LOL, have a look at the depth. Which is pathetic. The Russians don't even care to press a button for such small BTC that extinguishes all asks...

At least I am conscious of and frank about (the prospect of) my nudity. Not everyone is.


THIS is so obvious that how come it could have slipped my mind...

Be kind to your inferiors, MP. If their relative growth rate is higher than yours, everybody investing in you loses money, relative to investing in the newcomers. My bitcoin-business valuation is 1/350 of yours and it seriously considers raising funding by imitating YOUR payouts, while keeping its own shares and profits.

Thank you. Care to comment my proposal for a company structure, as I finally managed to put it in an easy-to-read way?

Oh by the way, if you know of many other companies that are doing the same high finance thing as you are, which are just unknown to the general public such as the readers of this forum, it just makes your valuation even more bizarre.

If anyone is interested in buying securities that copy the MPEx dividend payouts but do not involve any dealings with the actual MPEx shares (such as share loans, etc.), PM me. About 1 million will be issued if there is demand. If issued, the securities will be backed by an incorporated company with EUR 200,000 total assets, of which 1500 BTC.

Nothing personal. But it does indeed seem that rather few have been able to compete with you in the past 18 months. Not that a competition is an end in itself, but it is fun. 

Yeah, I also find it pathetic. It is OK to start small, but making too big a noise relative to your actual position in the market just, makes your appear childish and scares away the actual investors.

Take this as a kind word from president of the depository, whose holdings are 100,000+ ounces of silver.

(Yes, I know there are guys with 1000 times more than I have, and I would be grateful if they ever talked to me (which they don't ))

Can you, or anyone else tell me, what is the surest and most convenient way to short the crap out of MPEx? What I am thinking is to issue naked contracts that pay out the MPEx dividends, crash the market, and buyback (or no). My analysis shows that the BTC price will in most scenarios outperform MPEx anyway, and there is no possibility of a short squeeze as I don't even claim these to represent any MPEx shares with voting rights, (not that there was any to begin with). See my discussion with MPOE-PR at:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=154258.0

Good that investment is not mandatory! The dividend return of your company seems to be about 2.9% right now. I think it is rather low - I could have bought an apartment in downtown Helsinki with as low a return for my investment, but happily rent instead. Oh yes, the apartment was denominated in real terms, and yours is in BTC terms. If BTC goes up a lot, MPEx will probably lose to a simple BTC investment but beat the apartment hands down. I miscalculated the valuation in my first post, using a mere 500,000,000 shares as the dividend base. It really does come out as BTC0.7 million. That is impressive, but sort of.. bubblish.

It is 3.3% of the BTC market cap. If we take the market cap of gold, which is about 6000 billion euros (forgive me for using fiat terms). Should bitcoin reach the market cap of gold, your company would have to be worth EUR 200 billion, just to break even with the currency in which it is denominated, BTC. (The analysis excludes dividends.) In my opinion, it is way more likely for bitcoin itself to reach the market cap of gold, than your company being able to retain its relative position. You know, there are some established-BEFORE-2011 players coming especially after the latest U.S. ruling...

So despite your ("you" addresses the company, the representative MPOE-PR, or Mircea Popescu, whichever is most convenient, as well as it can and will mean me, or a random person, isn't English fun..) assurance that the person risk is mitigated, I will not be investing in the company with the current price. It is madness. If bitcoin goes down, you lose, it it goes up, you lose. Only if it stays in the current ballpark with volatile swings, is there any possibility to score a profit, barring manipulation.

Also the fact that you have enriched your other shareholders by less than BTC2000 in the course of operation of this business is striking to me. Especially as in fiat terms, it is way less than what the current exchange rate would lead us to believe. When I walk the 500 meters to my office, there are several businesses on the way that distribute much more profits.

Can you, or anyone else tell me, what is the surest and most convenient way to short the crap out of MPEx? What I am thinking is to issue naked contracts that pay out the MPEx dividends, crash the market, and buyback (or no). My analysis shows that the BTC price will in most scenarios outperform MPEx anyway, and there is no possibility of a short squeeze as I don't even claim these to represent any MPEx shares with voting rights, (not that there was any to begin with).

"I" is a convenience term that represents me personally, or the syndicate behind, whichever is most appropriate.

Cool! Thanks for the link!

