If you go that route then you need to make it something like 50% of those who have logged in during last 48 hours or something.  Otherwise could end up with no assets getting approved if a load of people are on holiday etc.

Just something you ought to know about motions on BTC.CO.

The criteria for a motion to pass is that 50% or more of ALL outstanding shares must vote Yes - there's no putting up a motion for 24 hours, only a handful of shareholders vote then something major gets changed.   I think you probably rushed this motion before everyone even realises the share has been relisted - and will struggle to get 50% to vote.

There's also a problem with this - as you have non-voting/non-equity shares allocated to collect growth fund.  If you don't vote with these it would be hard for a motion to pass, if you DO vote with them then votes get decided largely by shares that shouldn't vote at all.  Only way round it right now is that before vote ends, transfer those shares back to treasury - so they don't get counted in vote result - then transfer them back after the vote.  Then whenever you sort contract out you need to change the part regarding those shares and just take 30% for growth and then dividend other 50% out (which will allocate correctly to your management shares which I think ARE entitled to vote). 

Using shares to split income - when the shares aren't bought, don't own equity and can't vote is just terrible: not just for votes, but also for calculation of share value and distribution of equity in event of a closedown.

Same issue of personal benefit can also apply to people who aren't issuers.  There'll undoubtedly be votes cast for personal reasons (grudges or friendship) as well as ones for financial benefit.

If an issuer runs an asset that isn't an investment/trading fund then treating investment as a zerosum game (where funds invested elsewhere aren't buying their shares) then for financial benefit they should vote NO on all issues except ones which are either:

1. Direct competitors to their own but very clearly inferior.
2. Investment funds likely to buy their asset.

Similarly there's a strong case that if a smart Investor/Investment fund wants to vote purely for their own financial benefit then they should vote YES on some horrible investments as well as voting NO on marginal ones which objectively probably deserve a Yes vote.

Don't know if anyone's doing anything like that - but it wouldn't surprise me.

+1

Well this is the really amusing thing about it.

Shareholders did NOT vote to liquidate lol.

From the thread:

"
Question:    At which Exchange should PGM continue?
Cryptostocks    3 (11.1%)
BTCT.co    4 (14.8%)
MPex    0 (0%)
Bitfunder    9 (33.3%)
Don't continue, Buyback my shares!    11 (40.7%)
Votes Total: 27"

59.93% of votes were NOT to close.  He closed it with only 40.7% voting to do so.

That's because he did the inexcusable fuckup of asking two questions in one vote -

1.  Should PGM continue?
2.  If PGM continues, at which exchange should it do so?

That the MAJORITY of investors who wanted to continue didn't agree on an exchange isn't the same as counting a bunch of them as voting to close.

And that's aside from fact that votes was tallied based on number of people voting - not number of shares.

And having failed at basic commonsense and math he then immediately closed and sent back funds without waiting to see if anyone noticed the rather interesting voting process used.  And shockingly none of the investors appear to even have noticed that there wasn't a majority in favour of closure.

Coupleof points on this, to avoid problems down the line:

The unclaimed shares should be transferred to a seperate account on btc.co (this procedure is described in the thread about migrating to btc.co).  It's not safe at this stage to assume they'll never be claimed - some may be people who were away, or ones where nefario screwed up, or people who couldn't get the GLBSE 2fa working to register a claim etc.  They need to go in a seperate account -so their share of any dividends paid gets held for them.  Also, do bear in mind that the shares held for management/growth would need to be adjusted if you ever do return shares to treasury.  My recommendation would be that you don't treat any shares as totally unclaimed until the point is reached where nefario stops providing further updates on GLBSE.

Second point is that you really shouldn't be selling any new shares at all - no matter how high the bid - until you've disbursed the back-logged dividend (or voted to apply it to growth).  Those funds are due to the investors who held shares whilst GLBSE was down, not to anyone buying new shares now.  This is a pretty trivial point really - but basically you have to get finances up to date before selling new shares.

Not sure what you're proposing to do going forward, but my recommendation is that the very first thing you need to do is work out a pretty good valuation of the company's current assets: the hardware presumably now has a lower resale value than you bought it for (exchange-rate change for one thing).  Then you need to work out what price shares would sell for NOW if that is what funds were being raised for.  That's complicated a bit by the management/growth shares - you'd need to leave those out when calculating value per share (as I assume those wouldn't count for division of assets if there was liquidation).  TBH I heartily dislike artifical shares like that - as they pollute valuations and votes plus can be abused if a manager tries to close down and keep a share of company value equal to them, when all they really are is a lazy way of splitting profit and not an equity share.

