I can say even without access to the spreadsheets that there's enough cash to bring MINING up to date - based purely on where difficulty now is.  In fact I'm certain there'll also be an immediate cash dividend due on SELLING.

On CipherermINE.B1 I'll comment further when I'm sober and home on Saturday.

As far as my identity and reason for absence is concerned I'll also be commenting - and taking some steps to avoid a recurrence of the recent situation.  In principle I've no objection to revealing my identity to you (and other larger investors) : running off with your investment is not (and never has been) something I've intended.

If anyone has demonstrable losses caused by my absence (by which I mean actual costs incurred - not "I could have sold when BTC was 1200 if DMS had been relisted and CIPHERMINE.B1 had traded at face value") then I'm fine with covering them.  Lack of funds was never (and isn't) an issue for me.

I havent done (and  can't presently do) any of the math but my every instinct says that even after paying all MINING dividends there'll be a dividend due to SELLING.  That dpesn't, howver, mean SELLING should look to pay 300 days more dividends to MINING - even without any spreadsheet in front of me I'm condfident I can offer a better deal t o SELLING than that - but if others want to offer that then I obviously won't stand in their way.  WHich is why there'll be no vote on it - as I'll personally be offering a better deal to all SELLING holders than such a vote could possibly deliver (such a vote couldn't assign a non-zero value to CIPHERMINE.B1).

I have no intention at all of trying to steamroll either MINING or SELLING into accepting a buyout - both will 100% have the right to, without penalty, receive all benefits due to them under the original contract.  But neither will I put to vote something which is, essentially, worthless - given that I'm personally willing to offer better to the voters (SELLING) immediately.

So long as it isn't impossible due to block-chain limitations ALL outstanding dividends WILL be paid promptly (subject to confirming the email/BTC addresses) so any judgment of what's fair has to be made on that basis.

Not at home (and fairly drunk) so can't lookup figures - those will have to wait until Saturday.

I don't plan to raise a vote for SELLING to close down but I DO plan to offer an immediate exit for MINING & SELLING if they choose.  That wou;d be pitched at less than 300 days of dividend for MINING (I'm not in touch with recent difficulty changes but am sure it's still rising so a 300 day buyout from SELLING would make no sense to SELLING holders.   If anyone wants to offer more than me for MINING then they can - I'll offer to buyout at what I'm personally comfortable offering and if others want to offer more they can.).  Noone will be forced to accept any buyout and my intention is to pay off all outstanding dividends (to the extent that they can be paid from cash) with myself shouldering the transaction costs for doing that (likely only about 1 BTC total at most).

Noone will be forced to take a deal they don't want to - all costs associated with my tardiness will be absorbed by me personally and anyone who wants to hang on for what they're entitled to by contract will be able to do so at no cost to themself.  Until I've had a look at recent difficulty changes I can't say what I'll offer - but I'd expect it to be nearer 150 days at current rate for MINING than to 300 days.  An opportunity WILL be offered for others to offer more so as to maximise what people can receive - but there's no way I can in good conscience even consider a vote for SELLING buyout MINING at 300 days dividend - as the basic premise of such a vote would have to be that difficulty will fall or (at a minimum) not rise : and I don't believe that to be true.

I'll explain what I'm offering (and why) then anyone who disagrees will be free to offer more (but note than for SELLING I'll be offering cash now + a pro-rata share of whatver is recovered in respect of the CIPHERMINE.B1s - I won't be offering to buy those at all).

Off to bed now before work tomorrow -will try to touch base tomorrow evening but it'll almost certainly be Saturday before I have access to my data and can provide actual numbers.

OK guys, I'm not dead - and am back active.  Unfortunately will be away again from later today until late tomorrow but will make a start on sorting this mess out on the weekend.  As far as assets are concerned, the BTC I hold for the fund remain intact and untouched - as anyone can verify from the address.

Not sure what's happening with Ciphermine.B1 - but if Kate's paying dividends to Ciphermine then it looks like it may be a scam.  I say that because common-sense suggests Ciphermine is making a huge loss (its liabilities - denominated in BTC - are rising far faster than it can conceivably be mining coins).  If she's pretending its making a profit and paying dividends, hence increasing the extent to which it has negative equity, then that is defrauding bold-honders (paying dividends to equity holders when unable to service debt is basically fraud/theft).  The conflict of interest I referred to previously (in respect of me becoming invovled in her exchange) was basically that point - that it would be unwise for me to increase financial links with her with the likelihood of me having to initiate civil and/or criminal proceedings against her in respect of the bonds.

I'll give a more detailed update on the weekend and try to get the dividend calculation done in full by then - then decide how to proceed with the fund going forward.  After this week I don't expect any lengthy absences until at least May.

It'll take a bit longer to sort out relisting - as I'm now totally out of the loop on which exchanges are functional/trustworthy etc.

If anyone incurred costs taking legal advice in respect of my absence then please PM me and I'll look at reimbursing it (copies of invoices would be required).

I'll next be replying to emails about DMS tomorrow or Thursday.  But don't expect a personalised update on what's happening - I prefer to post things once here rather than in a few hundred individual emails.

If/when I can confidently value CIPHERMINE.B1 at full value then you'd receive exactly the same dividends in total on SELLING as if it had always been valued at full face value and dividends paid at every difficulty change.  The only exception to that would be if difficulty fell/didn't rise/rose by less than a few % (where you could end up receiving slightly less) - but that seems highly unlikely at present.

