Which is precisely why the game currency Bitcoin is going to stay a game currency: that's what it damned well is. Can shake that "formalism" quote all the way to Sunday, this isn't a formal matter in the least. Reasons barring Bitcoin from being a currency in the legal sense are purely functional, quite numerous and absolutely irreconcilable through formalism. "Game currency" is no defense. First Circuit court has already ruled that virtual shares issues by virtual companies existing only in virtual stock exchange solely for the purported reason of being a game for entertainment to still be investments. Might want to read up on SEC v. SG, Ltd. The first circuit saw right through the sham of "it is only a game". What matters is the intent of the participants. I think one would find it pretty trivial to convince a jury that the public at large viewed any "asset buying games" as what they are investments. Hell this very sub forum would provide sufficient proof. It is impossible for an objective person to read the securities forum and believe the intent isn't for profit and instead is solely as entertainment in a game. From SEC vs SG Ltd. http://studentorgs.law.smu.edu/Science-and-Technology-Law-Review/Articles/Summer-2005/Tippett.aspxSG argued that “the virtual shares were part of a fantasy investment game created for the personal entertainment of Internet users, and therefore, those shares do not implicate the federal securities laws.” 23 The SEC countered by stating that substance ought to prevail over form, and that merely labeling a website a game should not negate the applicability of the securities laws. 24The district court agreed with the defendant and granted the motion to dismiss, stating, “the virtual shares were a clearly marked and defined game, lacking a business context.”25 The SEC appealed immediately.26 This appeal hinged on whether the district court erred in ruling that transactions in the “privileged company’s” shares did not constitute transactions in securities as a matter of law. 27 The First Circuit looked to the definition of an investment contract as a security, as defined under the three pronged test set forth by the Supreme Court in Howey. 28After applying the elements of the Howeytest and rejecting the rationale behind the district court’s decision, the First Circuit reversed the dismissal order and remanded the case for trial. 29 The district court had created a distinction between “commercial dealings” and “games,” finding that the former were covered by federal securities law and the latter were not. The First Circuit rejected such a distinction, noting that “as long as the three-pronged Howeytest is satisfied, the instrument must be classified as an investment contract.” 30 It is immaterial whether an instrument is labeled as a serious commercial venture or a game, as the securities acts were enacted to encompass virtually any instrument that might be sold as an investment. There is no categorical exception for games.31 As a personal note I disagree with the court's decision in SG for a number of reasons but to pretend that "it's isn't a security because .... game" is just naive and dishonest. It isn't an open and shut case but intent matters. When asset holders are listing real assets, generating real world profits, and passing those as dividends to shareholders, and you have this entire forum dedicated to analyzing various securities, their risks, potential profits, etc it would be pretty hard to convince a jury that this is all a game solely for entertainment. By all accounts SG's operation was more like a casino then a true free market of assets and the courts still ruled against them. If SG Ltd failed in that defense then you honestly think other asset exchanges which have listings more bound to the real world then SG's "companies" which were totally fictional entities not having assets, cashflow, or profits will be more successful. Maybe they will but they will need a defense a lot stronger than "it is a game currency. period.". I read through the entire article. There are many parallels to where we are today. Ultimately however, they were in court because they committed fraud using USD, making promises that they could not keep. Read the "Operation" section on the page here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stock_Generation ... They basically outright stole people's USD. - BTC-TC does not steal USD or BTC in ANY way, shape, or form. - BTC-TC does not commit fraud. (though the issuers might!) - BTC-TC makes NO promises of guaranteed returns. - With the exception of the LTC-GLOBAL shares, which are BTC Trading Corp's liability, the Howey test does not apply to the exchange directly, it applies to the issuers using the exchange. The first prong of the Howey test may or may not apply to bitcoin. (is bitcoin "money"? in Australia and many parts of the world it explicitly IS NOT. In the US it has not been decided in court, but FinCEN is saying they consider it money and it will thus end up in court sooner rather than later.) Subsequent prongs of the Howey test almost certainly apply. It's been a day or so since I've posted in here and some may be wondering where BTC-TC stands with things. - BTC-TC will not be closing it's doors to US citizens. US citizens using the site are not doing anything wrong and the issues around investing in assets from the various issuers is better addressed on a per-issuer basis. For instance, a fully registered and compliant issuer should be able to have unfettered access to the entire US population, whereas an issuer that has not properly registered their company puts themselves at risk and thus we would hope would close off access to the riskier markets. (note that this registration takes many forms depending on where you are located.) - BTC-TC will be adapting it's ToS and wording on the site to be clearer and to avoid words that imply regulation where there is not. For example, calling something a stock implies a share of a regulated, registered company, when in fact that may not truly be the case. These changes will be made over time as we work things out with the help of legal representation. - BTC-TC will be building a set of tools to assist issuers in maintaining compliance with securities law internationally. Initially this means that we will be giving issuers the ability to solicit (or not solicit) investment on a per-country basis. Eventually we could also facilitate validation and filtering of accredited investors versus non-accredited investors. Cheers. great news: these features would make your exchange the most evolved exchange in the world, and the most advanced and accessible solution for raising capital |
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why are you guys collectively targeting the exchanges?
