The only "pocket ace" I'm afraid of is people discrediting me for obtaining stolen funds I can't pay back for a multitude of reasons. I don't think that is something Pirateat40 cares about though, and I'm not so certain he wants to get back at me. Just playing his game like a pro.

Good thing if you love the show.

To these joining: please be aware that odds of this working get worse if too many people join. Due to the charity operation, risk is not super-high, but I just want to say the 5k were deliberate because of some tail risks I can't rule out.

Also, I will keep the bet such that it doesn't end before the target date or a default, and add a clause against payout-rename tricks and the likes for the unlikely case he can still push in BTC from wherever and is aiming for the sky of Bitcoin Ponzis. And a comment on the charity thing on Pirateat40's side -- really, what a move. I basically can't feel bad about it even if he had some way to trick me.

I will have access to a trading PC later today, and hope we can seal this then.

Nanotube said he has some thoughts about the exact wording and will work on that. He just wants to be sure we don't fight in the end... I wonder why! I doubt it in this case, but why not let him be safe.

I suggested we pay him 100 BTC for the escrow, so we transfer 5050 BTC each. Is that OK? I'll be back tomorrow to post the exact bet with signature and, if you like the final version, transfer the funds.

Sure! How's this for the terms:

Both I and you (Pirateat40) place 5000 BTC each into an escrow held by Nanotube. If after 2013-10-01, that's the first of October 2013, BS&T has not defaulted on payments, Pirateat40 gets the funds. In the case of a default, I (Vandroiy) get the funds.

A default is identified by customers' funds being locked down for two consecutive weeks.

Something among these lines?

nimda: yea, if you find an escrow that does that, it would be safer contract-wise.

Otherwise, here's the situation:

If we get an escrow that we trust and actually pays us in the default case, even though it is known that the funds for the bet were stolen, we join the bet. I want to add that I do not believe this is unethical, or a better solution reasonable: nobody would trust any accounting after the default, so the funds are pretty lost anyway. Also, escrow betting is not zero risk no matter how certain we are.

To not trigger the default by accident, we're sticking with 5000 BTC. If we lose -- well, then the 5k BTC charity will hopefully excuse the flamewar.


@Pirateat40: lol you're such a dude. Aah. I'll remember you whatever happens now.

...

Oh wow. It'll take a bit until I answer though, it's not like I have tons of BTC on my mobile or anything. Gotta talk with one of the traders.

Wait, I get it. When you default, the users come raging at me screaming I have their money.

But given how they act, I'm not so certain I would have to react to that. The third party just has to consider this feasible, since by now, it's pretty damn clear what everyone's stances are. If the alternative is you running away with it or me doing a charity attack, the bet is still the right choice.


Yea, my thinking too.

Pirateat40: Yes, that's OK. If you return that kind of interest, even prematurely, I can lose a 1:1 bet. I guess it's the point at hand here; I can't bet too much that your profit from that deals with things.

One thing though, can I raise the bet later during its run-time? My odds should be worse by then, no? Otherwise it'll take a moment longer because I can't settle on an amount quickly.

So, just to make this clear, I can do a bet on default for a time like End-2013 or worse, and that's OK. 1:1 bet on you defaulting?

This sounds doable. I don't see how it makes any sense for you, but that's not my problem, is it? I'll just have to ask around for some third parties.

The chatter doesn't matter, let's do it concisely here. Please, what's a valid number for X? Are you saying until next year or some few weeks like otherwise proposed? It's pretty hard to tell whether you have some whale who keeps you alive for a tad longer. And worse, you probably know that better than I, so I need some slack on the timing.

I also noticed it, again now. We've had the selective derailing before, it has not worked in the past, but they do it again and again and again; just burying the main arguments with repetitions or focusing on the fuzziest part of the topic.

It may or may not be unintentional, but it's annoying. Thanks for keeping it up and consequently pointing out the buried stuff, hazek.

