Fascinating.

I think this point is quite obvious in the recent hashking debacle, for instance. Yes, it fucks it up for the rest of us.

I'm positive you're not the only one.

Well so maybe a forum mod reads this and stickies it.

bitcoin.me: See here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=77268.msg983177#msg983177

That'd be the 23rd of June. Just because you don't know how to read and whom to read doesn't mean things aren't happening. Get with the program.

BinaryMage: Are you going to apologize now?

So basically you've made a shitty MPEx, six months late and with all the credibility of a 0 WoT rating. Good luck.
You'd look much less like an idiot if you just said that to start off, rather than wait for me to say it.

They are responsible to 32 cents to the dollar out of their own money as it stands, right?

Prosperity is in general the result of the working of free markets. The one caveat to this observation is that market participants have to be responsible. It doesn't matter so much if they are intelligent or not, it doesn't really matter if they're good christians or devout muslims or anything else, but they do have to be responsible.

When some people behave irresponsibly the result is that they lose their money, which flows, albeit indirectly and circumvolutedly but nevertheless unerringly, to more responsible participants.

When a small majority* of participants behave irresponsibly however the net result is not just pain to their own fortunes, but pain spread across the board. All of a sudden you have to be very intelligent, and very experienced, and very well informed to manage to keep your money safe, and often enough even that's not going to suffice.

Giving over half a million bitcoins to a random idiot has the unpleasant effect of creating a high powered idiot. He can now wreak havoc on the exchange rate, which increases volatility and on the long term hurts everyone involved in bitcoins, because volatility is, much like inflation, an indirect tax on users.

Giving over half a million bitcoins to a random idiot has the unpleasant effect of creating half a million bitcoins' worth of valueless receipts, which are pretty much indistinguishable to the naked eye from valid receipts. Thus, if you pay on anyone's credit you are basing your judgment not on actual fact, but on an unknown and pretty much unknowable mixture of fact and hogwash.

Giving over half a million bitcoins to a random idiot is a bad idea. There are people whose personal responsibility in this matter is greater than that of most everyone else, people who have in effect acted as lieutenants for the random idiot. This thread is a convenient spot for all of them to avoid the indignity of being called out, and instead freely and willingly admit their mistake, and by admitting it learn from it. Specifically, learn that they aren't nearly as qualified as they thought to play the "banker", and by this make one step towards maybe one day actually being bankers.

The wanna-be bankers are not alone in their hour of humiliation. There are plenty of others who spend their entire day spouting nonsense on this forum, either under the guise of being "journalists" for some monthly magazine that does a couple issues a year or just as random internet experts in everything. Obviously they won't be learning anything on this opportunity as they haven't learned anything on any of the previous ones in their lives. That's after all fine, what would a mining town be without the drunks and general scum?

Aside from these practical considerations, there are some more general points to be taken home by anybody who wants to be a little smarter today than last month, and possibly have a little better shot at actually making money than before.

1. Learn the pecking order. All opinions are not equal. Some people are to be respected. Learn who. Some people are irrelevant and easily ignored. Learn who. More importantly than the who, learn why. Is it just because "everyone else seems to think so"? That's no good, forget it. Is it because they were right when everyone else was wrong? That's perfect, especially if it occurs with any sort of consistency.

2. Business means something very specific. Only the permanently poor imagine business = "anything to do with money". There's no business without a business plan. If something purports to be a business but "it can't" or it just won't share its business plan it is not a business. This means you can't be investing in it. Sure, you can throw money at anything you wish, as for instance the toilet bowl, Ponzi scams or scantily clad girls. However, in order to invest you absolutely need a business first.

3. Learn how to deal with your own mental limitations. If you think you don't have any you find yourself most likely in the situation described here:


In short: if you're not aware that there's anything wrong with your judgment of "business", "finance", "investing", "money" and so forth that is almost certainly due to the fact that you are very weak on all of these topics, likely significantly below average. You should spend a good deal of time reading and a greater deal of time testing things out methodically before you promote yourself mentally to "average", or even "crummy". This means years. Years.

The advantage of BTC is that it's a very cheap and very clean way to learn about finance. The disadvantage (if we can call it that) is that it's much akin to falling in love: very, very, very hard on the knees. Vitriolic to the ego.

4. Step outside of your ideology. You might have been brought up in a very repressive social milieu in which some particular ideological slant was drilled into you. This is working to your disadvantage, get rid of it. Are you sticking up for your friends because they're your friends rather than because they have a point? Great for facebook, horrible for BTC. You will lose money. Are you following the crowd like a welfare state lemming? Great for the white collar slave, horrible for BTC. You will lose money. Do you think form is above content and as such it's okay to invade foreign countries and slaughter civilians just as long as nobody says shit, piss, fuck, cunt, cocksucker, motherfucker or tits on TV? Great for being an American, horrible for the free world. You will lose money.

