Think that's largely irrelevant anyway - as if they have some bad luck then the max size of bets would just get decreased.  So the real Risk of Ruin is (and always has) been very near zero.

Larger cash reserves DOEs, however, allow increasing max bets OR maintaining current limits through a longer run of bad luck (both of which tend to increase cash-flow and hence profit) - but that has nothing like the impact it would have had if the max bets had been fixed in stone and there were a real risk of ruin.

Exchange-rate : .00419 (currently very volatile)
Adjusted NAV/U : 23.607
Bid at : 23

Higher bid placed at 24 to buy-back at over NAV/U from anyone disagreeing with the motion to run pass-throughs.  This is pretty irrelevant as there's significant higher bids already up.

Trading profit for the week has now passed 10% - in fact it'd be even higher but I've already written down 20% (100 LTC) of the ticker costs for the pass-throughs (as with previous ticker I'll be aggressively marking it down quickly).  A fair chunk of that is due to currency movement - but actualy profits from trading ignoring currency impact are around 7% (8% if you counted in the marked-down ticker fees).  We also have some decent unrealised profits in a few assets (valued on book at below what I could sell at) so looking like another good week for us.

Both pass-throughs got moderator approval overnight - and the first units of S-DICE are up for sale.  S.DICE price has been rising over the last few days and is likely to shoot up into a bubble before long in my opinion (there's very little asks left before a 10% -15% rise).  If anyone wants to gamble on that, now would be the time - though you'd be taking a risk on whether I'll be around to process sells back if you try to sell out at peak.

S.BBET won't be put up for sale just yet - as previously (and elsewhere) discussed.

Just to note, BTC is rising strongly vs USD.  As a result LTC is being arbitraged down vs BTC.  So for now blocks of S.DICE put up will be very small - as the LTC price of them is rising just due to the exchange-rate change.

Way it works is that the fund effectively holds a float of S.DICE shares.  When some are sold on LTC-GLOBAL I then convert LTC to BTC, move the BTC to CoinBR and purchase more S.DICE to replace the ones sold.  When the price is rising (whether because of exchange-rate changes - as now - or because of a rise in the underlieing price) I can't risk selling large blocks or the fund can be left unable to replace the S.DICE it sold without incurring a loss

BTC denominated pass-throughs, such as S.DICE-PT function as a way to hedge against LTC falling vs BTC as well as being a revenue generator (through dividends).  Obviously the opposite also applies - that if LTC rises vs BTC then their price (in LTC) falls.

LTC falling vs BTC when BTC rises vs USD pretty much always happens - due to arbitrage (largely done by bots) with the LTC/USD pair (When BTC rises vs USD LTC will tend to rise vs USD at a slightly slower rate whilst falling vs BTC).  BTC is the driver in this relationship due it having a much larger market cap and trading volume.

IF BTC continues its current strength vs USD then it's likely LTC will continue to fall vs BTC (unless some other reason exists increasing demand for LTC sufficiently to compensate).  That, of itself, makes pass-throughs such as S-DICE a decent hedge (as their value is effectively denominated in BTC - just transacted in LTC).

Both pass-through assets have gained moderator approval and are now able to trade.

The first shares are up for sale on S.DICE-PT.  At present I'll be selling these in small batches as the price of the underlieing asset could move significantly in either direct pretty quickly.

The highest bid is at ~.0059 but falls away pretty quickly down to .005
The lowest ask is at ~,00595 but there's not much volume below .007

The bid side looks weaker than the ask side - but with multiple pass-throughs buying up shares a further rise is by no means unlikely.  I'll try to keep small batches up at whatever current price is - but with only limited BTC on CoinBR there'll be a delay in restocking if we sell out fast (will have to convert LTC in BTC and move them over there).

Trading won't be starting on S.BBET-PT until either the range stabilises or I manage to pick some up cheap (in which case they'd be listed at well below the sell price on MPEx).  At present bids on this are at ~.001 and lowest ask at .0015.  The IPO sold out all blocks of shares up to just over .002 - now people who bought to resell are struggling to find a market that high and I don't intend the fund (or investors in the pass-through) to bail them out at a price any higher than we need to.