Reason you need to revalue shares is otherwise if you try to sell at original price then you just won't be able to sell much - as new investors will be being asked to help pay for dividends and losses already received/made by existing investors.  That's a problem faced by lots of mining companies - where asset value decreases.

I'm getting same message - on an address used before a few times and pasted via notepad so no dodgy characters in it (have had the non-printable characters issue before - and it's not that).  So looks like a glitch at their end.

Actually that's not quite accurate is it?

Didn't they buy 1/1000th BFL Single AND 1/1000th of the upgrade of that to an ASIC?

So what they were entitled to was 0.07 BTC for the cancelled upgrade (that amount is explicitly defined in contract) + 1/1000th of value of the BFL Single.  Which I guess is what you actually paid out - just your post seems to state otherwise.

I'm NOT claiming he as honest about it from the start - was accepting that the contract he posted was the relevant one.  Think it's a bit confusing at times which of the two bad investments we're talking about: the one closing down or the one staying open.  Certainly one of them had an entirely unclear OP - whether that was the contract on GLBSE or not I have no idea.

I'd certainly agree that paying three times the cost of a BFL single for the rights to the mining output from one isn't exactly going to win any best-value awards.  And wording the contract such that's not clear just how gigantic a management fee is being taken is certainly scummy.  But is it a scam?  My best guess is that admins are going to say that so long as you get what you paid for it's not scam - and if you weren't sure what you were going to get you should find out before parting with your cash.

I see it as more of an idiot tax than a scam.  I wouldn't run something so horribly bad value myself - and I certainly wouldn't want to ever be associated with or have to deal with the individuals perpetuating it.  But that doesn't make them scammers - the deception involved was self-deception from investors, who decided to believe (along with loads of others) that mining is somehow an amazingly profitable endeavour that can be profitable for investors even after asset issuers take a massive chunk of gross revenue (taking the cut up front is similar impact to taking from gross revenue).

It'd be nice to see a legitimate mining company - where the manager only gets a share of profits as their fee (profits being AFTER costs AND depreciation of equipment value).  But don't hold your breath for that.

AS I said right at the start of the thread - you (investors) made your loss the moment you decided to invest and pay a massive mark-up on the hardware as a management fee.

The closing-down payment is NOT a scam.  The ownership of the remaining shares is irrelevant - as 1 share is worth 1/1000 of the BFL single + upgrade irrespective of who owns the rest.

If it was a scam anywhere it would have to be at the launch by charging such a steep markup and basically gauranteeing no initial ivnestor could ever make a profit.  But that isn't really a good basis for a scam accusation as there was no deception.  Sure it was a shockingly bad, horribly over-priced investment.  But a scam?  No.  If it were then majority of mining companies/bonds should have their own threads in here - as very few will/have ever made a profit for investors.

All the shutdown has done is finally made it obvious to all investors just how they wasted their BTC investing in it.  Had it kept going you'd still probably lose the same amount (might be more, might be less - my guess is probably more if anything) - just spread out over a longer period.

Open market has the final say anyway - as that's what decides whether people buy an asset or not.  The idea behind the approval system was (I think) mainly to gie a chance for peopel to find gaps/weaknesses/holes/inconsistencies in planned securities before they got listed - i.e. whilst contract should be easily changed.  Where it falls down is that for a contract to be pretty complete it also has to, in general, be pretty long - and a plan would really need a LOT of information in it to be decent (projections, examples of accounts etc).  Most people who get the right to vote don't have the time, experience and/or ability to actually look at proposals properly - so often votes are cast on superficial things (like do they like the idea) rather than on what they (imo) SHOULD be cast on : is there sufficient information that investors know what to expect (in terms of payments, transparency and long-term plan) and can make an informed judgment about the viability or otherwise of the plan.

Voting shouldn't so much be about whether the plan is 'good' as whether it's clear enough for others to make that judgment themselves - and also, of course, whether the definition of the asset is actually supported by the detail.

