Where is the hyperbole? An mpex trading license is literally 30 million times more expensive than the NYSE.
The NYSE only recently (2006) switched to annual licenses, a different model from the "trading seat" model they had previously. Because seats were forever (as with MPEX), there was a vigorous and small market where seats could be bought from brokerages that were getting out. In 2005, seats sold for $1 million - $5 million. The
NYSE press release that details the shift to annual licenses is a good read if you want to learn about the history of it. I couldn't find an inflation adjustment calculator that could go back to the 1860s (when seats sold for $4 000), but in the early 1900s they were selling for $80 000, which is $2 million when adjusted for inflation. This makes the NYSE's seat cost at any point in its history 55x - 277x more expensive than MPEX.
Even now that the NYSE has switched to an annual license model, their fee is $40 000 per year (
as confirmed on their trading license application form). This is still more than double MPEX's lifetime seat cost, and every year you'd have to renew it, widening that gap and making the NYSE's trading license more and more relatively expensive. I also think that this makes rational sense as it is, as MPEX doesn't have the historicity and caliber that the NYSE does, nor does it have listings that are anywhere close to the size of those listed on the NYSE. But this is perfectly fine - by the time Bitcoin is worth ~$33 300, MPEX's seat fee will be around $1 million, and we should expect that the listings will be somewhere around the caliber and size of listings the NYSE had in the early 1900s. In other words, the seat fee right now is commensurate with the size of the exchange, and that's perfectly fine.
A seat would mean there are a limited amount and you can sell your own seat. On mpex you can buy a "seat" and sell unlimited seats to other naive investonomers.
Because mpex is 60 million times smaller* than NYSE, shouldn't an NYSE trading license be $1.2 trillion? Even a 100 year trading license would be $12 billion.
Why is it that mpoe is the only bitcoin asset that does not depreciate when bitcoin appreciates? I could understand if they held a significant amount of BTC, but they don't. MPOE doesn't hold anywhere near 800k btc.
*not including MP co-owned companies.
You mean like google+? 3 years old and already half a billion users.
How long do you think it will take before a legitimate company lists on mpex? (Not talking about one man operations or MP co-owned companies)
It's hard to say - MPEX only appeals to startups involved in the Bitcoin space. Traditional startups have traditional VC funding routes, and larger companies have larger domestic exchanges they can use. A more likely scenario than a "legitimate" company listing on MPEX is that something like Van Ads or MiniGames is a rousing success, and that is a catalyst for other "legitimate" companies.
Sure one of MP's companies could be a success, but we have yet to see a single shred of evidence suggesting he can run a company and/or turn a profit. Sure, we know he can collect massive trading license fees and create a decent options robot to take money from shitty gamblers but running an actual company has yet to be seen.
So far we've seen:
S.MG, a videogame company which looks like a 1 man operation + MP with ~$5,000,000 and none of it has been spent on developing the game. The game looks like a pre-alpha version of runescape classic at best. Unless they completely stop what they are doing and hire a competent game development team I don't see how this game can be a success.
S.NSA is another 1 man +MP operation with a bunch of money but nothing to show for a years worth of work.
VanAds looks to be yet another 1 man + MP operation which is basically a clone of adbit.co.
S.WoL is the 5000th gambling site to be invented and for some reason needed 500btc to run their site,
but I do have to give them credit for not being co-owned by MP.
How do you explain the fact that mpex is asking half of what the NYSE is asking for a trading license yet is several million times smaller in both market cap and trading volume?
Why can't mpex pretend to be like the NYSE without a referral scheme and with less exorbitant trading license fees?
Well as demonstrated above that is provably incorrect, they have an incredibly low seat fee, one that is commensurate with their small size and volume.
Your argument is basically "if BTC increases and mpex becomes the most popular/successful exchange THEN it's underpriced". Yes and if neobee springs back to life and offers an incredible service I'm sure there is a possibility that they earn billions.
Fact is that MPOEs revenue completely dropped off when they removed the options market/bot but according to the share price nobody cares that dividends (which were already small to begin with) are now a tiny fraction of what they used to be.
I don't know how you can say with a straight face that it's not absurd for an exchange to charge 7% of their noninflated market cap for a trading license. 94% of the mpoe's revenue for the past 6 months came from recruiting new investonomers.
It is painfully obvious that the "seats" are nothing more than a moneymaking scheme. It's a combination of a ponzi and pyramid scheme. I think they should call it the popescu scheme.