So run by me again why a registered investor would prefer to jump through hoops and pay more to obtain the shares privately rather than just buy them cheaper on the market?  If the registered investor is feeling charitable it would be easier for him to just buy some shares on the market then donate BTC to US investors.  Either way he's giving away money - so may as well do it the easiest way.

Registered investor is paying market price plus a possibility of paying extra later.  By definition that's higher than market price.

And haven't you considered that the fall in price may not be solely because Bitfunder is closing to US residents - but, at least in part, because the issuer is also from the US so may have legal problems of his own on the horizon.  An exchange restricting access/closing shouldn't, of itself, cause a crash in the price of a stock (unless that stock invests in other securities) - some small adjustment to reflect loss of liquidity is, however, reasonable.

The argument isn't that Bitcoin is virtual, rather that it doesn't LEGALLY have a value of the type (monetary/financial) necessary for it be a valid consideration offered by contract for that contract to be considered a security.  Securities have to offer a specific type of consideration - and the core of the argument is that they don't meet that definition.  It increasingly looks like the US authorities are now intent on changing their mind on that - which luckily isn't of too much relevance to those of us in other countries where a different view is taken.

I agree with a lot of the article - but by no means all of it.  Specifically I disagree that contracts where payment is in BTC are contracts without consideration (and hence null and void and unenforcable).  Whilst it's necessary for consideration to be offered to form a contract, such consideration doesn't need to have a monetary value - valid consideration can exist at any time where the parties agree that what is being exchanged has value (that's a gross over-simplification).  Further, for something to be consideration it is only requisite that it must move from the Promisee - it doesn't have to move to the Promisor.  So unless the parties are able to obtain BTC for free (meaning no cost in money OR expenditure of effort) there is a cost to them in fulfilling their part of the contract - that what they then provide (BTC) may have no recognisable (monetary) value doesn't invalidate it as a consideration.  Put another way - receipt of any measurable benefit is NOT a pre-requisite for something to be a consideration : it is sufficient for there to be a cost (not necessarily a financial one) in fulfilling the promise.  In short, the article conflated 'monetary consideration' with 'consideration'.

That line of thought is akin to the "it's all just pretend" theory adopted by BTC-TC and (aside from being wrong) isn't particularly helpful as it's a charter for scammers : by attempting to pretend that a promise to supply someone with BTC is not a consideration.

It may help to consider a simple contract here.  

Consider a scenario where the issuer sells shares for 1 BTC then promises to spend $10 each month on buying BTC and send them to you.

IF BTC are not considered money or currency in your jurisdiction then there is no exchange of monetary value - as neither the 1 BTC you send to the issuer or the smaller amounts of BTC you receive back each month have recognised monetary value.  That it costs the issuer $10 to BUY the BTC he sends you is not relevant - as legally that value vanishes when he purchases the BTC (i.e. before any transmission to you).  You're only promised to be sent BTC - not that they'll be worth $10 (or anything at all) to you.  The article argues that in US law BTC don't meet the criteria for having monetary value (being money) - which unfortunately isn't relevant if the US decide to change the way they interpret things, but is still a valid argument in other jurisdictions.

Where I disagree with the article is over its apparent assertion that there is no consideration in such a contract.  As the purchaser I only need to demonstrate that it cost me time and/or money to purchase the 1 BTC I sent for it to plainly be consideraton.  And the issuer very clearly is offering consideration - as he is committed to spending $10 (regardless of whether or not the BTC are worth anything to me when I receive them).  So at the point at which I send the 1 BTC a bilateral contract is formed.  The same applies if the calculation of payments didn't mention USD - I only put that in to try to also address the issue of how a contract that mentioned USD could still arguably not be a security (subject to the relevant jurisdiction treating BTC as having no monetary value).

The options situation on BTC-TC/Bitfunder was pretty horrible in that respect - whenever I looked at options the vast majority seemed to have strike/premium reversed or be a decimal place out.

I'll raise my hand to having bought on prices likely (when you're the only liquidity on offer you can't ever assume it was a typo to sell to you) off by an order of magnitude twice - though in both cases there were reasons why my orders were placed other than just hoping someone typoed.