Exchange-Rate : .00596

Adjusted NAV/U : 15.8063
Bid at : 15.5

Our bond has now been approved and first few have been sold.  Below is how the accounting spreadsheet has been updated to deal with the bonds.  Any suggestions, comments or requests for clarification are gratefully received.



The line after "BTC denom holdings" is now changed to "Gross Assets".  This represents the total value of all assets managed by LTC-ATF.

There is then an entirely new section of data entitled "Bonds".  Here's a breakdown of what each line here represents :

Outstanding : The number of bonds actually sold.

Face Value per bond : The face value of each bond.

Total Value : The total value (cost) of all outstanding bonds = number outstanding * face value.

Weekly Dividend : The dividend paid each week (as a percentage of face value)

Days since last dividend : The number of days since last dividend was paid.    Each day when I first open the spreadsheet I'll update this number.  This resets to 0 right after I pay a dividend.

Accrued Dividend : The liability the fund currently has in due but unpaid dividends.  This is equal to Total Value * Weekly Dividend (%) * (Days Since Last Dividend / 7).  This allows the cost of paying dividends to be built up over the week (for purposes of calculating current value) rather than all taken off in one hit at the end.

Ratio Bonds : Total BTC - This measures total percentage of total bond liability as a percentage of liquid BTC denominated assets.  This value has to be kept under 90% - in practice, once bond sales are largely complete, I'll be aiming to keep it in the 80-85% zone.  Bond liability is face value of bonds + accrued dividend.  Liquid BTC denominated assets is total BTC denominated assets less illiquid ones (currently only ASICMINER shares which are untradable).

Ratio Bonds : NAV - This is the percentage total bond face value is to total liquid NET assets.  Liquid Net assets is total NAV for the fund less illiquid assets (ASICMINER shares and Bond Ticker value at present).  This isn't allowed to exceed 150% - but there's no intention of getting too near to that anyway (and in short term it's not going to go over 20-25% depending on exchange-rate).

Net Asset Value is then calculated - which is Gross Asset Value less (Bond Face Value + Accrued Dividend).

The remainder of spreadsheet is unchanged - though obviously uses the new NAV row rather than the old row it used to use.

Details of the import process are here : https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=127215.0

You need to get moderator approval for the share before he'll do the import - so finish contract up as it is then unlock it for voting.

You'd need to have the list imported before you change contract anyway - as distributing the shares is pretty much a prerequisite to hold a vote to apply any contract changes.

When you PM burnside don't forget to ask for your 5 BTC registration fee back.

Wouldn't work - votes are recalced if shares in LTC Global change hands.  So to do it all yourself you'd have to buy 50 LTC-Global shares.  That would cost around 10k LTC or $780.  A pretty significant investment for most issues so terrible that they couldn't get 5 votes legitimately (some pretty horrid ones get 5 votes no problem - like the pretty obvious scam one just approved which hasn't even made a forum thread or given nicks on here/LTC talk for the issuer).  Of course getting mod approval isn't the same thing as actually selling shares.

Not sure what you mean by the site being shockingly slow - if you mean trade volume then yes, it's pretty slow: though how long it takes to sell shares depends really on how slippage you're willing to take - you can sell immediately if you don't mind accepting a low enough bid.  If you meant web-page speed (as with GLBSE's 20 second load times) then nope - there's no speed issue that I've noticed.

And yeah - I do like the site.  But as it stands the moderator approval thing is pretty much a pointless hoop to jump through, as too many retards have a vote who couldn't tell a bad contract from a good one until their funds vanished - so total junk can get approved for listing no problem.  Doesn't actually hurt me directly - as obviously I can avoid trading complete and utter junk - but indirectly it does, as scams and bad investments leech capital from the market and reduce confidence.

Bond is now approved by LTC Global moderators and trading.

Have put 250 up at 1.6861 for now - will initially be selling 1000 total (10 BTC face value).

As will always be the case no huge Ask wall will be maintained - as leaves us open to someone buying up the bonds then maniuplating exchange-rate immediately to force us to buy back at a loss.  Once received funds from sales have been converted to BTC it doesn't of course, impact us if exchange-rate gets manipulated.

Asks will only ever be up when I'm online and pretty active.  Bids from fund will rarely be up - but I'll regaularly being checking for Asks from anyone wanting to sell and filling them if they're priced correctly.

