Hmm. The more I think about it, the more I think that you're right. This kind of undertaking is probably out of my league.

That's why I would restrict the money I loan, and any lender who chooses so, so the trader wouldn't be able to deal in Pirate-related securities. But if a lender wanted to allow it, and then charge a higher interest rate, then I would not see a problem with it.

Personally, I'm one to shy away from the pass-through bonds, but I suppose I would let lenders dictate the terms of the account however they want as long as they're willing to assume the risk.

That is a valid concern. Perhaps we would need to impose limitations preventing shares from being bought in new and low volume securities.

So, as far as I understand, the way margin trading works is that you have to put up a certain amount of money to act as collateral. You then will receive whatever amount that is in the account, minus what you owe. Basically, you get all the gains, but you also take all the losses.

For example, if you want to borrow 100 BTC, you might have to put up 100 BTC. You then can trade with the 200 BTC. If the price rises 25%, so you now have 250 BTC worth, you can return the 100 that you owe (plus interest), and get 150 back (minus interest), giving you 50 BTC profit, which is double the amount you would have gotten if you had just traded your own 100 BTC.

However, if the price drops 25%, you only have 150 BTC worth. You would only receive 50 BTC, or 33% of the account value.

Depending on the terms of the loan, the lender can require you to own a certain minimum percentage of the account (to prevent the account from dropping more and becoming worth less than what you owe). If your percentage drops down below this limit, the lender can "call" back the loan. So you have to deposit more to keep the proportions correct, or the shares will be sold (even at a loss) and the balance will be paid back.

So what I would do is make a system that would let the borrowers trade with the account on GLBSE (through the API), but keep them from withdrawing more than they owe. Both the lender and the borrower would have to trust that I wouldn't abscond with the funds (or break the terms of their agreement), but as long as they can do that, then they don't have to worry about each other.

Edit: Shorting would just be the reverse. You borrow the shares, sell them, and possibly trade with the funds. If the original stock price goes up, you'll have to pay more to buy the shares and pay back the loan. If the price goes down, or if you made enough money trading to make up for the price increase, you buy the shares, return them and pocket the difference.

I was thinking at first of being more of an facilitator between lenders and traders, and letting them work out their own interest rates and margin requirements. But until there's more interest, I suppose I could start by lending my own coins (although I don't have much to lend at the moment).

I know that there are margin trading platforms for the Bitcoin/currency exchanges, but would anybody be interested in one for the GLBSE? I've been working with the GLBSE API lately, making a couple trade bots (I've turned them off for now, to ease the load), and I think it would be fairly straightforward. Basically, I would just provide an interface to allow people to borrow and trade on margin accounts, but controlling the withdrawal so that they can't just abscond with the money. What do you all think?

I'm no expert, but here are my suggestions:

First, make sure that you have OpenSSL installed. http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?t=929949

Second, check to see if there are any proxy settings that aren't getting carried through. http://forums.iis.net/p/1173290/1973896.aspx#1973896

Third, try implementing the headers and curl options from the last post here: http://bytes.com/topic/php/answers/734722-getting-php-login-somewhere-post-username-password-then-get-cookies

Sigh... It's been 5 days and still no word.

I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. It seems like he's been running the service for a while, so to suddenly bail on the operation wouldn't make much sense.

But if he is AWOL, do you think Mt. Gox would send the payment back? (Assuming he hasn't withdrawn it already...)

I wish I had seen this sooner. I signed up yesterday for a month, just to try it out, and still haven't heard a single word from him. Either he's incapacitated or he just ran off with my 0.6 BTC. :/

Certainly not me, of course... *cough cough*

Ok, sounds like we fixed the first error.

Now, it seems that simplecoin needs the memcache module, which is not installed on default. The best guide I could find to do that is here:

http://stevelove.org/2009/09/30/how-to-install-php-memcached-on-an-ubuntu-server/

Hopefully that works.

First, undo the change to apache.conf.

Next, take out the space between "include" and the left parenthesis.

It was only a small order, but Inaba delivered. Thanks! 

I might not go that far, but it'd be nice to get a little feedback, so we can try to get closer to the mark.

I guess none of our ideas passed muster. Shame. 

I'll throw out a few random ideas

"FanTAZtic Solutions"
"You've got needs. We satisfy."
"We make the Net work for you" (net work =~ network)
"Relax. We got this."

Well, I don't want to disparage women or anything, and there are certainly exceptions, but women just tend to be more risk-averse. I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing, though. On one hand, you miss out on being part of the cutting-edge, but on the other, you don't get hit when the bubbles pop.

I'm no marketing expert, but here are my two cents.

It all depends on the angle that you're really going for. From what I can tell, you have very reasonable prices (which are always nice). However, as with anything else, often people find out that cheap products are often of lower quality (you get what you pay for). Basically, I would try to communicate that (1) you know what you're doing technically and (2) you will provide reliable and helpful customer service, all while (3) having good prices. Now, you could go for some stiff and old-fashioned bit phrases, like:

"Expert Quality", "Solid Service", or "Unmatched Value"

but I suppose you want something a little less generic sounding. I'll just throw out a few right now, but I'll keep thinking about it tonight...

"Mo money, No problems", "Headache-Free Guarantee", "We've got your back, you can keep the arm and leg", "Results you can trust, prices you will love"