Price adjustment:

Selling bitcoin reminder bands for .8 BTC + .4 BTC for shipping (stateside).

Total 1.2 BTC.

Yes I've considered this "doomsday" scenario over and over in my head. Something has to eventually give. It could go down a number of ways. 1) The "Pirate" adjusts interest rates until it's sustainable for a longer period of time, 2) BTC prices are driven upwards due to hoarding or directing investment into BTCST, which would induce some individuals to withdraw their coins (converting to fiat) reducing the overall capital vested, 3) It blows up due to the unsustainable size of the bitcoin economy, and all the capital is returned (The exchange price may sag a bit in this situation somewhat, but probably recover). Or 4) it's an amazing ponzi scheme and were all about to take a hit.

I'm sure I've missed a few possibilities, but they're probably nominally related subject fodder. Either way, it's going to be an interesting ride.

Your math is off. Starting with 10K BTC and compounding every week that would give you .337M BTC. You're off by an order of magnitude.

Gratuitous Bump 

Update:

Since I haven't been able to convince the post office I can fit my reminder band into a width less than 3/4" in a uniform manner, the cost of international shipping is going to be .8 BTC for the time being.

If anybody has any ideas of how to make the item fit convincingly inside these dimensions (12 x 7 x .75") in a uniform non-rigid manner, that would be appreciated. I'm no shipping expert.

And finally, depending on where the shipment is going to, I may not be able to supply tracking information.

Pirate didn't start out that big either, and yes, it does scale quite nicely. Political campaign polling was one of many types of calling campaigns that functioned in the way I described (predictable, short-term and asynchronous). As you may already know, the outbound and inbound calling business is a billion dollar industry, and while not all campaigns are as profitable, most are quite predictable (nice multiples) if you set them up properly, or can semi-automate your agents. Bidding magazine subscriptions contracts was another one since it needed quick bridge financing to demonstrate operational status to potential clientele.

The industry may in fact be quite a bit larger than what Pirate does (short-term loan floating). I was a script programmer and sysadmin (among other various and sundry things) for the guy until he got a bigger deal somewhere else. He moved, then I moved, and we fell out of contact for awhile. At the time I didn't consider the idea as a viable one because I didn't think that way. You might say I didn't have much of a financial imagination.

OK so you dared me to throw down. Here's an easy idea I was personally aware of due to my friendship with my boss. He ran an outbound call center for a few years. One of his really good money makers was political campaign polling.

Problem was he couldn't predict how much calling he was going to do in time to go live before the evening news. He couldn't hire employees to match demand either because he tended to overshoot. This required him to hire temps. The pay always seemed to be out of sync with the pollster companies.

He had to pay his temps when he let them go so it left him short changed. In comes the bailout. You cover the payroll and take a cut. I was privy to several double digit percentage gains. The time frames for these deals ranged between 1 to 2 weeks. Do the math.

I'll give credit and attribution where due, so don't accuse me if I'm accidentally borrowing too much.

"embit"   MBTC   (1e+6 BTC)   -short 'e' (I borrowed this, but changed the magnitude).
"kibit"     KBTC   (1e+3 BTC)   -short 'i'
"bitcee" / "bickee"   BTC     (1 BTC)       -short 'i' and unique naming playing on acronym [ B ]i[ T ][ C ]ee.
"dibit"    dBTC    (1e-1 BTC)   -short 'i'
"cibit"     cBTC    (1e-2 BTC)   -short 'i'
"mibit"    mBTC   (1e-3 BTC)   -short 'i'
"ubit" / "mubit"    uBTC    (1e-6 BTC)   - pronounced youbit, oobit or moobit.
"nabit"    nBTC   (1e-9 BTC)   - if necessary in future, or for amounts >= 10 Satoshis.

And for nickles and dimes: nickee/nickit (.05 BTC) and dimee/dimit (.1 BTC, or 1 dibee).

I'll leave the nickles and dimes the same as they're kind of one-offs anyway. Also I left the single bitcoin as unique too.

Appreciate the input guys.