Why are MPOE and Burnside trying to justify their next move as if it matters for them.
ALL OF THE LIABILITY RESTS ON THE INDIVIDUALS AND COMPANIES IN AMERICA ISSUING SECURITIES.
So burnside, the fact you are running an exchange isn't the issue. It is the issuance of securities BY THOSE INDIVIDUAL COMPANIES, and thats not YOUR issue.
Burnside, you aren't the only exchange registered in a foreign country with servers (physical or cloud hosted) in the United States, chill out. I mean, if you run the pass through for BTC-Trading, then you need to address that
It has nothing to do with people playing your site's "game" or anything. The exchanges aren't the one exposed to liability, I mean unless you think you qualify as a broker (which you might, and might not)
I heard you were guys were talking to "a lawyer" but I think you'll still get some wrong FUD information, unless I just point these above things out.
This "game" talk is practically inviting the SEC to make an example out of someone.
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a foreign exchange has no liability with the SEC, its the companies listed on them. ISSUING securities is what the SEC watches
that being said, I've warned US issuers (BASIC-MINING) about this issue weeks and months ago.
Keep the exchange open, or you'll lose all your market share to someone that understands this stuff (me.)
Oh your computers are on a cloud server in the US? Stop your FUD and tell me exactly what part of the securities act of 1933 and securities exchange act of 1934 you are concerned about.
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Not to be that guy, but lets talk about AMC Belize's registration #'s now
do you have a certificate from whatever office registers businesses there? is it an IBC? Corp? LLC?
also, who is your registered agent there, I could use a cheap one myself
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ActiveMining should concentrate on signing with eASIC and, given today's reports, any additional regulatory compliance (pending legal advice asap).
Both of these items, alongside formation of a board, will give shareholders confidence.
Everything else really should wait.
Private Placement Memorandum http://axs.net/AMC/PPM/AM.pdf |
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the SEC does not even consider what currency is used, read the Securities act of 1933. It doesn't need to consider or not consider the merit of bitcoin, it considers the offer and sale of securities. This has nothing to do with acceptance or recognition of bitcoin by the federal government.
There are, ahem, some people who claim they aren't dealing in securities. Or real money. SEC. 2. (a) DEFINITIONS.—When used in this title, unless the context otherwise requires— (1) The term ‘‘security’’ means any note, stock, treasury stock, security future, security-based swap, bond, debenture, evidence of indebtedness, certificate of interest or participation
in any profit-sharing agreement, collateral-trust certificate, preorganization certificate or subscription, transferable share,
investment contract, voting-trust certificate, certificate of deposit for a security, fractional undivided interest in oil, gas, or other mineral rights, any put, call, straddle, option, or privilege on any security, certificate of deposit, or group or index of securities (including any interest therein or based on the value thereof), or any put, call, straddle, option, or privilege entered into on a national securities exchange relating to foreign currency, or, in general, any interest or instrument commonly known as a ‘‘security’’, or any certificate of interest or participation in, temporary or interim certificate for, receipt for, guarantee of, or warrant or right to subscribe to or purchase, any of the foregoing. I've already brought this up with some of the US companies listed on the exchanges, its the US COMPANIES AND PERSONS issuing securities IN THE UNITED STATES that have a problem. Some literally have their address listed on the forums and the about pages of the exchanges. They can get their assets frozen any day. THOSE are the ones that need to register with the SEC or file for an exemption. Sitting idle is bad. The only saving grace is that the numbers are too small and hopefully the SEC will turn a blind out.