Personally I tended to make most profit either by taking advantage of irrational (but predictable) behaviour (especially in response to news) or from noticing things about securities which others seemed not to have noticed.  The rest of your post (which I didn't quote) explains why I rarely invested - the quality of most 'investments' (I put it in quotes - as where there's no reasonable expectation of profit something isn't really an investment) was too low for me to want to risk relying on them actually making a profit and/or honouring their contracts.

You're the one trying to run an IPO - it's YOUR responsibility to provide sufficient information to potential investors for them to conduct due diligence and make assessments of the likely profitability or otherwise of investment.

If a company won't disclose sufficient information then they shouldn't sell shares to the public - which may well be why they aren't, in which case it's as clear evidence as you could get that a pass-through is a bad idea.  That's due to the end result being some market participants having less information than others which isn't conducive to a well-formed and fair market.

This is a classic example of what's badly wrong in the BTC 'securities' market : all you're doing is selling on something (that you don't even own) at a markup without even the decency to provide proper information about what is being sold.  At least all the scammers reselling mining hardware at a massive markup (when it wouldn't even be profitable WITHOUT the markup) properly describe what it is they're selling.

BTC Balance (BTC-TC)   147.8190891
9071 LTC-ATF.B1    90.71000000
CIPHERMINE Bonds    260.56000000
Coinlenders CD 27/9    203.64459670
Just-Dice Balance    153.86136722
TOTAL ASSETS    856.59505302
   
Outstanding MINING   152575
Outstanding SELLING   152575
Outstanding PURCHASE   10479
Effective Units   163054
   
Block reward   25
Difficulty   189,281,249
Hashes per MINING   5000000
   
Daily Dividend    0.00001328
50 days (Min Liquid)    0.00066423
100 days (Forced Close)    0.00132846
365 days (Buyback)    0.00484889
405 days (IPO)    0.00538028
400 days (Post SELLING div)    0.00531385
410 days (Pre SELLING div)    0.00544670
   
NAV Post MINING Div    854.42893991
NAV/U Post MINING Div    0.00524016
Days Dividend Post Div   394.45
SELLING Dividend    -         
NAV Post SELLING Div    854.42893991
NAV/U Post Selling Div    0.00524016

Well it's certainly problematic if Ukyo is in the US.  Aside from anything else there's the issue of his own security (the loan) which apparently he lacks the ability to buy back per contract terms but as a US citizen himself he has to ban himself from trading at the same time as he bans all other US residents.  Will be interesting to see how that pans out : most obvious solution being that he redefines it as a non-tradable loan managed off-exchange (where there IS some wriggle-room if it's not transferrable) but defaults on following his own contract (specifically the part defining the right to redemption).

Those paying attention would have noticed that DMS (mandated only to invest in 'secure' investments) decided the loan wasn't safe precisely because of this sort of scenario.  Specifically that it claimed to be secured but never identified assets backing the loan - only the income stream from Bitfunder.  Which made the loan inherently bad value due to there being a massive downside if Bitfunder hit problems - but no matching upside if Bitfunder did well.

Put another way, if Bitfunder did very well then 'lenders' had no right to a fair share of profits - but if Bitfunder had major issues lenders ended up exposed to default (and failure to redeem as promised in the contract IS default) due to no other source of backing being identified.  That made it, effectively, a one-sided proposition - where the upside was heavily limited but the downside was uncapped.  The equation is even more unbalanced if a high value is placed on liquidity (as was the case when evaluating it on behalf of DMS) - as lack of liquidity on the market was always likely to be accompanied by lack of liquidity from the issuer here, so both sources of liquidity would tend to vanish at the same time.

