I think this is probably necessary at this point... This is my main personal account. The unavailable funds are from a house sold, clearing on the 13th.



My current equity (incl. debts) outside of Bitcoin is ~$120k. ~$60k in assets are liquid, much of the rest in where we live, which we own outright. I don't have any significant interest-bearing debt outside of BTC... $5k on credit cards, about. There are funds to repay if I wind down IOU in a way very unfavorable to me. However, the bad-ness of my situation, now, is really starting to sink in, and I'm starting to understand why it feels like I haven't been able to access certain parts of my brain when analyzing my situation. I won't be defaulting, but probably whining a lot until I figure out a solid plan I think's solid for longer than a day.

Dividends paid.

Issued: 19683 bonds (1968.3BTC FV)
Interest Payment: (1968.3*.01)=19.683BTC

Next payment date: September 17th

Throwing up a bidwall by the end of today. Will not be replacing askwalls.

Do we get out of the 5BTC S&H if we meet at your address to pick up and handle your candy bar?

.001BTC minus any applicable transaction fee.

Just because you're mad at me doesn't mean I've defaulted on anything. 

I can confirm the kicking as true. I did it a few minutes after waking up and looking at my screen.

[8:57:18 AM] Ben Malec: Fuck, guys. We have work to do. I don't have time, anymore, to scroll through a page of bickering to find information. Both of you get timeout until I have the time to remember you.
[8:57:28 AM] *** Ben Malec removed [chungenhung] from this conversation. ***

My ISP only allots me 350MB/day. I only have 24 hours a day to live. I only have a very limited amount of patience right now. I'm trying to actually find updates in the room, and it's just line after line after line of antagonistic bullshit (toward at least two others on top of Nick). I don't mind irrelevant crap when someone's blowing off steam, but trying to dump drama on top of an already-stressful situation - damn!

Anyway -- yes, as I've already stated publicly, I'm working with Nick to get a solution hammered out. Probably, we'll lock a new loan in USD at a rate more appropriate for the currency, and then he'll use the USD to buy BTC to pay as necessary. That's not in stone, though.

I'm looking at 4-10am Eastern (all days of the week) as standard business hours. Weird hours, but that's most convenient for me. If it creates problems, I can easily change it. I plan on resuming operations on the coming Monday. Sheets are updated, but I still need to build up the courage to see where I stand after counting JRO & Pirate as defaults - and Pirate will probably be written off soon. I'm reconsidering what I want to do with remaining BDK bonds... no clue who owns them from GLBSE's side, of course, so there's not much a way to negotiate individually with them. There's someone out of their home country I think might hold the majority of remaining bonds, so I'll talk with them whenever I can track 'em.

I don't think many would consider Pirate debt an asset when calculating equity, anymore, including those you may consider scammy morons. There are obvious, extraordinary conditions right now causing liquidity problems, and if that's not a relatively short-term problem, I'd have no interest in it. Pirate debt was particularly attractive because, if you needed to, you could withdraw at any time. That is in contrast with the majority of BTC-related offerings. AFAIK, nobody offers demand deposits, and many (including myself) do not even allow CDs to be called prior to the date of maturity, even if the depositor offers to forfeit interest (at least - that's policy... something voluntary can be worked out). Traditional angel funding (in the unlikely event anything significant's ever repaid) is probably the harshest to collect on since there generally aren't hard terms defining exactly what should happen, except when $10m+ companies with a brigade of lawyers are able to draft it up in a satisfactory manner. So, you might get a slip of paper (if lucky) saying you own 10% of Bullocks, LLC - aaaand... well - good luck turning that into anything useful. With regards to that, debt is a very attractive investment, because it has easy-to-define terms. I'm strolling way off-topic, though.