Ended up creating pass-throughs for both S-Dice and BitBet.  Had an exception thrown first time I tried to make the S-Dice pass-through so tried again and got same exception.  Then spotted that it had actually charged for two securities and created them - seems the exception was thrown after creation whilst trying to notify moderators.

Having made two tickers - and planning to make the second in next few days anyway - I got burnside to rename the second, so both are now up for voting.  There's discussion threads for the pass-throughs on both BTCtalk and LitecoinTalk.

Assuming they get past the moderators I'll begin selling shares in the S-Dice one immediately (I've already done a bit of profitable trading on S-Dice covering about our first 4 months of fees to CoinBR and 10% of our listing fees) as we hold shares in it.  The BitBet one I don't plan on selling shares until the trading range narrows - I don't want to buy at top of range and run the risk of trading moving to the bottom in return for a gain of 1.5% if we sell shares.  I will, of course, sell shares in the pass-through for it if either someone commits to buying at the Ask price or I manage to pick some up at the Bid end of the range.

Hopefully my contracts have covered everything - I tried to make them shorter and simpler than the previous ones.  If anyone spots something that need correcting please point it out.

Certainly a novel IPO.

If people trade in shares for a print-job is the plan to then resell the shares, to use it as a means to gradually buy the printer for yourself or some mix of the two (depending on your cash situation at the time)?

Heh, where was that title?

Don't think anything bad's happened to whatever securities of mine you're invested in (last bad thing that happened was when GLBSE closed - but we've recovered pretty well from that).

Our first pass-through - to Satoshi Dice - is now up for moderator approval on LTC-Global.

Below is the contract for S.DICE-PT.  Contracts for all other pass-throughs to MPEx-listed securities will be identical other than in the introduction where the underlieing asset is defined and relevant links provided.

INTRODUCTION

This security ('the asset') is a pass-through to the S.DICE security on MPEx
('the underlieing asset').

The underlieing asset is a share giving ownership of a portion of the business
known as Satoshi Dice which has the website http://satoshidice.com/ and is
listed on MPEx at http://mpex.co/?mpsic=S.DICE

Each share in this security represents ownership of one share of the underlieing
asset held by LTC-ATF.


HOLDING OF UNDERLIEING ASSET

LTC-ATF will purchase shares of the underlieing asset and then sell shares of
this asset on LTC-Global.  No shares of this asset will be sold unless they are
already backed by shares of the underlieing asset held by LTC-ATF.

LTC-ATF is trading on MPEx through the CoinBR brokerage (operated by
Jurov/Rini17).  All shares in the underlieing asset will be held in LTC-ATF's
CoinBR account.


SALE OF SHARES

LTC-ATF will place shares for sale at a price of around 2.5% above the lowest
Ask on MPEx converted into LTC at the highest Bid on BTC-E.

If bids are placed on the asset at above the highest bid on MPEx (converted as
above) but below the lowest ask then LTC-ATF may attempt to buy shares via bids
on MPEx to fill these orders.

The intent is for the price of this asset to more closely mirror that of the
underlieing asset than is the case with some other pass-throughs.  So the sale
price of this asset will be adjusted when the MPEx one changes - with any profit
or loss resulting from that absorbed by LTC-ATF.

This policy means that shares will be released in a piece-meal fashion rather
than in large batches at a fixed price.


REPURCHASE OF SHARES

If LTC-ATF sees Asks on this asset such that they can be cleared by selling the
underlieing asset on MPEx (into the highest Bid converted into LTC at the lowest
Ask on BTC-E with a 2.5% margin) then LTC-ATF will fill the Ask and sell the
underlieing asset on MPEx.

If you wish to sell shares but cannot calculate the Ask which would be filled
then please contact the LTC-ATF manager and I will work out the price for you.


DIVIDENDS

Dividends received on the underlieing asset will be converted into LTC at
mid-exchange-rate (the average of highest bid and lowest ask on BTC-E) and 99%
of this paid out in dividends to this asset.


VOTING

If any votes are held on the underlieing asset then (if practical) a motion will
be raised on LTC-ATF ending before the vote on the underlieing asset.  All
shares of the underlieing asset held by LTC-ATF will then vote as a bloc in the
direction with the most votes in our own motion.

At the time of writing this, there is no provision or means by which any votes
would occur on Satoshi Dice.