First post has been updated with a section on pricing - explaining to everyone exactly how bid/ask prices are calculated.  Do note that when exchange-rate moves after placement of orders the orders may be slightly out of date for a while (in either direction).

EskimoBob : There's no secret or even permanent list of who can approve new securities on LTC-GLOBAL/BTC.CO.  Basically anyone who holds 10 or more shares in LTC-GLOBAL gets a vote.

Noone other than burnside (who could look in the database) knows the full list of who has that voting power - we know that there were 20+ people with votes.

For a security to get listed it only needs 5 Yes votes - and pretty much any old rubbish can get that.

I'm NOT a voter by the way - so my comments only reflect my recommendations to those who are, not how I personally vote (as I don't/can't).

Him having the LLC isn't the same thing as the contracts being pffered by the LLC.  For that to be the case he'd need to have identified the LLC as offering the contracts when said contracts were offered.  You can't personally enter a contract then later claim that your commitments under that contract were actually made by an undisclosed LLC.  Maybe he DID state the LLC was offering the contracts - if so, all he has to do is show where that was spelled out (or if he claims that was stated in the GLBSE contract, say so - as apparently he's claiming not to have bothered keeping a copy of his own contract).

Removed the duplicate paragraph.

The funds raised are directly being used to reduce exposure for the fund to the LTC/BTC exchange-rate.  When bonds are sold an equivalent amount will be promptly converted to BTC.  That allows us (the fund) to invest in BTC-denominated assets but with the bulk of that value being offset by a liability (the bonds) also denominated in BTC.  So any exchange-rate movement becomes pretty much a wash - other than the small amount of the fund's own capital tied up in BTC (we have to keep SOME of our own funds in BTC so as to protect bond holders against a small loss in BTC assets + a collapse in LTC leaving us unable to service the bonds).

The net result of that is that the fund's own valuation becomes largely unaffected by BTC/LTC exchange-rate (a massive swing would still have a significant impact - but not a huge one).  That means that investors in the fund can choose their own proportion of exposure to LTC and BTC by balancing their own portfolio.  Without the bonds existing that ratio would vary depening on what portion of the fund's capital was invested (or held) in BTC-denomination.

Listing on LTC Global rather than BTC.CO was done for two reasons:

1.  Simple cost.  250 LTC to create ticker on LTC Global, 5 BTC on BTC.CO.  Given that we're initially only going to selling 10 BTC worth of bonds it would be hard to justify a 5 BTC up-front cost.
2.  Convenience.  This way both assets can be managed from a single account/wallet (comingling of funds isn't an issue here obviously - as the funds ARE one pool).  And users can trade both on one platform.

Obviously against that was offset the extra complexity added by having the bonds transacted in LTC - such as the inability to sell/redeem them through permanent bids (on BTC.CO could have just left up bids at .0099 and asks at .00101).

This offering doesn't prevent us, at some stage in the future, from offering a similar bond - but transacted in BTC - on BTC.CO.

Giving a maturity was an interesting option.  I did consider it, but eventually discounted it for a few reasons:

1.  The need to redeem all bonds at once on a specific date.  Whilst this could, in theory, be handled through rollovers that would likely require use of a second ticker - as there's no way to do a forced buyback of all bonds except specific ones.  An alternative method would be to have those who want to rollover return bonds prior to forced recall then reissue theirs for free after - but I'm not a huge fan of that type of system.  Ultimately with a fixed maturity date I have to plan on having all funds liquid for bonds at that date - which could be inconvenient.

2.  The main problem with it is that the issuing of bonds is likely to be staggered and to be unpredictable.  The need for new funds to be raised from bonds depends on new assets becoming available to trade and/or liquidity in markets increasing.  Now if the bonds have a fixed maturty date at face value how easy would it be to issue new ones a month before that date?  Or a week before that date?  Given that there's a small premium charged over face value on sales (there has to be for currency exchange costs and transfer fees - and that wouldn't change even if bond was listed on btc.co) there comes a point where the maturity date is so close that it makes no sense for anyone to buy the bonds - as the premium on purchase outweighs the dividends receivable before maturity.  And even well before maturity date that acts to reduce the benefit of bond purchase.  So a fixed maturity date effectively locks us into being unable to sell bonds easily for a period prior to that date.