5. Re-read this entire post. It probably didn't fully sink in on the first pass. Seriously. Alternatively it is always easier to just not like me. You will lose money.

---------
* This term of... art, let's say, will go down in BTC history.

Pretty good work.

o.o
Congrats to the winners!

Never.
And in no case shall that "all" be US law.

Andrew Vorobyov: http://polimedia.us/trilema/2012/sa-ne-jucam-de-a-investitiile-n-bitcoini/#comment-78745 here's how the thing works.

It was said before, it will need (apparently) to be said again: GLBSE is a bad choice for security and other reasons.

This is a good point.

We were hearing rumours for months that Pirate has in fact defaulted but the dummies that he had for "investors" were just letting it slide. We were hearing rumous for months that the passthroughs are only a convenient way to allow the scammer to pay some of the "inner circle" interest with fresh money from small timers who will never be repaid and can never do anything about it.

By puncturing the circle of bullshit Bitlane did the community a big favour. The perpetrators of the passthrough scams however have a lot to answer for. And so does the Global Scam Exchange that allowed all this to happen.

SebastianJu: this is what you get for "investing" in the scam exchange. Move to the right one.

So buy options and hedge your risk.

August 2012 Results :

*******************
Operational results, MPOE
*******************

Overall trade 75`648 contracts, of which -12`312 +7`100 CALL ; -32`472 +23`764 PUT.¹

Revenue : 10`110.90263456 BTC, of which :
     *contract sales : 10`016.30636953 BTC
     *contract exercise : 94.59626503 BTC

Expenditure : 14`651.324164215 BTC, of which :
     *contracts bought : 11`562.32029052 BTC
     *exercise : 2`622.33420727 BTC
     *capital expenses : 466.66966642 BTC (9`333.58 × 4.9999%)

Loss : -4`540.42152965 BTC

*******************
Operational results, MPEx
*******************

Overall trade : 155`832.72262277 BTC, of which :
     *Revenue from sales fee : 309.03038447 BTC (154`515.19223830 BTC total trade volume)
     *Revenue from new accounts : 940 BTC²
     *Revenue from consultancy and other services : 68.50 BTC

Expenditure (CSR) : 10 BTC³

Profit : 1`307.53038447 BTC

*******************
Shareholders table
*******************

Total shares : 1`000`000`000, of which :

1. Mircea Popescu : 980`770`396 shares,
     2. MPOE.ETF : 4`077`552 shares,
     3. Others : 15`152`052 shares.

Total dividend : 1`239.03038447 BTC.

******************
Bondholders table
******************

Total capital : 9`333.58 BTC, of which :
     1. 1HLWcPokYJixh6BsJH9JWa8MzDaGSLGDds, 94.53038499 BTC @ 4.9999%
     2. 1NcrEUkRzqQaAEGabZKPTZhArzhJvYNGWh, 94.53038499 BTC @ 4.9999%
     3. 1CkEwsGgZ9saNRmr5FnbtYJjnLBdgGpS7J, 94.53038499 BTC @ 4.9999%
     4. 1J9AN7LiDNDUfzAwk8D3uBLT5diWHFFCh5, 945.30377439 BTC @ 4.9999%
     5. 1swAzHw1zTWqoi5184VinvUxLWnBskPVW, 1918.33834257 BTC @ 4.9999%
     6. 1Efr7txsbxMu2U5oTnFu4tDHVbVPvRAyBT, 1400.00000888 BTC @ 4.9999%
     7. 1A2hqHVSUERAT3t1yJ7ggYCQccvH6pZGZm, 2900.00000888 BTC @ 4.9999%
     8. 1D7YtrxnyK3ug3Rvp9jX66T8kVzWww9Jr8, 1886.34671031 BTC @ 4.9999%

To cover : 4`540.42152965 BTC
Loss per BTC : 0.48646087.

MPBOR valid 1 through 28 September : 4.9999%.