REPORTING REQUIREMENTS

LTC-ATF will, whenever it publishes its own accounting spreadsheet (typically
each weekend) include the number of shares of underlieing asset held by LTC-ATF
and the number of outstanding shares of this asset.

When a dividend payment is made a notification will be issued on LTC-Global
detailing how the amount paid was calculated.


CLOSURE

If LTC-ATF closes down or decides to cease operation of this pass-through then
the default would be for all shares of the underlieing asset to be sold,
converted to LTC and used to execute a forced buy-back with no management fees
deducted from the realised funds.

Alternatively, if accepted by at least 75% of all outstanding shares in a
motion, control of the pass-through could be handed to new manager who must
commit to this contract.


CHANGES TO CONTRACT

No change may be made to this contract whilst there are outstanding shares.


RISKS/DISCLOSURE

Investors in this security accept the risk of default by the underlieing asset
(Satoshi Dice), by the exchange on which it is listed (MPEx) and by the broker
holding the shares in the underlieing asset (CoinBR).  There is little that can
be done by the asset issuer to mitigate these risks.

As with any investment there is also the risk of a 'hit by a bus' (or scamming)
scenario with the manager of this asset.  This is mitigated as follows:

The manager/operator of this asset gives permission to LTC-Global to release a
list of investors (email address + shares held) to CoinBT in the event that
manager/operator ceases to operate the pass-through without notice (defined as
not logging into the management account for 2 weeks or more without prior notice
and good reason).  Jurov/rini17 (operator of CoinBR) has already offered that in
this circumstance he would endeavour to distribute proceeds from sale of the
underlieing assets to investors.

Permission is also given to CoinBR to verify on request from any concerned party
that LTC-ATF does indeed hold sufficient shares of the underlieing asset to
cover the outstanding shares of this security.

Permission is also given to CoinBR to suspend activity on LTC-ATF's account
(specifically including, but not limited to, withdrawals) if there is any
indication that LTC-ATF is not honouring its commitment to properly back shares
of this asset with shares of the underlieing asset.  Any such suspension may
(and should) be reported to investors in the LTC-ATF thread and should then be
resolved in public.

The above paragraphs only give CoinBR the RIGHT to make checks and take action.
 CoinBR has no obligation to police LTC-ATF and no liability arising from any
failure on LTC-ATF's part.

INTRODUCTION

LTC-ATF is a small fund listed on LTC Global which, to date, has focussed on trading LTC and BTC-Denominated securities on the available exchanges.  LTC-ATF is now expanding its operations to include running LTC-denominated pass-throughs to BTC-denominated securities.  This thread will be used to describe and discuss these pass-throughs (as they will all have pretty much identical contracts any question or issue relating to one is likely to apply to all).

The second post in this thread will hold a typical contract for reference.

Further information about LTC-ATF can be found at:

The listing for the fund at https://www.litecoinglobal.com/security/LTC-ATF
The LitecoinTalk thread for the fund at http://forum.litecoin.net/index.php/topic,657.0.html
The Bitcoin forums thread for the fund at https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=112876.0

The threads in the last two links contain pretty much identical information (I post all significant updates to both) so there's no need to read both.


RATIONALE

The idea behind running these pass-throughs is straight-forward : to make additional profit for LTC-ATF by making available to LTC investors investment opportunites that are otherwise unavailable or uneconomical for them.  As well as the direct profit from operating the pass-throughs it is my hope that these pass-throughs may attract some new investors to LTC-GLobal - stimulating the market there which is also to the benefit of the fund (as the fund trades there - so increased investors/activity means more opportunity for the fund).

Clearly for pass-throughs to be profitable to operate they must be attractive to potential investors.  The following are the key points that I will be looking for when choosing securities to operate pass-throughs to:

1.  A clearly defined business.
2.  A clear means by which profit can be delivered - no pipe-dreams lacking any description of how return for investors will be achieved.
3.  Indisputable evidence that the business described is actually occurring.
4.  Some specific reason why it is not practical (or economical) for small investors to directly invest in that business.  The pass-throughs will NOT be targetted at larger investors - those should invest direct.
5.  The business is of a type and/or scale not already available for investment in on LTC-Global.  Don't expect to see mining companies or precious metal funds.