Thanks for .5BTC! Fast payment ++

I have no idea why you need them, I can still make 51.999999 million transactions with my current stash, and that should be enough 

The general no-equity company



Introduction

Capital in a company's balance sheet is not an asset but a liability. If a company has financial capital, it is reserving this capital from its owners' pockets, and keeping them from using this capital more productively in their own endeavours. Excess capital invites politics, corruption and waste, it lets the management to pursue wrong ventures for too long and does not bring any benefits to offset these drawbacks. Since the emergence of efficient financial markets, it is solely for the convenience and grandeur of managers, to retain any capital in the company. The new wave of enterprises must emerge, and outperform the mammoths and dinosaurs of the old age.

Summary

The company will have a 24/7 trading of its shares, and every time it has expenses, it will need to issue and sell more newly created shares at the bid, every time is has revenues, it will need to buyback its shares at the ask, and write them off. It will keep its cash balance at a predetermined level, which is optimally 0, and at a maximum of 30 days' burn rate. The balance may not be altered at any manager's discretion.


The Story


Meetup in Bitcoin conference

Alice, Bob and Charles are astute business(wo)men. Each one has a playstash of BTC10,000, other businesses to take care of, income, car, family, etc and so forth. They have come up with a seemingly great idea, but it must be done fast if at all, not one of them has too much time to pursue it, and besides they hardly know each other.

In the bygone era, their idea would probably have gone waste, and somebody else would have spent $1 million to develop it after 12 months with less customer satisfaction. Or perhaps they would have taken the time to incorporate it, with the same results. In either case, lots of good money and even dearer time, would have been wasted, setting up unnecessary and detrimental corporate structures.

The emergence of the company

How to do it better? Simple. Start from nothing. Then begin to bring assets to the company and pay with them in shares. Alice offers to be the company secretary, taking care of mail, document storage, and transactions, for a fixed term of 3 months at a fixed pay of $50 per day. The general meeting of shareholders may cancel this contract any time, it is part of the deal. Alice receives 10,000 shares as a kicker, in addition to the pay that was estimated to be at market rates.

Bob had the initial idea and has brought in some early sketches of the code. He wants 100,000 shares for the surrender of all the rights to these. Others try to bargain this down to 80,000, but Bob is adamant. He offers to "provide pizzas and beer for annual general meetings perpetually, or if he fails this commitment, to surrender 20,000 shares back to the company without compensation". Others take this, after all, if the company goes down, the pizzas are discontinued, but also the shares are worth nothing.

Our company has value!

Charles is willing to offer his office space to the future workers (should they need any) and he insists that he wants to invest BTC500 as a seed investment. Because the company does not hold money balances, this is declined, but the similar end is achieved by Bob instantly selling some of his stash of shares to Charles. This boosts the morale of everybody - the first valuation of their new business is set at BTC2200, not bad for a company 1 hour old. Further dealings with Charles include the obligation of the company to pay a rent of $200 per month for office space and the obligation of Charles to work as general consultant, at the hourly rate of $70, maximum 10 hours per week, reporting to Bob.

As the shareholdings are now Bob 75,000, Charles 25,000 and Alice 10,000, Bob commands the majority and nominates himself President. Everybody further agrees to a standard noncompete and nondisclose agreement for 12 months. Charles and Alice extract a nominal 2,000 shares in compensation for these rights, and Bob thinks everybody should be treated equal and claims the same for himself. Other trivial but fundamental matters are agreed and in the end the company has paid for various rights and grants 7,500 more shares, and taken future financial obligations.

Now with 123,500 shares outstanding, and no money in the coffers, the company is ready to begin operations. First we need to set up the stock market. Charles recently paid BTC0.020 for the stock, and thinks that the company is doing well. He offers to buy some more at BTC0.022. Alice as a sharp treasurer wants to make sure the boyz are playing according to rulz - she makes markets with her stash, willing to sell small amounts at bitcent intervals from BTC0.025 upwards and also buy BTC0.020 downwards. Bob is an inventor, not investor type, and wants to get rid of the controlling share of the company orderly, but as soon as possible. He undercuts Alice's ask by putting some stock for sale at BTC0.024.

Operations commence

The first day of operations is full of activity. The company burns $550 for the management salaries, and $70 in other costs. Many things were achieved, a webguy was hired for $22 per hour for example. In the end of day, this will require the company to pay BTC10.502, but it does not have any. Automagically, the company trading bot goes to the market, and issues more shares, selling them to Charles at BTC0.022. A total of 478 new shares were issued and sold to Charles. He is still willing to buy 9522 more, unless things change. The first day saw 0.39% dilution.

Now, several things can happen. The company hinges on its own employees' trust. If some members of the team see that the company is not making progress, they become unwilling to buy its shares. It must be noted, however, that we are not talking about huge sums here. The actual expenditure of the first day was $70, the rest was paying salary from left pocket to the right.