I appreciate the heads up, I've been pronouncing it that way for awhile now. Hopefully with the -bits suffix, it will sound a little more professional but keep the brevity roll-off-the-tongue convenience in every day talk.

What modifications would work and keep the "common" numerical prefixes? How about a different suffix? Perhaps a -bits suffix would sound less "baby talk".

I'll give credit and attribution where due, so don't accuse me if I'm accidentally borrowing too much.

"embee"   MBTC   (1e+6 BTC)   -short 'e' (I borrowed this, but changed the magnitude). <attr> Inaba.
"kibee"     KBTC   (1e+3 BTC)   -short 'i'
"bitcee" / "bickee"   BTC     (1 BTC)       -short 'i' and unique naming playing on acronym [ B ]i[ T ][ C ]ee.
"dibee"    dBTC    (1e-1 BTC)   -short 'i'
"cibee"     cBTC    (1e-2 BTC)   -short 'i'
"mibee"    mBTC   (1e-3 BTC)   -short 'i'
"ubee"     uBTC    (1e-6 BTC)   - pronounced "youbee" or alternatively "myubee" (I borrowed this).
"nabee"    nBTC   (1e-9 BTC)   - if necessary in future, or for amounts >= 10 Satoshis.

And for nickles and dimes: nickee/nickit (.05 BTC) and dimee/dimit (.1 BTC, or 1 dibee).

I tried to find as many unique pronuciations (prevent miscommunications) and maintain as close a resemblence to the metric prefix notation as possible. I also tried to keep it at 2 syllables. I tried one syllable, but it didn't sound unique enough.

Wha'dya think?

Let's assume a few things here:

<assumptions>
1) It's not a ponzi (or a proxy to a ponzi). The definition of which is a little tenuous since if you say you're running a ponzi, and you notify all of your "investors" that that's what you're doing, then are you actually a ponzi? <sarcasm> If the government says it's a ponzi, then it must be a ponzi</sarcasm>. Don't believe everything you hear, just follow the money or the deal.

At the moment we know little of Pirate's business plan, and if we knew more, and there were more competitors, then the interest rates would likely drop and likely without an additional decrease in risk exposure. That being the case, I'd just as soon he keep the secret. In fact, even if Pirate were to tell me right now, not only would I keep the secret, I probably wouldn't even try to compete with him, since I value my time differently than he does (or anybody else for that matter). It would have to be really really simple to get my attention and deal with all of the FUD that's spewed around here.

2) It's not drugs (or a proxy to drugs). I assume that would be both the legal and illegal kind. However, if it includes the "illegal" kind, that's just a matter of jurisdictional geography and you're legal again. Now I'm just rambling on, but whatever.

3) It's not insider currency exchange knowledge (or a proxy to insiders). Given the lack of transparency of the exchanges due to the psuedo-anonymous nature of bitcoin and the current lack of much regulation, this is possible. I'm sure others could address this issue better than I, so I'll leave it to them to work the numbers. Notwithstanding, I could really care less (nobody forced you to trade USD/BTC). Besides, if our benevolent Pirate "manipulator" can maintain some degree of stability (which we've had a little more of lately; correlation perhaps?), and make some money on the side, then more power to him. I value stability more than speculation anyway. Given his price-spike comment, so does he.

And even if stability isn't the desired side effect, and controlled volatility is (or some kind of bid-ask sniping, arbitrage, or algorithmic HFTs), then speculators can continue day-trading the market by predicting trends. Either way, most exchanges don't promise transparency anyway (maybe none?). If that's what you want, then make a better exchange (perhaps an OSS exchange) and convince people to join you. That way you could get transparency and decentralization in one fell swoop, yayyy!! Whatever floats yer boat I guess.
</assumptions>

Now that I've got all that out of the way, that narrows the playing field significantly. Nevertheless, I personally know of at least a half-dozen ways to make the kind of returns Pirate does, and they're relatively simple too (I'm busy and lazy), and I only spent about a week or two thinking about it (surfing the net helps). I however will not enumerate nor describe them here, since by divulging, it would likely make it more difficult for me to try them myself should I be so inclined. In any case, I'm sure if any of you had half a brain (an imagination helps), you could probably come up with a similar subset, and then some, given the nature of the financial "black box" Pirate operates within.