Why do you figure I'm so amused at this? I'm putting to display that any bet on this becomes ridiculous. People just have to wonder why.

Jouke, I'd rather choose myself, just for tail risk that he owns the site. But yea, we're already betting there a little.

But that's beside the point. I'm waiting for info on the three points, Pirateat40. What odds? Can you do times well into next year? Can you give some limit on extreme stalling? The latter only determines how much I can bet -- a fair profit or going mad.


lol, are you suggesting >33:1 odds for a one-year bet? Don't push it, he'd have to guarantee his rate for the whole time for that to work, which he hasn't yet.

Generally, it should be clear that some odds are just perverse. That's not helping anyone's credibility.

Hmmmmmm. What are you plotting, I wonder?

You might just be about to run and wager with that option; chances are I'll be too careful since you have a lot more control and inside knowledge. But betting directly with you makes all this obvious.

What time-frame and odds are the best you can do? Edit: oh, and do you guarantee some rate of returns during that time, so you can't just stall for ages?

Edit: hahaha, I think he just read my chatter on IRC and noted he's in a pinch. Expect a pointlessly low max time frame or some other hook to get out. Watch a failed attempt to show how legit he is live, in this thread, it'll be fun.

I can actually conclusively prove arbitrage and daytrading impossible. I can rule out options because they must have negative profitability!

Order book trading and Arbitrage for example: volume is not just too small. Combined with spreads within the week, it keeps him below interest paid, probably rendering everything but private loans lossy trades because of locking up funds, and if not, they have too little fund requirement for making borrowing the money profitable.

Check volume and arbitrage: He's fucked even if he participates in every single trade on Gox, fucked by far! 200k weekly, roughly 2% spread, this locks up enormous resources to get the spiking trades.

Again! This isn't some faint evidence. The guy is lying, he's listing businesses that just can't work profitably with his footprint. We all know he holds at least high five-digits on paper, the market just doesn't cut it for this, and one coin can't do two things at once just like that!

You need outright absurd assumptions like him perfectly predicting everything and being in every trade and it still gets hard! Are you guys calling Pirateat40 a God?

coin_toss: I get now that I can't show it without a trader that sounds trustworthy. But I said that from the start! Get someone who knows what he's talking about.

• Arbitrage has insufficient volume as explained above, in addition to it being clear from his comments he doesn't have the skill.
• Local transactions should cause price fluctuations as explained above, which I don't see. Pirateat should have enough Gox trading experience from arbitraging the dark trades alone to never make the mistake in the OP.
• Local transactions on this volume should leave a footprint somewhere. Where the hell are they, who is borrowing at such unethical rates and who says they're not just an excuse for a default?

I have just posted two of these with little change! Do pretty much copy-pasted arguments I just refuted without changing them! Flooding tactics on my threads will get you blacklisted and put to question after the default.


On the trading money: the Gox order book is not that big, and gathering traders to cooperate on the speculation forum is possible. the manipulation can only be of the visible size in the order book, remember? What did we see, 40k walls? Yea, I don't have that, but together with all the traders I know? Take a guess.

I'm not saying it is especially bad you share a common false belief, but in this case you'll have to drop it. Manipulation is not an infinite money source. It works at times, but only so long, and spreads vanish the longer it does. I actually eat manipulators in my trading (I do volatility dampening at times), so would I see it, I'd be getting the funds in the end.

Sadly, I don't get a super huge amount of manipulation to prey on, and competition is rather stiff.

I can, man, and yea, I can't deny it is pretty damn hilarious. Really, sometimes feels like I'm on the wrong side. I can't even back out now, because of all the slander accusations and bet offers. I mean, lol this is at least the third time you're openly talking about this. It's a farce.

I don't get the "anything sentence" thing though.



coin_toss, imsaguy:

Yes, it might not work in court. But it's true. And your version of it is much much worse, because any real application of it means Pirateat is frequently shorting BTC with customers' money! Going deeper into these "theories" make things worse, not better.