BTC Balance (BTC-TC)   149.9844462
9071 LTC-ATF.B1    90.71000000
CIPHERMINE Bonds    260.56000000
Coinlenders CD 27/9    203.64459670
Just-Dice Balance    153.86136722
TOTAL ASSETS    858.76041014
   
Outstanding MINING   152575
Outstanding SELLING   152575
Outstanding PURCHASE   10479
Effective Units   163054
   
Block reward   25
Difficulty   189,281,249
Hashes per MINING   5000000
   
Daily Dividend    0.00001328
50 days (Min Liquid)    0.00066423
100 days (Forced Close)    0.00132846
365 days (Buyback)    0.00484889
405 days (IPO)    0.00538028
400 days (Post SELLING div)    0.00531385
410 days (Pre SELLING div)    0.00544670
   
NAV Post MINING Div    856.59429703
NAV/U Post MINING Div    0.00525344
Days Dividend Post Div   395.45
SELLING Dividend    -         
NAV Post SELLING Div    856.59429703
NAV/U Post Selling Div    0.00525344

Have sent your BTC to the address you provided (saying it here - as seems your email provider is still blocking hotmail emails).  Let me know if you haven't received it in a few hours - I did a withdrawal from BTC-TC which said it went through (it was just below the daily limit so didn't have to wait for manual approval).

Ah yeah - just noticed you only get transaction IDs via API.  Just copy/paste the transaction info you have - the time-stamps are sufficent proof.  Not sure why you haven't got the email - it shows as sent at my end - maybe in your junk mail?

EDIT:  Just reloaded my mail and I have a delivery failure report for the email address in the header of your mail to me.  Seems your email  service is restricting traffic by IP - and is presently denying emails from hotmail.  Will try a resend.

So everyone knows what's happening with this, I've received an email from Keven claiming those transfers.  I just emailed him back asking for copies of the transactions - if he can provide the transaction IDs and time-stamps then I can be confident he has access to the sending account and will transfer him the BTC (the Ciphermine.B1 will have to wait until that's relisted).

BTC Balance (BTC-TC)   152.1498033
9071 LTC-ATF.B1    90.71000000
CIPHERMINE Bonds    260.56000000
Coinlenders CD 27/9    203.64459670
Just-Dice Balance    153.86136722
TOTAL ASSETS    860.92576726
   
Outstanding MINING   152575
Outstanding SELLING   152575
Outstanding PURCHASE   10479
Effective Units   163054
   
Block reward   25
Difficulty   189,281,249
Hashes per MINING   5000000
   
Daily Dividend    0.00001328
50 days (Min Liquid)    0.00066423
100 days (Forced Close)    0.00132846
365 days (Buyback)    0.00484889
405 days (IPO)    0.00538028
400 days (Post SELLING div)    0.00531385
410 days (Pre SELLING div)    0.00544670
   
NAV Post MINING Div    858.75965415
NAV/U Post MINING Div    0.00526672
Days Dividend Post Div   396.45
SELLING Dividend    -         
NAV Post SELLING Div    858.75965415
NAV/U Post Selling Div    0.00526672

Not sure who you transferred your PURCHASE to - or who sent you MINING/SELLING as trading isn't currently enabled on the securities.  IF trading occurs then 1 PURCHASE would received exactly one MINING+SELLING - as that's precisely what it represents.  If you've found someone giving you more than that then feel free to share the details - as that represents an opportunity to print free money.

On more general news I'd hope to be able to give an update one where we may relocayr shortly - but can't commit to any firm dates/times.  I'm in discussions with various parties but believe disclosin any details before they're finalised would be counter-productive.  Bottom line is pretty mcuh that if there's no clear plan for relisting by near the end of the month then DMS would close down and distribute all funds.  But hopefully we'll avoid that - as the clear majority view is a preference for continuing to pay dividends/trade.

Useful - but unfortunately BTC transfers appear to be disabled meaning I can't buy back shares easily (would have to send BTC to an off-site wallet of theirs with the attendant problem of them proving ownership of the transfer - which is linked to a user-name not a wallet address or an email address).

Yes - whilst BTC-TC still functions (and we're still on it) I'll post reports.  Haven't done so last few days due to not being able to pay dividends due to getting errors whenever I tried.  Most days NAV/U is just going to drop by the value of 1 MINING dividend (with maybe 1 satoshi difference due to rounding some days).