The point is (or... was) - those who kept reserve funds in Pirate lost a good chunk (if not practically all) liquid funds, and now need to start calling in loans or denying renewals. When working something out (Imsa's case is different [and relatively easy to solve] since he wasn't very involved with lending outside the loss on Pirate), we need to figure out how much they can call loans for, figure out who would be willing to honor a voluntary call, and start the slow work of making that happen, because, as you and I have both noted, there are lendees who covertly invested funds in Pirate and had no intent (possibly ability) of covering losses. We aren't going to say "Oh - you say you have 10kBTC in deposits, 15kBTC in loans. Well, okay, sounds like you're good to go - here's a few thousand coins until you're back on your feet!" It also requires HK consent to us butting in and asking him these questions... Idunno - I'm talking about him a lot and I've heard very little from him. I don't think he publishes his operation finances anywhere, either... I don't mean to speak for him -- Idunno his situation very well, so I don't mean to imply anything about him or his situation.

I like this. Shows with "Impossible" in the title seem to be popular on syndicated networks these days.

"Lending: Impossible"

In this episode... Patrick follows through with a plan of action to take with a loud man - HashKing finds a not-so-happy potential lendee displeased by loan rejection - and James gets an unusual credit application. Find out what happens - tonight - on Lending: Impossible.

*Intro*
*fade out*
*Fade into Patrick... 'click, clack, click, clack' ... Patrick stares at a computer monitor*
[WifeOfStarfish]: Pat - whatever happened to that loud man on the Internet?
[Patrick]: I started using the ignore feature.
[Ben]: Pat - you know your mic's on? You know what's nice about the ignore feature on this forum? With some browsers, when you click "show," it doesn't reformat the post window, leaving just a few pixels in height for viewing the message. It's too tiny to read, so even if you're tempted, you can't easily/quickly view what they've written. Day becomes much more productive.
[Patrick]: Good to know. Time to do some cooking stuff.

*Cut out - Fade into James in a slouching position, reading email on a plane with his tablet computer. He turns to an unidentified man.*
[James]: Yesterday, someone sent me ... an unusual credit application.
*Zoom to lenders' faces showing concern, shock, and awe -- Fast fade out, go to logo*
[Narrator]: Find out what happens next on Lending: Impossible. Stay tuned!


... That's good enough to justify a pilot, right?

Possibly - though maybe directly not by me. We have no leaders, really -- I don't get a final say, and there are no explicit cartel funds anyone can direct. HashKing is a member, though. Nick I've met in-person before, so I'm much more familiar with, and he's helped me a LOT personally - including offering a house at no charge while I was shopping around with a bit of desperation. HK's relatively new, and not someone I've met in-person, though he's also helped me out before when I was house-shopping -- I think we added him 3 months ago or so. I'm more often a recipient of intra-lender loans than a giver, to be honest, and we do things individually (much more "Anonymous"-like than having any serious organized structure -- there are no formal meetings, for example), but given how frequently we communicate in the room, we're often familiar enough with each other that we help when members have problems. When I had my GLBSE account emptied just a month or so ago, the cartel raised the equiv. of ~$4k to gift me - without any solicitation (though some "anti-solicitation") on my part - so there's a good bit of debt I feel I owe. I can help organize - and the rest of the cartel can, too. I'll likely be giving Imsa a large USD loan out of personal funds so he can get back to focusing on business instead of crushing BTC debt, and that pretty much empties me out as far as liquid non-reserved funds go. There are still a few not facing liquidity crises in the room, but we need to go outside the cartel for "real" money real quick, nowadays. However, it could probably be said that our informal job is to match people who want money up with people who have money, and in cases where we have fixed-term deposits, we're more guaranteeing the loan (for a fee) than issuing the loan with "our" funds - so... business as usual, I guess, now with higher stakes.

From the little I recall from HK in the cartel room, his problem is in liquidity, not negative equity, so we might be able to come to an agreement with him which is amicable for his depositors if he is unable to repay them within a reasonable amount of time (I have no idea if that's the case -- I'm speaking out of my ass a bit).

Interesting mental image.

Sorry - wasn't meaning to imply otherwise, just say that a lot of us work together to prevent depositors noticing any liquidity problems on our end in response to Zen. I'm focused on salvaging the situation, keeping us all in good standing with the community, and moving forward as a collective, and wanted it known - for selfish purposes.