Questions since you've researched this. The SEC's rules are there to protect US investors. If a company is registered outside of the US and the securities are traded on foreign exchanges, what can they do? What would happen if the people behind the foreign company were in the US? What would make the SEC come looking? What would they do if that company was actively soliciting investments from the public in the US? For the investors, the only thing you need to worry about is your shares going to zero once the SEC freezes and seizes all the assets one day.
Only thing! I wouldn't touch a US registered investment now. If a company is registered in the US (or a person in the US) has issued shares, it needs to find an exemption with the SEC. Its not just the SEC, its the state they are in too. You don't have to take this one a case-by-base basis, the US Constitution gives the federal government power to "regulate interstate commerce", anything that *actually happens* on US soil and anything in the US that merely *affects* interstate commerce is enough for any federal agency or federal actor to apply its laws no matter where in the globe things are nominally existing. The SEC generally establishes jurisdiction by pinpointing at least one state where an unregistered exchange took place. So look at BASIC-MINING for instance: - address in some midwestern state - lists on an exchange in Belize - DIRECTLY EXCHANGED SHARES (most likely in America) TO SOMEONE FOR A BFL MINIRIG you don't even need to do anything that obvious |
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Myself and my company "State Trading Society" do a lot of research on securities laws, and you guys are running around like headless chickens
the SEC does not even consider what currency is used, read the Securities act of 1933. It doesn't need to consider or not consider the merit of bitcoin, it considers the offer and sale of securities. This has nothing to do with acceptance or recognition of bitcoin by the federal government.
I've already brought this up with some of the US companies listed on the exchanges, its the US COMPANIES AND PERSONS issuing securities IN THE UNITED STATES that have a problem. Some literally have their address listed on the forums and the about pages of the exchanges. They can get their assets frozen any day. THOSE are the ones that need to register with the SEC or file for an exemption. Sitting idle is bad. The only saving grace is that the numbers are too small and hopefully the SEC will turn a blind out.
For the investors, the only thing you need to worry about is your shares going to zero once the SEC freezes and seizes all the assets one day.
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how much cash do we have in the treasury, or whatever, for purchases? and what else can be done with the shares? Hi stslimited. We have 1061.05BTC in reserve and this amount is growing rapidly with our hash rate. When the batch 3 arrives I'll get it settled in and look for more hardware sales that make sense now that I seem to have a handle on the power and cooling requirements. I don't understand your inquiry about the shares, can you explain? shares as compensation, maybe we can do mixtures in your next hardware negotiations, btc and shares |
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sooo why does burnside give moderator power to shareholders of a goofy litecoin company anyway? What do they have to do with btct?
litecoin global is burnside's first exchange, btc global is a spinoff that is obviously more popular and more liquid in many cases bitcoin global shares: the more exchange volume the more the dividends will be. ASICMiner, BASIC-MINING and then ActiveMining will be some interesting volume on the exchanges, especially with all the whales ActiveMining will have attracted hope that helps |
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how much cash do we have in the treasury, or whatever, for purchases? and what else can be done with the shares?
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what exactly is volatile in bitcoin price?
$90 to $100 usd and back? $260 to $50 and then halfway in between?
volatility is based on historic volatility, throw some bollinger bands around bitcoin's exchange rate and let me know if your theory still holds
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People hate on regulation of BTC so hard but if the CFTC stepped in it would bring currency futures for BTC and allowing mining operations such as ActiveMine to hedge the fluctuations, hell it could even bring liquid difficulty futures.
yes, anarcho-capitalists tend to collectively be out of touch with reality. "government", even the concept of "governance", and "regulations" are all bad words the current chairman of the CFTC probably trades bitcoin - based on the way he talks about them - and he could be this economy's best friend. To add to this, the CFTC is down for anything, its the legislature (congress) that you need to be worried about. It was congress that banned the trading of onion futures It was congress (under their MPAA master) that banned the trading of 'box office' futures, while the CFTC was on the verge of requiring movie studios to set up chinese walls |
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don't all the other securities exchanges already do this?