Angel saving from sudden death

After the first week, exactly this happened. The initial enthusiasm had worn down a little, and Bob had become a little too anxious to cash out his stash. Intention was all well and so on, but Charles' willingness to pay for the shares had gone down to BTC0.009 per share. Bob can achieve his aim of becoming a minority shareholder just by continuing like this 2 more weeks, but he has a better idea. He introduces Eric to the rest of the team. Eric wants to invest in everything Bitcoin and offers to buy 10% of the company for $50000.

Lucrative as the deal may seem, the others prefer that Eric buy his shares in the open market, competing with Charles. He may end up gobbling the shares for less or for more, but at least the process of price discovery benefits the whole company. The share price is soon back in BTC0.020.

Things get heated

As Eric is increasing his share, Charles starts to feel remorse for pressuring the share price down. He decides that, at a minimum he wants to recycle his own earnings back to the company, converting them to new shares at ask. Alice has a similar thinking and the webguy, Dave, is the worst of all - he is doubling down his salary and buying in the open market. The only sellers at this point are Bob and the company, and the company manages very well without any cash reserves, as the majority of its own employees believe in it and are eager to corner a chunk of it.

In the beginning Bob was thinking it to be a wise idea to sell out his majority stake. Soon he finds out that his services are no longer as important as proviously thought. The buying bloc had formed a conspiracy to oust Bob, and now it is time to strike. As the others possess 55% of shares, Bob has no realistic way to regain the majority, nor intention to. He is left with the option to sell out most of his stash at a fair price of BTC0.030, or try to sell in the open market, where the bloc will pressure the price down. He decides to sell out, and leaves the 4 week old company with about $100,000 in his pocket. He settles the unused obligation to buy beers and pizzas with the company for 3,000 shares.

First Annual Quarterly Monthly Report

In one month since incorporation, the company has seen its share price go down, bringing in new believers and offering them a way to buy for cheap. It has also seen a speculative bubble, which turned out to be a successful corner. Now the cartel is dissolved and the product is about ready to launch. The shares are trading at BTC0.078, as a couple of friends were eager to also invest some. The burn rate is now about $2000 per day, which is (due to bitcoin price double) only BTC20, which is 278 shares, which is 0.22% dilution per day.

New challenges - should we call banks or VCs to help?

There is a need to launch a massive marketing campaign. The estimate is that $150000 should be spent on marketing alone in 3 weeks. Should we organize an IPO or crowdfunding round? Yes, or no. Depends on how you look at it. The method so far will work. There is never a need to think about financing, actually. It happens automatically. The owners of the company are well versed in the situation and are eager to buy new shares as they are offered in quantity. If the willingness and price plummets, it is a clear signal for the management to cut down on upfront spending, and trade time for money. If the stock price goes up with the pageviews, and new investors flock in following the publicity, there are literally unlimited funds at the company's daily disposal to continue advertising in the way of the most vicious pump and dump scheme, with the exception that the control of the company is eroded, the more shares are issued and/or sold. Nobody can run away with the money as there is no money to begin with - it is decided every day in the open market.

The management has a daily feedback on their actions - the share price. It does work this way in public listed companies of yesterday, for sure. But their management receives the signal, but it is not obligatory to act on it. Here the management is every day prompted to invest their own money (or work, which equals money) to the company to keep the share price from plummeting, should the investor confidence be shaken. This will likely lead to quite realistic valuations in the early game, which does not encourage excess spending, grandeur and waste (and hopefully less politics than organizing "financing rounds" every so often. Rather the company aims to be the most profitable the fastest. Like it should be.

And they lived happily ever after...

When the company starts to churn out profits, the game will reverse. Suppose this company had bloated its sharecount to 200,000 during the marketing phase, but also it has also started to make profit - real profit, after costs, wages and salaries - say $1000 per day. Due to recent developments, this is BTC5. Per year, this is BTC1,825, assuming no growth. The company will now expend this money daily, no matter what, to buy back its own shares, which increases the value of the remaining shares. The lowest ask will always be taken. If the prospects of the company are solid, it is prudent to assume it shall trade at 7 to 20 multiple of earnings, which would translate to a company valuation of BTC13k to BTC37k. The share price would therefore be in the range of BTC0.065-BTC0.185. Every actor can decide (per day, if they want) whether they want to receive salary or shares as the effective compensation from their work, and whether they want to lighten their ownership, take dividends by selling their shares prorated, or hang on with the success.

Discussion

The above happens to some startups, but for real, it is generally no more than 33%. The outdated financial structures prevent them from moving smartly in the agile landscape of today's business. If there were more competitors organized in the new we have unlimited funds at not our disposal way, the elephants would have a hard time to ever score a hit.