Accounting's finished, AFAIK. Need to go back and see which loans I failed to update, re-make my encrypted private logs of who I owe what since I lost that a while ago (I still have all the info, it's just scattered all over).

I'm going to be cancelling this shitty satellite service, soon, and replace it with nothing. Standard business hours will be solidified within a few days as I work it out with wife to drop me off at a damned Burger King, heh. Alternative is taking a riding mower to work, which I think'd be kinda fun. Oh... I guess I could take a bike. - Even walk.

I'm thinking 4am-10am as business hours. That keeps wife from claiming I'm abandoning daughter, gives me a time when I'm most awake, and also a time where I'm probably less likely to run into anyone I know at BK. Off those hours, I can't do much outside of phone calls and SMS. Phone might give me a Gmail notification a few hours after it was sent to me... but that's about the extent of how connected I can be.

I've decided to let BDK.BND move around until Monday - see what happens with it. I removed my askwalls, so we'll see if significant volume wants it up. If there aren't big nudges upward, I'll replace askwalls and set up bidwalls again on Monday for bond-holders. There are other factors poisoning the results (giving BDK.BND units for BDK units a few days ago, and current liquidity problems many face, as examples) I'll take what happens with it into account when establishing new rates when services resume... on Monday (9/10), I'm now thinking.

This isn't a boxing match, and the opponent isn't exerting himself. Y'all can't tire him out by letting him continue to punch at you, heh.

In the past, it's been fairly easy to grab a low-rate intralender loan in the cartel room way below market rates to cover depositor requests when necessary. It's been extremely difficult lately, though, because Pirate's pervaded into almost the entire Bitcoin economy. We all knew how pervasive it was and I had strong words against it at first, but when people pop up personally guaranteeing (falsely, in many cases, it seems) something like 2.5%/wk and we can't assimilate them into the cartel to get agreements together, the only way to be competitive for deposits is to try matching or dramatically out-innovating them. The Vegas event inspired a lot of confidence with me, too. In most cases, we individually chose easy, impatient methods of competing with guaranteed PPTs, and while innovations like IOUcoin.com and co-lender guarantees on deposits have been in the works, couldn't be pushed out fast enough. We fell way short, Pirate ended up being in almost everyone's portfolio, depositors left after fear came about from Pirate's default/collapse, and now there are liquidity problems just about everywhere.

We'll try to cover Imsaguy's debt (he's the only current cartel member who's defaulted, AFAIK -- I haven't checked on HK, though) and work out an agreement with him and his depositors (incidentally, his main problem also wasn't a loss on Pirate [though that eliminated his liquid reserves -- Pirate's program was very attractive in that it wasn't a "hard" fixed-term like many CD offerings], and his problems can largely be availed just by purchasing his BTC debt, "locking" it into USD, and stomping the interest rate down until he can breathe again). Pat has funds to back what he's lent out personally. I can cover everything I owe. Burt can cover everything he owes. James, AmazinRando, and the like aren't experiencing TOO severe of liquidity problems, ATM, AFAIK. I don't think AR did lending - he was just there so we could help fund. JG doesn't often lend, either, but I think he may've had Pirate exposure, which I haven't looked into how much affects him. payb.tc, Goat, and some others (ciciu, vescurdo, and obviously dank) aren't in the cartel, so I don't watch whatever they may be doing, and have much less interest organizing a way to cover whatever they may owe since I don't know them nearly as well as people I talk to every day. We lack a reporting process for depositors who were unable to withdraw what/when they were entitled to, and that makes keeping tabs on everyone a bit difficult. That'll eventually be resolved. We've talked about explicitly insuring each other (individually) off-and-on, but with Pirate pervasiveness, I've never wanted to offer it in the more public cartel room, and I never came to agreements with individual lenders, so we all operated without outside backing - and with Pirate pervasiveness, it would have been useless in many situations because both lenders are going to be experiencing liquidity problems whether they're directly exposed to Pirate or not.