I was pretty sure this was a major factor in me getting into bitcoin securities.
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If a large portion of the network went offline right after a difficulty increase, this scenario could freeze the bitcoin network for thousands of blocks. Basically blocks would be found MUCH more slowly to the point of it being nearly unusable.
This exact scenario happened with terracoins a few month ago. Basically what happened was that someone pointed an ASIC at terracoins and this push the difficulty EXTREMELY high, and then they stopped mining, leaving the difficulty extremely high for 8 days and no terracoin transactions were able to be processed because it took an extremely long time for the remaining miners to process any blocks.
If two of the largest miners of bitcoin went offline, the entire bitcoin economy would be at a standstill for at least several days. Although with today's makeup, just a pool could go offline and all the pool members would continue mining at a different pool. But in a different scenario, ASICMiner could have a larger portion of the network and lose connectivity right after a difficulty increase, or 6 months in the future, a different company would have 100s of terahashes more and the same thing could happen.
This is less likely with bitcoin today, but it is a real vulnerability.
In terracoin's situation the remaining hashrate was only 1/10th of what it was after the ASIC bumped the difficulty up. This isn't currently a possible scenario with bitcoin. But one could imagine a party with some future 14nm sha-256 chips developed solely to prop up the difficulty and then leave the network, making it take months until the next difficulty adjustment, making blocks take hours or days to solve, rendering transactions useless.
What can we do about that? Terracoin has fast changing difficulty
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lolstate is correct, and this is exactly what I was eluding to:
either ActiveMining is a scam OR ActiveMining is a real company with real people
if ActiveMining is a scam, then that would - all hypothetically speaking - make ken a con man, and anything he says would be to instill confidence to perpetuate this, so there is really nothing he could say to rationalize the unknown expenses
if ActiveMining is a real company trying to do real things, then it is being run with poor judgement, which is equally a red flag
and this is all compounded by the fact that the poor judgement isn't new: over the last however many pages of this thread, we have worked out the problems with the original structure of this venture ( 3 entities in agreements and various levels of ownership with each other)
and now it is apparent we need to work out some issues with ActiveMining's charter to allow shareholders to vote on more things before they happen
This isn't FUD (fear uncertainty and doubt), this is a reflection on "wtf were you thinking when you originally structured this venture" and just when that is fixed its now "wtf are you doing with these ask walls"
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hi all,
I've lurked in this thread for quite a long time and let me state this right up front: yes I do hope that everything is above board and it's a win/win for Ken and shareholders alike. I'm not a manipulative FUDster troll. I am, however, someone who holds a few shares and would like a little clarification for the record.
As was mentioned a few posts ago, I also remember when the wall was all that was required for the NRE funds to pan out. Then I see that there are pre-orders in for ASICs that could help with the start-up funds as well. Excellent! So if BTC stays low, there would be something to draw from at least to aid in the NRE. Suddenly there is mention of a new wall of shares for extra expenses.
Now I really want to give the benefit of the doubt here, but my spider senses are tingling. Confidence is shaken somewhat when a load of new shares is added shortly after a massive wall has finally been eaten up. It gives it more of a cash grab feel than planned capital. As was started before by someone, it would be much better if instead of just stating "adding more shares now" and leaving it at that, if you would both provide some lead-time as well as state some numbers behind the request. Transparency is key here, especially when this (and everything BTC, let's face it) is extremely high-risk. Knowing how much is left to fully fund eASIC for example, and what these other expenses are and their relative cost would be crucial to investor confidence.
Again, don't take this as FUD please. I feel this is a valid point and something that should be expanded upon.
It doesn't matter how verbose you make it, you are asking the obvious questions all of us are. At least those of us asking any questions at all. Its a quite simple matter to deduce what just happened and what the outcome is, out of all scenarios they are all problematic and require Ken to instill confidence, like any other "Confidence Man" <- the reason why any action he takes to explain this is a problem (its either mismanagement, poor judgement, or intentional mismanagement) a way to rectify this situation would be to amend the charter for ActiveMining to require more things to be put to shareholder approval, at a higher percentage than the majority stakeholder has. |
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okay, welp I've held my fair share of mining companies and this one by far is the most well run
just the fact that creativex actually put it up to a vote before using shares as compensation puts this company ahead of mannny other mining companies. This week alone I've seen 2 other mining related companies issue shares randomly to pay for stuff with no notice.