BTC Balance (BTC-TC)   154.3151605
9071 LTC-ATF.B1    90.71000000
CIPHERMINE Bonds    260.56000000
Coinlenders CD 27/9    203.64459670
Just-Dice Balance    153.86136722
TOTAL ASSETS    863.09112438
   
Outstanding MINING   152575
Outstanding SELLING   152575
Outstanding PURCHASE   10479
Effective Units   163054
   
Block reward   25
Difficulty   189,281,249
Hashes per MINING   5000000
   
Daily Dividend    0.00001328
50 days (Min Liquid)    0.00066423
100 days (Forced Close)    0.00132846
365 days (Buyback)    0.00484889
405 days (IPO)    0.00538028
400 days (Post SELLING div)    0.00531385
410 days (Pre SELLING div)    0.00544670
   
NAV Post MINING Div    860.92501127
NAV/U Post MINING Div    0.00528000
Days Dividend Post Div   397.45
SELLING Dividend    -         
NAV Post SELLING Div    860.92501127
NAV/U Post Selling Div    0.00528000

Here's today's report (posting it slightly early).

You'll see that NAV/U after today's dividends is aabout 2.5 MINING dividends lower than last published one (3 days ago).  Reason it hasn't dropped by almost exactly 3 MINING dividends is that we received just under 1 BTC in dividends on CIPHERMINE.B1.

The cash on hand and value of CIPHERMINE.B1 in the above include deductions for the amount owed to the investor who tried to cash out just before trading halted.  So if you look at actual cash in the account you'll see it's a bit higher,

MINING dividends are already too small to send daily manually.  They're below the dust limit - meaning they'd be ignored.

Dividends are working again on BTC-TC, so I'm processing the overdue ones now and also have scheduled today's dividends.

I'm still unable to transfer BTC or shares - so there's one redemption payment still due.  The person in question sent back 1252 each of MINING + SELLING but trading was halted before I processed it.  He (or she) is owed:

4.652156337 BTC
200 CIPHERMINE.B1

If whoever it was would like to contact me I can send the BTC direct to a wallet of their choice.  Nothing I can do about the CIPHERMINE.B1 right now.

A move to Bitfunder definitely won't happen now.  It would be icnredibly messy to try to move there when we have significant US investors - plus some of other investors may not want to go through ID verification etc.  A move which would leave some investors unable to sell their shares or even register to collect dividends isn't a valid option.

I just posted to our ticket there closing it (it hadn't been responded to by Ukyo anyway).

I'll give a more detailed update on things within the next few days - but, of course, I remain committed to ensuring EVERY investor (even those unfortunate enough to live in the US) receives full benefit for their shares.  In the short-term that means dividend payments through BTC-TC.

Right now the dividends still don't process - when the site comes up it crashes again as soon as I try to schedule a dividend.  Seems the modified bitcoind isn't working quite as planned.  Would expect burnside to have that sorted within a day or two.

Yeah balances are still all showing as 0 on BTC-TC so it's impossible to pay dividends.  Soon as the balance shows back up I'll pay them.

Dividends are set for usual time today - but right now all balances on BTC-TC are showing as zero until a script is run, so they may not go through.  If they fail then obviously I'll resubmit them again later.

I also have one last minute transfer in of MINING/SELLING that I can't process (can't send shares or transfer coins at present) - so until that's sorted out a report won't be produced (if it takes a while then I can do one with adjustments if necessary).

I'll be out for next hour or two then will see what happened and update.

The numbers don't have to make sense - it's a ponzi scheme.  I'm been generous there - as the alternative to them scamming is that they're really fucking stupid and don't understand how mining works (and that miners currently being sold won't even break even, let alone make 150% profit in 6 months).

Of course I could be wrong (it's not unknown - just rare) and they may be award-winning retards.  In which case please accept my apologies for not creditting them with a level of stupidity beyond my comprehension.  Though I'd want to see actual certificates before believing someone could genuinely believe you could make 150% from buying mining hardware and using it at current prices - as that's a few SDs away from the levels of idiocy that you'd expect to see in a random sample of idiots.

Either way your BTC are far better off in your wallet than in theirs.