Final bondholder list :
     1. 1HLWcPokYJixh6BsJH9JWa8MzDaGSLGDds, 48.54505081 BTC
     2. 1NcrEUkRzqQaAEGabZKPTZhArzhJvYNGWh, 48.54505081 BTC
     3. 1CkEwsGgZ9saNRmr5FnbtYJjnLBdgGpS7J, 48.54505081 BTC
     4. 1J9AN7LiDNDUfzAwk8D3uBLT5diWHFFCh5, 485.45046937 BTC
     5. 1swAzHw1zTWqoi5184VinvUxLWnBskPVW, 985.14178622 BTC @ 4.975%
     6. 1A2hqHVSUERAT3t1yJ7ggYCQccvH6pZGZm, 432.67672807 BTC @ 4.99%
     7. 1Efr7txsbxMu2U5oTnFu4tDHVbVPvRAyBT, 718.95477396 BTC @ 4.9999%
     8. 1A2hqHVSUERAT3t1yJ7ggYCQccvH6pZGZm, 1489.26345546 BTC @ 4.9999%
     9. 1D7YtrxnyK3ug3Rvp9jX66T8kVzWww9Jr8, 968.71283151 BTC @ 4.9999%
     10. Mircea Popescu (creditor of last resort)

*******************
Miscellaneous
*******************

I. MPOE suffered what might very well be insider trading.

A good amount of CALLs were bought in July (over 1k), added to which a good amount bought since (over 2k) as well as a good amount of in the money PUTs were sold short (P180T, P190T, P200T, in total over 5k). The CALLs were executed shortly before the closure announcement of Bitcoin Savings and Trust. The PUTs were rebought on the market soon after the announcement, purchases continuing to the reversal of the position (the bot went from +5k to -5k on its book on those three MPSICs). The total losses resulting from these operations are roughly 4`500 BTC, which pretty much cover the month’s poor results.

It’s unclear to me what would be the appropiate steps, either to establish the truth on the matter (the suspicion might in fact be unwarranted) or to guard against similar occurences in the future. It seems to me improbable that the preventing of market manipulation can be accomplished by one Mircea Popescu, or even by any one entity in a market made out of pseudonymous or anonymous participants. There’s the possibly reasonable hope that as the market matures such movements become impossible, especially as the various amateurs with pretention of “knowing finance” who are capable of throwing hundreds of thousands of BTCs into pyramid schemes smarten up or go bankrupt.

While painful, the current month is also replete with records, and rather plainly demonstrates the are the limits of exposure for MPOE financing bonds. In July, a month during which BTC went pretty much linearly from ~6.5 to ~9.5 (+46%) MPOE stayed above water, realising net profits of ~870 BTC. In August, during which BTC went from ~9.5 to ~15.5 (+63%) and then back to ~10.5 (-32%) MPOE suffered losses equal to approximately half its trading capital (as computed by the new rules, introduced back in April), thus confirming the evaluations made at the begining of the year with regards to the worst case scenario.

II. MPEx proved its value this month - it is the first time since it was acquired that it generates larger revenue than MPOE. A significant group of newly registered users (especially significant with regards to their activity, this metric nearly doubling the current month) as well as the sales volume increase brought significant sums to investors.

Considering that the main competitor managed a total volume since its launch (in January) of approximately 250`000 BTC (roughly 30k a month) while MPEx has had transactions well in excess of 150`000 BTC this month alone we can conclude that MPEx currently holds a large majority of the BTC denominated financial instruments market.

It’s to be expected we find ourselves at a point of inflection. The low transaction costs, the significant volume, notable security, speed and availability advantages, various other strong points (free transfers, margin etc) are likely to convince pretty much all investors to open accounts in the coming months. As such we expect increasing revenue for the future.

III. F.PURE.SYNTH is withdrawn due to lack of interest shown by investors. All outstanding shares were rebought, the current float being 0.

IV. In April MPEx announced that it was looking for a market-maker for either options or futures based on difficulty. The third party selected to fulfill this role has offered options according to the specifications laid out then, without interruption until today.

Unfortunately, a string of losing transactions in the current month put that third party in the position of not being able to continue offering these options in the future. All holders have received their due BTC, but starting with September O.HASH will no longer be available on MPEx.

We are open to bringing this or a similar product back to the market, with the caveat that the correct valuation thereof has proven in practice to be more difficult than it seemed in theory.

V. To allow for a fairer pricing of risk, starting in September the limit on bonds interest is lifted (it was 2% at launch and then 5% starting in May).

Mircea Popescu will continue to supplement any capital shortfall, at an interest equal to the last bond but not less than the MPBOR for the previous month.

Due to this modification, all investors are given a two day grace period (until 23:59:59 GMT on the 2nd of September), during which they can withdraw or add new sums which will be considered for the current month (September).

---------

1) Contracts traded between third parties without MPOE's participation reached significant volume this month for the first time (10`628 O.BTCUSD.P190T and 17300 O.BTCUSD.P200N). This means the total number of traded contracts on MPEx during August was a record 103`576.

2) About a third of new registrations this month took place after the announcement of the S.DICE IPO.

3) 5 BTC to the Open Transactions project, 5 BTC to Azelphur to encourage quote stream bot development.
[/list]

Yes BillN, you'll need to include the referral ID.

Waves at Meni Rosenfeld.

Theymos: Look at August new membership. Think how much money people lost on crap "assets". Add these two.