Point 4 pretty much rules out pass-throughs to securities on BTC.CO, CryptoStocks and Bitfunder (there's no barrier to entry).


OPERATIONAL DETAILS

Shares will only be sold in pass-throughs when LTC-ATF already holds shares of the underlieing asset.

Rather than selling in large blocks at a fixed price, our pass-throughs will attempt to more closely mirror the price of the underlieing asset - avoiding the situation where shares sit unsold due to having become grossly over-priced.  This also removes the hidden fee charged on some pass-throughs - where the price sold at represents a much greater markup than the fee claimed to be charged.

We charge a 2.5% fee on sales/repurchases and a 1% fee on dividends.  These fees cover all transaction/currency conversion/currency movement/subscription fees whilst leaving a small profit for the fund.  This works out to be competitive compared to alternative pass-throughs - especially for those intending to hold shares and receive dividends.  It also works out much cheaper than investing directly for small to medium investors.

Unlike some other operators, LTC-ATF offers the ability to sell back - just put them up at 2.5% below lowest bid on MPEx and we'll fill the order.  All LTC-ATF securities (including the parent fund) offer this type of liquidity.


PASS-THROUGHS OPERATED

Satoshi Dice.  Would assume everyone knows what this is.  Most BTC exchanges have pass-throughs to it - well here's an LTC denominated one.  Full details in the listing at https://www.litecoinglobal.com/security/S.DICE-PT

BitBet.  A website for betting on Yes/No propositions.  All betting is done by transparent Bitcoin transactions (no user accounts needed).  Bets are seeded with  small amount of capital by the house.  Full details in the listing at https://www.litecoinglobal.com/security/S.BBET-PT

MPOE.  The share representing ownership of the MPEX stock-exchange and the MPOE Options exchange.  Full details in the listing at https://www.litecoinglobal.com/security/S.MPOE-PT

There's no way the fund at present can justify spending 30 BTC on registering with MPEx.  Maybe at some point down the line we'll be able to - and the contract for the pass-throughs will explicitly make provision for that.  At present I don't have a clear view of the extent to which the fund can usefully trade on MPEx (the only way to get a clear view is by actually doing so - for example I have no way of knowing whether two competing orders are from the same person unless one of them's mine).

Indeed there's a non-zero risk of Jurov being hit by a bus: same as there is for me.  Jurov has already offered that, in the event I vanish, he would accept a list of investors and settle with them.  He will also have authority to verify that I hold shares to back the pass-throughs (GPG signed statements verifying this are already in his plans) and to delay any withdrawals I make if there is any question over that.  So at least investors will be gaining some mitigation of risk in return for the additional counter-party risk using a broker adds.

Exchange-rate : 0.0043
Adjusted NAV/U : 22.91129
Bid at : 22.4

Profit for the week has continued to grow - in part from weakening LTC and in part from actual trading profit.  So far this week all profits have been on LTC-Global and BTC.CO (last week the biggest profits were on Bitfunder - with good performance on Crypto and very little profit on BTC.CO : showing the benefits of operating on a range of platforms).

The motion passed with no votes against it (majority of shares held by people other than myself voted yes as well).  As I did last time a motion changed the contract, I will be offering to buy back shares at above NAV/U for the next week (until 23:59:59 GMT on 23rd January).  At present there's a bid up by the fund for 50 units at 23.5.  I will reimburse from my personal funds the 1.1 LTC above the fund's normal price for any units sold back (At this juncture I am inclined NOT to relist them for sale as we have more than sufficient LTC-denominated capital for the immediate future).  If anyone wants to sell back more than that - or wants me to update the order before selling (in case NAV/U has risen) then feel free to PM me.

I will shortly create the asset and contract for our first pass-through which will be to Satoshi Dice.  I HAD intended to to BitBet first but at the moment the price is in a small slump (it was to be expected due to the way the IPO is being done - which I'll explain when I do get around to doing it).  Creating a pass-through when the price is falling is very risky for our fund - as we could easily end up buying shares then selling the pass-through to them at a loss (to be accurate - the risk isn't in creating the pass-through, it's in populating it with stock).  S-Dice, on the other hand, is rising at present with a very narrow spread which is ideal both for us and for potential LTC investors.  In fact my fear is that the price of it may over-shoot its reasonable range before we get approval for the pass-through listing (there's remarkably little of it for sale and a very heavy order book).

