Simple. Wait until sellers are no longer willing to sell for anything less.

This is why you always write down the private key portion of the authenticator token when signing up with each site.

So, if Ford were to come out with specs for a new car, and say "we will start production of a 2,500 pound car that gets 55 miles per gallon for a sticker price of $35,000 on November 15th", and someone came up with a BitBet bet saying "Ford will deliver 5 sample vehicles to well-known auto industry journalists with readerships over 250,000 per month each within 14 days of the production starting", would you take that bet?

Production starting and delivery to "5 credible forum members" are not the same thing, and to my knowledge, Labcoin has not stated that it will deliver sample chips to anyone except for those who have previously indicated an interest in bulk chip delivery - I certainly haven't seen anything suggesting they will ship sample chips to anyone who asks.

It's a transparent sucker bet, and that's why nobody is taking it. If the bet was limited to what Labcoin has actually stated, then it would be much more relevant, and there'd be a lot more interest.

Also, this:

That's because SD had already framed the discussion in the "house edge" terms, and in your head, perhaps just subconsciously, you wanted to compare it with SD on their terms. For someone not already accustomed to SD's marketing, what version is demonstrably better at getting them to gamble more? Again, this is why I merely suggested an A/B test. Nothing sinister implied - I'm not identifying the 99% side as being better, I'm questioning the method used to come to the conclusion that 1% is better. The reason I brought it up is that since casinos generally put the larger number on their marketing materials, and they are in the business of convincing people that gambling is a good idea, they probably know what works to reel the largest number of people in. But I don't know how that translates into the world of bitcoinlandia, because the psychology of the players may be different. It may be true, it may not. I have no idea.

Well, yes and no - assuming they can be sold on the exchange, they're real shares, and they have value, but only to the extent that the market is willing to pay for them. Since they're closely held they are effectively not part of the liquid market - and you're right that that value is not the same as current open market value and is effectively much lower - but if they were to become part of the liquid market by way of being sold on the exchange, even in small 10% blocks, the market price would certainly tank very quickly (since there would be much more supply than total current demand.) There is value there. But it's nowhere near the current bid price - at least, not right now. Their value will be better determined when the company is sold - as all shares, whether in the market or privately held, would be purchased at the same price. (Presuming a company sale follows the normal convention.)

I think I might be in love with you.

Does "soon" mean within a few minutes, in a few hours, or by the end of the day (depending on time zone)?

I mean, the IPO had a specific time for opening, is there a specific time for the order book to open?

False dichotomy. He may also be a smart guy who will lose your money, or he may be a smart guy who will make you a lot of money, or he may be an idiot who makes you a lot of money.

because dividends (especially as high as 75% of net profit, something we've somehow come to expect in Bitcoinlandia) mean the company isn't investing as much as it could for growth. While this may be great for short-term bursts for the shareholder, it's detrimental to the company, since growth is now limited to profits minus dividends.

While I certainly enjoy the high dividend yields currently available, the landscape MUST necessarily change to something more reasonable, or the companies throwing their returns back at investors will choke on their self-imposed slower pace of innovation and adaptation. Certainly 1% is a huge jump down, I think there's room for more than that in the current environment, to be frank, but a reasonable dividend amount is certainly closer to 1% than it is to 75%.

Go take a quaalude and perhaps a brisk walk outside, have a cigarette or two, calm the hell down, and then come back and read this. I don't think you're going to catch on to the grander discussion until you lose the attitude, to be perfectly honest.

*Sigh* no, actually, to short (as a verb, the way you used it) does not = to sell. I thought we went over this already. They're not the same thing. They are different. Not equal. Unequal. Doubleplusunsame.
Stop right here if you understand that "to short" a stock is not the same thing as selling it. Thanks for taking the time to be unemotional about this. You may have unintentionally made a mistake, and now you're recanted. You've got it, congratulations. Let's move on.

--- read below this line only if you think it's the same ---

OK, then. If you still need the basics explained in easy-to-digest nuggets, this should be about as easy as it gets - it was written JUST for folks like you who use words they shouldn't use. At least one person already caught on to the subtle hint I gave you when I mentioned the motley fool... all you did was get even more pissy about it all. I mean, if you had intended (there's that word intent again... something I'm still not sure about in your case, since you still haven't explained away your improper use of the word "short" yet) to say that you wished shareholders would sell, but you accidentally used the word "short", then that's one thing. But you've doubled down twice now, insisting that you know what you're talking about... so I have to assume you are exactly the right audience for this article:
Here you go.

I only know what you tell people by reading what you type - I cannot know what you intend to tell someone unless you express yourself in an understandable way.
A little vocabulary lesson seems to be in order:

To sell a long position is to sell shares of a security you already own.
To sell "short" is to borrow shares (usually from a broker) for the purposes of selling what you have not yet paid for.

I hope that makes it clearer for you. I can link you to the motley fool if you'd like, they have lots of articles for do-it-yourself-at-home investors that might be helpful.

That's actually exactly why I suggested an A/B test - take out the "I think"s and the "maybe that's just me"s and go with what is demonstrably better for encouraging your customers to play (whichever that is.) I honestly don't know which is better. As for the wording for a potential test, maybe "99% player odds" or something. It doesn't have to be mathematically or semantically accurate, you're just doing marketing to get them in the door. You ever go ask for the house rules at a casino? They have them in these thick packets, and they've got all the legalese you'd ever want and more - but they don't give them to you unless you ask, because it's generally known among players what 99% means. You've got all the fine print laid out already - my suggestion is simply that you don't limit your marketing to the same legalese standard.

To sell short and to sell an existing long position are not the same thing. It's not pedantics, it's vocabulary.

Possibly. Perhaps. It might even be likely - but it's a small pond still, and someone has to be the first one to come up with a security like this.

Thanks - I go off to catch up on a day or two of Fark headlines I've missed, and you fill in with the exact sentiment I would have typed up when I returned to read the response here.

What you're describing is a simple sale. I'm asking how you would direct someone to follow your instructions to "short this MF"?

Just how, pray tell?

This would be what's colloquially termed a "buying opportunity".

Think of it this way: just 20BTC will get you a full 1% stake in the fund (at least until he decides to allow another round of funding, but that's supposed to happen at the then-current NPV, so no harm to early adopters.) If you want to be able to take a chance at the first, real, publicly available pseudo-hedge-fund for BTC that is (presumably) professionally managed, this is your security.

If you don't, then it's not.

so.... if this is a beta test, where do I make bug reports?