open for over 28 hours, and it appears that the bulk of current demand for it has been met. As of this writing, 1230 of the initial 20,000 tranche remain.

No, this means the fund instantly loses 0.2% -- not 2% -- from capital received. The exchange does not conduct transactions for free; that means it is not possible to issue shares and receive exactly the same amount as participants pay for them.

As indicated in the fund's listing documents, potential participants should ensure that they are familiar with the rules of the exchange; this includes being aware that the exchange levies charges on transactions.

Note that we are talking about a sum total of 3.6 BTC out of 1800 BTC (1800 times 0.002 = 3.6).


Please see the listing documents for full details. Please do not participate in the fund without reading the listing documents.

For more discussion on the basics of the fund, you're very welcome to stop by the main discussion thread for the fund (linked from the OP); this thread is intended to be about the mechanics of the initial offering.

During the first 24 hours of the initial offering which began Thursday at 1 pm, the BTC Growth fund reached around 1800 BTC in capitalisation.

It looks like the initial tranche of shares is sufficient to satisfy demand, as the capitalisation is now creeping upward only a little at a time. If any shares remain in the initial offering tranche as of Saturday morning (UK time), I'll plan to cancel that open ask order so as to enable any current participants who wish to exit their position to do so without that lingering ask in place.

To clarify, the NAV per share of the fund immediately subsequent to the initial offering is .1 BTC minus the .2% fee which the exchange charges to distribute them, or .0998 BTC. That NAV per share will not be affected by any further distribution of shares from the initial tranche, since each new share taken up would add exactly the same amount of capital to the fund.

There have still been plenty of questions that I didn't anticipate in the FAQ, though; there might even need to be an expanded version of the FAQ when all is said and done...

Yes, the fund focuses on capital growth, not current income. (For folks especially interested in this, there's a brief note in the fund's main discussion thread about fixating on dividends at the cost of total return: it is, after all, trivially easy to pay a large dividend simply by destroying book value.)

The point about shares outstanding is important -- even if we're not talking specifically about dividends. As per the section headed "Capital Structure and Voting Rights", it's the number of shares outstanding that matters for calculation of net asset value per share.

Yes, if necessary I can release further shares at .1 BTC so that folks who would like to participate will have an opportunity to do so. But I cannot say exactly how many shares will be issued at .1 BTC, as I don't know yet know what demand will be. Judging by the activity so far today, I would guess that the initial tranche will be sufficient, although I might wake up tomorrow and see differently.

I certainly didn't mean to make this confusing, so let me take a different stab at clarifying. Since we're not selling equity in an existing business but are instead raising capital that will be invested, the initial number of shares and the initial price per share don't make much difference to anything. Just for the sake of argument, if we had provided 100 shares at a price of 1000 BTC each, the net asset value per share at the end of the exercise would have been approximately 1000 BTC (less .2% for the fees the exchange charges to sell them). If we released another 100 shares at a price of 1000 BTC each, the net asset value per share would still be approximately 1000 BTC. The same holds true regardless of the number of shares and regardless of the price per share: make it a zillion shares at .000001 each, or whatever you like, but however you blend the numbers, the net asset value per share at the end is always going to equal (almost) the original offering price.

Later on, when the net asset value of the shares changes, due to changes in the fund's underlying holdings, it is possible that shares will trade at a premium or a discount to net asset value. As explained in the section on subscriptions and redemptions, if the former happens, we can release additional shares at slightly above NAV to meet demand, and if the latter happens, we can re-absorb shares at a slight discount to NAV to provide additional liquidity for people who would like to exit their position. This keeps future subscriptions and redemptions so they have a neutral to slightly positive effect on NAV per share, ensuring that existing participants' interest is not diluted.

I understand that some folks don't trust the woman who runs Ciphermine to have been diligent in her verification of my identity on BTC-TC -- she is easily verified as the moderator who left the note to that effect at the top of the listing documents -- but they would trust an indication on Mulhauser.net that BTCGrowth.com is run by the same person. I have now updated the front page of Mulhauser.net to include a link to BTCGrowth.com.

If anyone believes that I am not in control of my own server -- for example, that a web admin of some sort is posing as me without my knowledge -- please check the site CodedMemes.com for historical posts about when the server was originally set up, by me.

My point about demonstrating my identity to the exchange or to forum admins was merely that I do not wish to respond to a potential mass of up to 130,000 separate requests from every user on the forum who wants to know whether it's really me because they don't want to take anyone else's word for it. I'm happy to do it a few times as required to establish that it's really me here on the forum, or really me on the exchange, but ad hoc arrangements for each individual who asks? Definitely not.

Many thanks for your support -- I appreciate it!

During the IPO itself, the only sell orders entered directly from the fund will be at .1 BTC; I'll release more during the next day or two at the same price should the first tranche be exhausted.

The section of the listing document headed "Subscriptions and Redemptions" explains how purchases and sales will be handled subsequent to the IPO, at a discount/premium to NAV, respectively.

We're now underway! 

Many thanks to all those who have already begun participating; somewhere around 4500 shares have traded hands within the first 5 minutes.

The fund is permitted to invest in businesses which are not listed on BTC-denominated exchanges, but given that our aim is capital growth denominated in Bitcoin, we would be looking for structures that enable us to reduce or eliminate exposure to exchange rate fluctuations.

A separate LTC-denominated fund wouldn't be out of the question, although we don't have any specific plans for one at the moment.

Separately, please note I'll be out of the office today, so any followups will be delayed until Thursday.