This is a systemic problem, not isolated to any single lender. Everyone's experiencing troubles right now, and since intra-lender loans have dried up, there're also no solutions to helping depositors get principal if they request it outside of calling in loans at a loss of previously-accrued interest (I don't think any lender has "hard" calls in loan contracts - so we offer to waive interest if they pay us principal). In a way, this environment's challenge is kind of fun, but of course, it needs to be treated with the sense of urgency it deserves, as most people did only do short-term fixed deposits. Back when the cartel had maybe five people in it, we talked a little about a collaborative bond to keep us symbiotic and less cannibalistic... it's unfortunate collaborative bonds turned out to be PPT bonds.

There's a lot of anger, now, but it'll pass. We'll have time to think about correcting fundamental problems again, but there'll be this event to point to, demanding we come up with solutions now rather than later, putting a little more enthusiasm in the solution-finding process, I'd think. We'll see. It's ultimately still a fun, experimental process, and we're learning as we go along. Pat's place is in energy consultancy. I was an administrative clerk. Mark's in some type of non-combat role over in Afghanistan (I think he might be back - I heard him mention TWC being slower than satellite over there). Nick... Idunno what Nick does, honestly, aside from drawing a decent salary. Burt's an engineer and plays hockey. HK's a landlord. None of us have a particularly full background in finance. Hell - I just read a textbook by Mishkin, looked at the lending sub-forum and thought "why not?"

On a related note... people looking to fix us might have interest being in the cartel to prod us into finding solutions, and helping find those solutions. I'd be eager to have you in.

Derp. I meant to say I removed my askwalls. Bidwalls have been down off-and-on while I've been moving coins in and out of GLBSE. If conditions are too volatile, I'll reconsider my plan. I have bond-holders' best interest in mind, but it'd be beneficial for me (which is ultimately beneficial for bond-holders) to see what comes of potential price discovery in lending rates. The environment has changed dramatically since I first issued BDK.BND.

I've just removed my bidwalls askwalls (derp - see below) on BDK.BND to allow price discovery so I can get a better idea of where rates should be. I am currently not directly manipulating BDK.BND at all. I currently do not have immediate plans to re-engage in manipulation to prevent speculation. I'm under the impression that rates will be dropping significantly as soon as lending restarts. It's been pretty dead the last few weeks. So... go wild, dear petri dish. I'll check in on Monday to see what's happening.

Those of you "lucky" enough to be together with me in the new IOU contract may be pleased to know I talked to JRO 2-3 days ago on the phone. Sounds like they're working extremely hard, even if they are isolated in a safehouse. He gave 3-12 months as a time when he'd probably be drawing significant income... I expect repayment will be in something like 1-3 years unless Jered gets a favorable settlement with Dwolla and's feeling mighty generous. With that in mind, I've decided against writing the JRO debt off. However, it's necessary I inject more capital into IOU. Working capital starvation sucks. I have absolutely no interest in releasing more units of IOU - I don't think I could get what I got, and I *REALLY* dislike this offering, now. I think BDK.BND units are going to tie me to too-high rates post-Pirate, so I'm not interested in issuing more of those. I hate to do it after all the fear-mongering, but I think the only solution is to personally re-invest in IOU. I wouldn't be a dick enough to dilute IOU bonds' profit % with it... that doesn't make much sense, anyway, since IOU units don't directly represent equity. If someone stuck on-board with me is particularly enthusiastic, it would encourage me to invest more if a % of what I put in were being matched....

I contributed 40BTC back in from a loan I effectively gave myself to buy appliances while BTC was high a few weeks ago. I still have ~250BTC to go. Started repaying now that we're creeping back up. Always regret missing the highest peaks and lowest dips, but I can't really complain about that bet. Need to take a deep breath before putting more in. In my mind, I still get this feeling of having done 9 months work, massive headaches, stress put on family, long hours when I get obsessed with spreadsheets... and came out with nothing but loss... ultimately, though, I put in ~$15k, got a $3k ring, $2.5k in appliances, $3k in cash, all sorts of little things...It wasn't a total loss, anyway... Experience evens it out, maybe.... God - I have to stop letting my mind wander.