As startups tend to fail, and the ease of anyone starting a business this new way, will certainly lead to proliferation of a helluva score and a weird array of businesses, and therefore increase the death rate, most of the new ventures still fail. The number may even grow. But the total economic cost of these failed ventures is a tiny fraction of what the current system wastes as futile effort. Today startups are either undercapitalized, which translates to unoptimal allocation of the inventor-owner-entrepreneur-cleaninglady's time, or overcapitalized, with huge governance structures, swimming in money, and sometimes making it big, but most often just spending away the other people's money, building a platform that had a fatal flaw since the beginning, which was actually discovered 2 weeks after the financing round, but kept secret from investors in favor of secure big salaries for the management.

The system here proposed, will squeeze the crap out of the organization every day, giving the most clear control signals to the management. Should the level of trust in the team collapse totally, the share price collapses as a result, and anyone can pick it up cheaply and set the new direction. The company, on the other hand, is immune from financial markets collapse. Because the financing is evaluated daily, there are no artificial barriers of going through the financing round (and going belly up if it is delayed). The workers can easily keep the company running by reinvesting their salaries. It should be noted that rarely, if ever, much money is spent to anything else in the earliest stages of the company.

By running the daily lotto, who will pay the others' salaries today, the losers are however weeded out in a matter of days, or maximum weeks, not months and years as before. For the top quality inventors, investors and entrepreneurs (and to the lesser degree, anyone who can generate value to the organization in any way), this offers unparalleled opportunities to capitalize on that value. Bob made $100,000 in a month, and has by the time of this one hitting public, made another $100,000 with his new idea. Alice made steady income and good gains for her stocks. Charlie, Dave and Eric all profited.

Had the negative outcome happened, hardly any value would have been lost. After a total cost of maybe 100 working hours, the team would have realized that they don't even trust their own idea, so it would be the time to move on and do something else, perhaps in different teams. Only Charlie would have been sour, seeing his investment in Bob's shares evaporate in bright daylight, but there was an offsetting gain to Bob, and actually the lump investment is against the spirit of this new way. Charles should have just worked diligently and invested his hefty hourly wage back to the company, if he is overconcerned for monetary loss. This would be insignificant for an investor who can distribute his bets in multiple companies.

Okay, I got some time to read it through. Appears that I already digested it before. Solid work, MP. The valuation of your company seems to exceed the combined valuation of (the 5 companies of) mine (where I am either majority owner or President). This is in my opinion a good measure of your worth as businessman. My free float is higher, but that is not because of who is good or bad businessman, rather about personal decision, how much leverage to give to others. I have grown to accomodate more and more other people over time.

I think you have outlined the "stocks" and "bonds" nicely, (although bonds would need a new name due to dissimilarity with the bonds in other venues). The system seems to work and with all probability there are at least some other players than you in both stocks and bonds field. What has been impeding me from investment, is person risk, bitching about technical procedures such as the clause to keep all coin which is not exactly the intended sum, and of course the skyhigh valuation. I don't mean €15 million is that high per se, but it is high for a 1-man operation.

In the next post I will try to clarify what exactly I propose for somebody to do, as a proof-of-concept internet company organization model. I admit the OP is written poorly and thus deserves all criticism you may have.

Umm.. sorry to disturb, but:

why was it gold, that you are denominating bitcoin in? Why not silver, or stocks, or RE?

I agree with you. Once the rally runs out of steam, there'll be a vicious correction all the way to $120.

Wow, 1 maple is going for "Special price" .528 as we speak! Soon I will start giving them away literally...

...no, not really Quite the contrary - the rising bitcoin price is giving me so many other things to do that I must cancel this offer in 12 hours!

So order yours in post #50 while it lasts.

No orders from Germany anymore, sorry, let's give the others a chance! 

Your Casascius coins are worth 2.15 coins in silver... so I think I will stick to the one that I already ordered.

Yes, order yours from the link below. For the special deal in post #50, free shipping in EU.

And the change of mind was not because of touting, but because of price action. Seems that somebody had $$ to spare and for once I am sitting on some gains.. Generally I'm terrible with timing.

Better change mind than to be eaten alive.

F--k should have some c$$h in btce or bitstamp. Oh wait, the reason there is none is that I committed it all when the reddit news came at $47.50.

Ok, can go to sleep now  

cheese

I will get involved with your work first and punch some holes into it. Only then I will rephrase my idea presented in the OP and refute your rebuttals, most of which are directed against a strawman arising from the traditional way of organising a company.