The only unknown I can't put a finger on is why use bitcoin when for the most part you can use fiat? To that, I can only venture to guess that bitcoin transactions are nearly frictionless (borderless) in the sense that there is less regulation, more anonymity, fewer adjudicated encumbrances leading to cheaper insurance costs -lowering operational overhead-, limited or advantaged market "commodity/currency" exposure, diminished creditor recourse (both good and bad), and perhaps a great disdain for government largesse and general interference. Besides, promoting bitcoin isn't such a bad idea anyway, right? That being the case, and a little bit of altruism (karma whore?), it's not impossible to imagine why Pirate might part with as much bitcoin as he does when he could likely keep more of it to himself. Be glad you're on the money train, and if you're not, stop the hating/FUDding/whining, or use pass-thrus. We're all "adults" here right?

All you should be concerned about is the "promise" and any nuanced contractual details.

On a side note: thanks Pirate for your patience and professionality. Seemingly a rare trait around here.

I'd like to purchase USD with my BTC. If "anything" includes USD then I'm game. Thanks.

Jeremy,

I may be blind or clumsy somehow, but are you still using Amazon Payments? It's in your FAQ, but I can't seem to find it on your website. I assume it's different than your Amazon shopping credits.

Something I forgot to mention:

Package Tracking costs an additional .2 BTC. Just trying to keep costs down.

Price discount bump.

.9 BTC/band.

Way to not read my post...

I think McGlinchy should have been able to secede, but with a few caveats. Firstly and most obviously, he should only secede with his own property and person (or family, if willing). Secondly, he should only convince thru persuasion, not coercion or violence, solicit followers/disciples. Your "handing people over" to "violent idealists" comment doesn't even come close to either of those blatantly obvious requirements.

And finally, should there be any "political dissidents" or "political refugees" who would want to immigrate, they should be allowed to leave his jurisdiction at their leisure, or at the very least, petition anyone they choose to assist them in extricating themselves and their things from their tyrannical environs, if need be.

If you understood Spooner, you wouldn't be making lame comparisons to your scumbag McGlinchy. McGlinchy was inciting riots and generally oppressing others, not putting down external insurgencies and invasions from abroad (there's nothing enlightening about political communism, republican or otherwise).

I highly doubt, had McGlinchy been able to secede (given the chance), he would have been able to last very long on his own since nobody likes dealing with a violent tyrannical nut-job. At the very least he would have starved himself out, or gone out crusading (plundering) and had his head handed to him.

From what I can tell, "libertarians" and "generally conservative" individuals, don't fight (in the violent sense) for a cause, they educate and persuade as much as possible. At the most, they use self defense since that's what their belief system is. As far as I can tell, McGlinchy did none of those things. Hardly a shining example.

If I remember correctly, we had something most people refer to as 9-11. I think that might qualify.

All law and "life devotion" is about some moral cause. Government is a perfect example of a "moral" cause that is nearly unstoppable. Your "petty" criminal McGlinchy is a simpleton compared to that of a much bigger operation (aka. government). You may look at him as a moral cause gone amuck, but I look at almost all forms of government as the same thing, with the notable exception that they have this definition they call "legal" which makes it all righteous for them and that simultaneously assuages their conscience.

Had McGlinchy the use of the law to leverage with, he'd likely still be alive today. Unfortunately (or fortunately) he wasn't that bright. I'd recommend to anybody that you not worry so much about the low-life criminals roaming the street, so much as you should the three-piece-suit politicos claiming to be so high and mighty. They're much more dangerous.

I'm not disagreeing that it's necessary to stop a hardened criminal and that it might require violence. Only that's it's appropriate when exhausting other options and only when attacked or threatened with attack first. I would think Alexander was a pretty bright guy who understood the purpose of law and justice.