Accounting for the pass-throughs will be very straightforward.  All shares we hold to which we operate pass-throughs will be listed as long-term with the total volume held shown in each week's report.  These will be valued  at the mid-point between highest bid and lowest ask.  The number of units sold of each pass-through will also be listed - and that number of underlieing asset discounted when calculating both total assets and net assets (those shares 'belong' to the investors in the pass-though and can't be traded - so aren't assets of the fund in any meaningful sense).  The value of shares committed to pass-throughs also (pretty obviously) can't be counted as BTC assets towards the ratio we need to hold to ensure bond backing - but unsold ones (equally obviously) can.

As with all other assets we invest in, I will be aiming not to commit more than 10% of total assets to a single share.  This will slow down the rate at which we can sell shares in the pass-throughs but is absolutely necessary to ensure we don't over-expose ourselves to a single asset.  For S-Dice (which is traded on BTC.CO and BitFunder) our exposure is considered to be all units we hold or have bids on across all platforms less the number of sold shares in our own pass-through.

Don't think that's quite what happened.  What actually happened is:

He started selling bonds in public.
Then sold a bunch privately (i.e. off market - if you look at BTC-MINING you'l see where a large chunk of these went).
When GLBSE went down he used funds that were being held for dividends to buy ASICs - leaving him insufficient cash to pay out the dividends he owed.
He somehow scraped together enough to pay out dividends to the private investors - but was left with insufficient to pay out regular shareholders.
He also then compounded his error by unilaterally announcing that he would no longer be paying dividends - despite it being a fixed-rate bond.

Then when his various fuckups/dodgy dealings were noticed he pretty much vanished.

It's not that he sold the same thing twice - it appears he has sufficent mining power to back all his sales.  It's that he went and spent money that should have been paid in dividends on ordering ASICs - which he may well have got away with unnoticed had his ASICs arrived before GLBSE sent out the investors' list.

Obviously it's blatant scamming - both in using other people's funds (the dividend payments) to buy hardware with and then in deciding to just cancel paying further dividends despite continuing to mine.  Would guess he's just going to keep stalling until his ASICs arrive then pray he can mine enough BTC to make payments sufficient to avoid/have removed a scammer tag.

MPEx is only the exchange on which BitVPS was listed.

It seems BitVPS' previous owner 'sold' his controlling interest - in the process breaking the contract he'd signed when listing the company.  If a company doesn't adhere to its agreement with the exchange then what do you think the exchange is meant to do?  Ignore it and continue listing them?  The exchange can't do that - once it knows the contract isn't being honoured it would be wrong for the exchange to allow trading to continue knowing that new investors may be misled by a contract published by the exchange which the exchange KNOWS isn't being honoured.

You need to get over your dislike of MPEx/and MP/MPOE-PR and realise that, in this case at least, the ONLY reasonable action available to MPEx is to delist the company.  So long as they provide investors with proof of holding the shares then investors can pursue whatever action (or negotiate any settlement) they choose against/with the company.

An exchange isn't liable if a company listed on it acts in bad faith (which is pretty clearly what's happened here)  The exchange can't guarantee that any company it lists will honour its promises - all it can do is delist companies if they clearly fail to adhere to their contract or remedy any defects.

Here's how you described what your investments were before GLBSE died:


Then GLBSE dies and all of a sudden there's no sign of the mining farm or mining bonds - and private investment funds appears to have become singular.

How much do you owe - and how much are the GIPPT worth?  Why do you need to wait for GLBSE to repay the GIPPT before you repay the guaranteed difference between the two?

The possible difference between yourself and DeadTerra is that DeadTerra had disclosed where the funds were - and the funds are there but inaccessible.  You claimed where your funds were - but now it turns out they aren't there at all and, other than some GIPPT, there's no indication whatsoever of where the money has vanished to.

You seem to have a misapprehension over where the onus lies.

I (and others like me) aren't the ones seeking reasons to invest in your project.  You're the one trying to raise funds - so the onus is on YOU to convince others that your idea will work.