The second issue, as with the first, COULD be addressed by having a fixed maturity date - then issuing a new bond some period before it (on same terms with a new maturity date).  But that then raises entirely new problems for all parties.  On the fund's side we can no longer predict available capital easily - and also potentially have to pay dividends on double the capital we want for the overlap period.  On investors' side they either have to stump up double the investment or risk being shut out of rollover if the new issue sells out before redemption of the initial one.

No doubt there's ways to mitigate those issues (e.g. allowing investors to trade old for new before sales on open market) - but seemed far easier just to not have a maturity date and set a markup on forced recall price such that investors could have confidence it's not something we'd do lightly (only time I can see it happening would be if BTC trading market went dead but LTC one was still viable - where LTC-ATF wouldn't close but would want to get out of BTC-denominated assets).

Think there's a couple of very general requirements that should be on any list:

1.  That whoever posts the asset for approval makes a thread on either this forum or the LTC one where anyone can ask questions about the asset/contract.  If they don't have confidence enough in their offering to discuss it in public then no way it should get approval.
2.  That the asset issuer disclose the nicks they use on this forum and/or the LTC one.  If they have (or claim to have) zero history on both sites then they need to make that explicit.

Right now there's an asset up for voting on LTC Global that has absolutely glaring problems with it (e.g. no definition of what payments investors will receive, an alleged 'board' with no details of who's on it, no exit plan, no information on what level of disclosure will be provided etc).  Asset issuer is totally unidentifiable other than an email address - not even a brand new nick.

Not sure what's more shocking - that he thinks it'll get 5 votes or that 3 retards have actually voted yes (the latter could be him + 2 alts of course).

REPORT AND UPDATE



There's a few additions to the above spreadsheet from previous weeks:

BTC balances held at BTC.CO and CRYPTO have been added - as we'll now be trading on those platforms.  The spreadsheet also tracks holdings of securities there - but those rows have been hidden as we currently hold no assets (other than BTC) on either.

Towards the bottom of spreadsheet you'll see a section headed "Miscellaneous" with an entry for the LTC-ATC.B1 bond ticker valued at 225 LTC.  As previously discussed (and passed by motion) the 250 LTC cost of the ticker is being written off over a period of no more than 20 weeks.  As we made respectable profits this week I already wrote the value down by 10% - I intend to write it off far quicker than the maximum 20 weeks if possible.  This method is, to a degree, creative accounting - but serves to avoid a sudden drop in unit value when there's been no underlieing loss (the ticker DOES have value or we wouldn't have bought it).

Trading on LTC Global has been extremely sluggish this week - so profits are well down on the previous few weeks.

BITBOND

Since GLBSE's closure we have had 3 units of this asset stuck on GLBSE - these had been marked down on our books from a purchase price of around 0.2 BTC each to 0.1 BTC each.  Earlier this week the security was relisted on Crypto and bonds distributed per a list provided by Nefario.

The issuer also made a rather concerning post in the thread for the asset - indicating that he was unable to pay (yet) dividends due for the period whilst the bonds were inaccessible.  This was apparently due to some undisclosed arrangement made with some large investors where they had a senior claim on dividend funds.  No explanation was offered of why funds weren't at hand to pay ALL due dividends.  He also indicated that he would be unable to pay further dividends going forward - obviously totally unacceptable for a supposed fixed-rate bond.

Clearly some individuals either don't read very well, don't do any research or were attempting to manipulate the price - as I was able to sell our three (two at 0.25 BTC and one at 0.3 BTC) for a price higher than what we paid and higher than they were trading at when GLBSE closed.

In theory issuer could make a buy-back offer higher than that - but I'll be shocked if his offer is anywhere near that and/or is available for immediate settlement.  We may, of course, trade these bonds once issuer has explained what (and why) is actually happening and the trading range has moved (down) to somewhere sensible.


LTC-ATF.B1

Our BTC-denominated (but transacted in LTC) bond has now been submitted for approval by LTC Global moderators.  Initially we will only be looking to sell 10 BTC worth of bonds with a dividend rate of 0.6% per week.  The rate may be raised if few sell.  As more trading opportunites present themselves, further tranches of bonds will be issued.


ODDS AND ENDS

A management fee of 2 units is due this week (rounded down from 2.08) which will be taken after this post is submitted.

Bid is up at 15.47

The first post of this thread has been updated with some general information about LTC-ATF - at some point in the coming week more information will be added and the formatting tidied up.