"Don't mind the selling guys, I sold some shares to pay for some machines real quick, great for you guys that missed the previous price appreciation"
"I put up another wall out of thin air, because... expenses"
this must have been what the 1920s was like, just much... slower.
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without information about where his walls are, he could easily sell shares for Ferrari funding rather than expense funding, and we would still think he needs more.
we need more transparency NOW, or I'm out. You have 1 hour..
@VolanicEruptor Go ahead and jump out, the last time you did that it cost you plenty. VE's calls for transparency are not unwarranted and entering into chest thumping contests with significant investors is a poor PR move that will hurt the entire company I have been very transparent. I have said that we are issuing 500,000 more shares. These will be spread between bitfunder and BTC-TC. This is less than we had posted at first after the price of bitcoin went down to around $68. At that point we added 1M shares, 500,000 on bitfunder and 500,000 on BTC-TC for a total of 4M shares, however because of the flippers bitfunder shares were not selling, so the wall was taken down after a post here. Now that bitcoin has gone up we can sell less total shares which we are doing. I think what they are saying is that though it is transparent on what you are doing, it is still the 'what' and not the 'why' that is being communicated A CEO doesn't have to explain himself every 10 minutes to complete strangers (and fakes) like Floates, STS, Eskimo etc. The NRE is raised. The IPO is over. Some small expenses remain to be gathered. We can safely ignore people like Eskimo and try and identify genuine share holders with genuine concerns and take all steps necessary to reassure them. Floates, STS, Eskimo etc are trying to drive a wedge between a very successful start up (ActM) and its legimitimate long term share holders. I still can't get over that 'Caveat Emptor'.  and the name calling begins. Seen it all One time, I saw a CEO get early investors on as "Directors", and then if the directors asked too many questions, he would proclaim to everyone on the email list that those directors were liar hackers and that any email from them would contain a virus. Also would "kick out" the director and keep their shares, or the value of them There is no name calling to be done. FUD lost. You lost. Move on to another stomping ground. okay then, no name calling, I don't actually know what a "fake" is in this context. Just assumed it was a derogatory term  Highly derogatory. Stop playing games, you have been called out. Mature. the only reason people have been trying to count all the shares for the last 3 pages is because I posted a pretty objectionable analysis about why things about this investment are unclear. |
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without information about where his walls are, he could easily sell shares for Ferrari funding rather than expense funding, and we would still think he needs more.
we need more transparency NOW, or I'm out. You have 1 hour..
@VolanicEruptor Go ahead and jump out, the last time you did that it cost you plenty. VE's calls for transparency are not unwarranted and entering into chest thumping contests with significant investors is a poor PR move that will hurt the entire company I have been very transparent. I have said that we are issuing 500,000 more shares. These will be spread between bitfunder and BTC-TC. This is less than we had posted at first after the price of bitcoin went down to around $68. At that point we added 1M shares, 500,000 on bitfunder and 500,000 on BTC-TC for a total of 4M shares, however because of the flippers bitfunder shares were not selling, so the wall was taken down after a post here. Now that bitcoin has gone up we can sell less total shares which we are doing. I think what they are saying is that though it is transparent on what you are doing, it is still the 'what' and not the 'why' that is being communicated A CEO doesn't have to explain himself every 10 minutes to complete strangers (and fakes) like Floates, STS, Eskimo etc. The NRE is raised. The IPO is over. Some small expenses remain to be gathered. We can safely ignore people like Eskimo and try and identify genuine share holders with genuine concerns and take all steps necessary to reassure them. Floates, STS, Eskimo etc are trying to drive a wedge between a very successful start up (ActM) and its legimitimate long term share holders. I still can't get over that 'Caveat Emptor'. and the name calling begins. Seen it all One time, I saw a CEO get early investors on as "Directors", and then if the directors asked too many questions, he would proclaim to everyone on the email list that those directors were liar hackers and that any email from them would contain a virus. Also would "kick out" the director and keep their shares, or the value of them There is no name calling to be done. FUD lost. You lost. Move on to another stomping ground. okay then, no name calling, I don't actually know what a "fake" is in this context. Just assumed it was a derogatory term |
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