The fundamental questions you need to answer in my opinion are:

1.  What is it you'll be offering that Bitpay doesn't?  Bitpay allows merchants to accept BTC payments and receive fiat equal to the price they want (less a fee).  They don't need BTC wallets at all.  They don't need to know or care what the exchange-rate is.
2.  What can you show to demonstrate that you've done the ground-work and have the competence (either as an individual or within your team) to deliver on your project?

Where I have ffurther concerns is that I don't believe the funds you're asking for are sufficient to do what you plan to do.  Are you planning to do it all yourself without any pay for your work?  Staff travelling around to merchants and demonstrating the hardware/software costs money.  As does staff cold-calling (or whatever you plan to do) to identify merchants to demonstrate your product to in the first place.  I seriously believe the funds you're asking for are an order of magnitude below what you'd need to make any sort of decent attempt to deliver - but as there's no attempt at any sort of cost projections in your fund-raising request I obviously can't point to the specific things you haven't covered.

If you want funds then you need to convince people that you can deliver, that the funds you're asking for are sufficient to deliver and that IF you deliver there's a market for the product.  I'm not seeing any of that - the need you appear to have identified is one that's already got a solution.

I should note in passing that you appear to be in the UK - so potentially you DO have a market there that (as far as I know) BitPay aren't in any way focussing on.  But have you done ANY market research showing that there's actually demand if you deliver?

Contrary to what you seem to think, I don't have any interest in dissuading you from continuing - it makes zero difference to me.  I'm just pointing out the reasons why, as it stands, your proposal is of no interest to me.  If other people are PMing you en masse and donating by the bucket-load then clearly I'm wrong.  If they aren't then maybe the reasons I'm expressing are actually similar to those of plenty of other people.

YOU need to convince US that you have a good idea - we don't need to convince you of anything.

The problem is that what you've described is the sort of thing that should be in place BEFORE you start claiming you can't do a hit and run.

The project in general looks more like a dream than a plan.  Where's the prototype of one of these hardware devices (and appropriate software/firmware) showing how a merchant can seamlessly accept BTC and receive fiat?  Where's any breakdown of how the expenses will be spent?

The problem isn't so much that you're reinventing the wheel as that you're trying to reinvent the wheel - but a square one.  Small merchants DON'T want to agree exchange-rates in the morning and have to consult with anyone if they want to sell more than X BTC worth of goods.  They just want to get paid the price listed on the tag of their item.  And that's already available.  It's not hard (conceptually) to do what Bitpay does - accept BTC, convert using something called and exchange, then send the received funds (less fees) to the merchant in their currency of choice.  The hard part, as with most business ideas, is actually doing it.  You've come up with a worse method (I repeat: merchants DON'T want to agree exchange-rates or have limits on how much they're allowed to sell) and no real plan of how to do it - but seem surprised noone is throwing money at you.

It's not actually a theoretical question.

Anyone who doesn't claim their shares yet would still be accruing dividends under the old policy.  Whilst, at present, there's no economically viable option for someone with only a few old shares that COULD change in the future.  e.g. in a few years time if BTC are worth $100 each then suddenly it could be worth paying the apostille cost to claim your few bonds.

I'd assume they'd just be getting their promised MH/s PPS output added to their accumulated value forever (with GIga keeping them in BTC so he doesn't face exposure to currency risk if they're claimed at a later date).

Not seeing how you've stopped this.

If your indiegogo campaign gets funded the money gos to you.  THAT's when any hit and run would occur - not after you'd appointed trustees.  Very hard for me to see how you didn't notice this possibility - or is there some restriction I can't see which would stop the funds being sent to you?

Think the point is that BitPay already does all this via apps on mobile devices.  Merchant takes payment in BTC and gets paid in fiat minus a small fee immediately.

Any fund existing to perform the same function will either:

a)  Charge a small fee (or make a profit on exchanging - which works out exactly same for merchant)
or
b)  Make a loss

You're tring to create similar functionaility to Bitpay - just with MORE complexity for merchants.  They don't need advisors on the phone, worrying about where private keys are etc.  They just need to get the price they want when they sell something that's priced in fiat and accept BTC as payment.  If you intend to compete with Bitpay then that's great - but realise that you ARE competing with them and start off by working out where you can offer a better service than them.