Anyway - some changes in spreadsheets. I'm not going to give monthly reports in this thread, anymore. If you want a monthly report, look at the damn sheet. I don't have employees to spend their time on reformatting redundant information, and it ain't worth mine. Individual monthly reports have been hidden on the public sheets, less those for the past three months -- I'm running out of room.

I don't plan on writing off Pirate's debt, yet. However, I'm converting the Hermes debt (currently accounted for as a security) into a JRO debt on the books... Both his and Pirate's debts will be accounted for as defaults. When/if I write one or both of them off, I'll probably express it over a relatively long period of time... something like one to two years.

Pfew... What else...? Oh yeah, I'm "re-launching" (still quietly accepting orders from a regular) P&P Exchange. Last month, I was hoping to get a good, symbiotic relationship with someone looking to mix coins (given "my" coins come from many different sources, including fresh), but that didn't end up working out quite as much as I wanted. I shot SteamGames an open partial purchase offer, but he never got back with me... disappointed by that. Not completely sure on ETA for IOUcoin.com - dev's working on other projects. I told the designers I can't take them on right now, thanked and apologized, said I'd probably come back by the end of the year... they were very polite about it. Any other news, any other news... IOU.Canopy is very unlikely to be launched at this point - I'm going to be stuck with Frontier's satellite service (switching from Hughesnet), which they're launching in November. My ability to use the Internet will be... probably about as equally limited as it is now until Frontier starts doing installations, and after, I'll probably get shitty service until they run DSL to the area in late 2013 to mid 2014. I kind of like the guy I'm talking to at Frontier... asked him for a job. Heh - I ask just about every executive or business owner I meet for a job, directly or indirectly. No follow-up on that, yet. Someday, someone might feel in the mood for asinine, informal applications out of left-field.

I'm re-considering standard business hours, but they'd have to be something insane to work with this Internet connection... or I'd have to find somewhere to drive to everyday. Think there might be a cafe in town... there are a couple truck-stop type places not too far. Wife could drop me off everyday and head back home so she has a vehicle to drive... though, one of those truck-stop-type places is a strip club........... >.> Mind's wandering again. Anyway, I'd have to re-load the laptop with my wallets. Not fond of the idea of doing business on a public network. I guess I'm probably not at much risk of security breaches at a small agricultural village diner, though, heh. Actually, probably a market here for PC repair at asinine rates.

Anyway - I think that's all the news I have for now. Pandora's cutting out more than playing, so usable Internet connection's coming to an end. I should have spreadsheets updated by end of day. Need to contact a depositor, too. May re-launch IOU operations as soon as tomorrow.

English, motherfucker - do you speak it?!

But... I think I see what you're getting at. I wasn't trying to make a connection between The Shit-Brush and lendees defaulting because they were covertly all-in on Pirate. As it happens, I haven't had any lendees default on me since Pirate wound down, defaulted (it's always [since April or so] been policy to forbid lendees from depositing in another deposit program, especially Pirate's since he disclosed nothing about what he was doing) - but some did experience losses beyond what they knew they had exposed to Pirate. That's not Micon's doing (I wouldn't dare give him the glee of thinking otherwise).

But - yeah, bank runs are a big problem for reasons I've already given. It ain't rocket science. If the majority of depositors leave a bank within a month - the bank's fucked, and if the bank isn't FDIC (or with CUs, NCUA) insured, remaining depositors are probably fucked, too. OTOH, as you point out, if the majority of depositors withdraw from a ponzi operation - the ponzi op's fucked (well, he'd probably just leave), and the remaining depositors are probably fucked, too. So - could indicate someone's operating a ponzi, but that's no reason for Shit-Brush to get all worked up because his ponzi predictions have almost all come true.