Keep on this "exercise" for me. Last full week volume was low around 250k BTC, with overall price drifting on the order of the 2% in question. This week already saw 200k at no overall price change (using bitcoincharts weekly OHLC, http://bitcoincharts.com/charts/mtgoxUSD#rg150zigWeeklyztgOzm1g10zm2g25zv). 20k give or take? Hell knows what the market will do, but this isn't deciding it. And in whatever case, Pirateat40 has to buy back these coins, so all he can do is a temporary delay of the price-change!

It's not just about the "exercise" content. He implicitly confirmed a theory on his business that's bullshit from the start, and now he's shown that he probably couldn't do it without losses, let alone 3300% pa! Magical arbitrage? You did not ask a trader. That or you just took the first guy with posts on the speculation forum and half his coins in BS&T.



Read this again. Dude, what. So everyone with lots of BTC is a colossal idiot, and traders especially? You're aware we could just add our funds together, right? Gee, thanks for telling me I'm a fucking idiot at something I've been doing effectively for years, right to my face. I missed out on a factor 6 this year already, one that was relatively simple to get? Are you serious?

You're insulting me far more than psy could with any amount of "jealous son of a bitch" shouts.

Well, sorry for being rude to a scammer.

I really wish we could all be nice to each other, but some people just prefer the money.

It's a good question though, what are we gaining? Hopefully, the respect of people that we put our time and name and nerves on the line to get this place to work better. I don't expect everyone to like this before the scheme runs with the remaining funds. But hopefully, this will look otherwise afterward.

If not, yes, then I've been a total idiot for trying to help people just to get insults for it. Time will tell I guess.

Well, unlike Pirateat40 about me I am not saying he is stupid. I said he's an incompetent trader, but that's a different thing. I've pretty much shown it, and it's a really useful part of the argument in this case.

Pirateat40 is pretty good at what he does, and certainly not stupid. Look how he acts like he doesn't care at all, and tries to put on a facade of me having said nothing of meaning.

Leaving money with him after reading this thread, though... and all the others that point out massive problems... yeah. Sorry, that's just stupid. I could just not care, but I'm in too deep now. My reputation is unusable until this ends because I'm accused of massive slander.

For a sane player to take the bet against me, the anti-pirate bond must be 27 times larger than the pro-pirate bond. This is what I meant.

Give it up. You just can't build a logic instrument on bullshit assumptions. Anything involving BS&T and a time-frame of one year or above inserts the fact that believers can multiply their money with a factor of roughly 33 instead of playing. Of course we can't beat that!

Sorry for double-post, but this is actually a new one:

I just noticed the odds between the bonds you proposed will be absurd. The 50% interest loss is enormous. The people believing BS&T will yield 7% for a year would get a factor 33 out of their money or something, remember? With half of that accumulating, it's only 6 or so.

I would have to do 27:1.

It doesn't work. It just all goes haywire on these time-scales. That's just the thing, nothing ever works if you assume an exponential money-making machine.

Meh. Chances are the current flamewar kills BS&T, and I get nothing, or half of a week's interest or something. Just because I name long time-frames doesn't mean I'm astonished if he runs tomorrow. These are just for tail risks or Pirateat40 personally changing the schedule to get back at me or something.



How about I just make a bond that pays a little above BS&T interest but does not pass-through and has a little withdrawal delay? When he defaults, I just do the same as him: take all deposited funds and walk off. The difference is that I'm honest about it.

I will have to follow the Ponzi rules, so I am allowed to do forced withdrawals and apply limits just like him. That way, I can time myself against his expected default schedule without going bankrupt too fast. If I can't afford it anymore, I'll have to force withdraw everyone.

Oh, did I just explain why he does that again? My bad.

Again, I can't do it on a super-large scale because Pirateat is watching and may take on extreme measures to take me out and then obtain the funds from this.