I'm not convinced by your statement that difficulty didn't slow down rising - as a percentage the increases seem to have fallen off somewhat.  And do remember that if there are two changes in a row of the same percentage then the SELLING dividend for the second one would be smaller.

I'm not anticipating there being any significant changes to the contract - operational things like precisely how redemptions are handled don't require changes to the contract.

MINING dividends would be paid daily as before regardless of where we relist (once the backlog had been cleared and any teething problems with relisting had been resolved).  i.e. I'd likely wait a day or two after relisting to make sure there were no problems with people having wrong number of shares or similar before paying outstanding dividends (though if we relist on the exchange currently planned then I could verify the list myself as I'd have access to a list similar to what I had on BTC-TC, so could check it myself).

Until/unless automated transfers could be implemented I'd likely impose some restrictions on trades of PURCHASE for MINING/SELLING (but anyone already holding PURCHASE would of course be allowed to swap) but everything else would be as before - though with redemption policy reflecting the reality that NAV/U is X BTC + Y CIPHERMINE.B1 until that changes.

That's when it'll go fully live (and anyone will be able to submit new securities for listing etc).

CIPHERMINE.B1 (and DMS if we list there - which looks very likely) would be live and traded significantly before that date.  As soon as an actual date is finally agreed I'll post it here.

I have also now confirmed that all of the key functionality we need will be present from the start (in fact that had been clarified for some period in documentation - but due to a misunderstanding I didn't have access to that but it was thought that I did.)

In fairness you also need to consider the other side of the coin.

DMS made steady and safe profits from the LTC-ATF.B2 - including selling a significant number of them on the market at a good markup to the face value I sold them to DMS for.  And DMS made a fast 20 BTC profit from the 24 hour (and 100% secured) loan I took. 

The Just-Dice loss was unfortunate - had I not divested when I did we'd now be well into profit on it (but I had to divest given the situation) and the loss that occurred there had a very small likelihood of happening.

Coinlenders we got out of with a decent profit made - as soon as he removed the personal guarantees and started trying to get hold of much cash as he could with inputs.io it was obvious that it was not a good idea to have cash with him and I got us out.

Ciphermine.B1 was a good move that turned into a bad one due to BTC-TC closing - until then we'd been collecting dividends and slowly selling them off at a small markup to what we paid.

All of that said, I do agree with your conclusion.  If I was starting DMS afresh now I think I'd not invest at all other than where there was guaranteed 100% backing and significant liquidity - which, in practice, would mean only in bonds/loans to myself (as no amount of accounts/records from someone else can ever provide me with certainty that backing exists and liquidity will be provided).  Fundamentally investment wasn't a good idea with DMS as those who don't want a specific investment can end up having to take on the risk of it (due to being outvoted) when all they actually want is the risks associated with their own judgement of the relative values of SELLING/MINING.

Yeah, the good old "discounted price" scam.

If you want to sell 100 shares of something at 1 BTC it works like this:

1.  Announce you're selling 200 shares worth 2 BTC.
2.  Announce the first 100 will be sold at half-price.
3.  Rush it so noone has time to ask questions if they want to get in on the 'bargain' - you don't want them noticing that not only are your projections based on unsubstantiated estimates of future profits but that your math doesn't even work out IF your assumptions were correct.  Nor do you want anyone worrying about little missing details like existing assets, historical accounts etc.

You get to sell what you wanted at the price you wanted - and if you're really lucky some idiots even pay the 'full' price.  It worked for quite a few securities on Bitfunder (obviously the last blocks never sold out but the issuers raised plenty of BTC for selling near-worthless junk).

The problem isn't so much those who haven't provided a BTC address at all - as those are obvious.  The issue with those is purely that they can't be paid dividends, so as soon as the rest are paid (and they aren't) then shares cease to be fungible.  But that problem becomes reality as soon as I allow anyone to claim dividends - so from that point on is moot.

The problem IS that some people's BTC addresses are inputs.io ones - and I have no way of knowing which ones that is.  I know that some are - as, even in last few days, I've received more mails stating that to be the case and asking for the address of record to be changed. As noted before I could quite reasonably just pay out and say "tough luck, you should have been paying more attention" to anyone who still hasn't corrected such an error - but I'm reluctant to do that unless/until absolutely necessary as losing investors' funds (even if it's clearly their fault) when avoidable is something I'd prefer not to do.

And yes - I'm only referring to MINING dividends: at present no SELLING dividends can be paid.

I'd far prefer to pay all dividends after we relist - but at the same time it wouldn't be right for me to withhold significant sums from investors that they may need for a long period of time.

I don't see any way that I'd be able to make a general payout of all dividends in the near future - I'm still receiving new contacts from people asking for BTC addresses to be changed because they're inputs.io ones or addresses that they have no control over.

What I will offer next week (if I'm not able to provide a firm date for relisting by then) is to pay back dividends out to anyone who wants them - they'd be processed individually with the recipient paying the .001 (or is it .0001) BTC transaction fee.  In any relisting their shares would then NOT be transferred automatically - but would be transferred manually by me after back dividends had been paid to all other shares.  This would add significant extra work for me - as once people had requested back dividends on different days the process of importing and paying out back dividends on a new exchange would become progressively longer and more messy.  But it would address both issues currently faced:

1.  Allowing those owed significant amounts of back dividends to collect them.
2.  Avoiding the scenario where I pay dividends to an address no longer under the control of the owner where the BTC vanish.

In theory I could ignore #2 - and claim it's the investor's responsibility to have provided a clean address that they control.  But I don't feel comfortable with potentially losing funds where an investor has been away for a while, thought they'd provided a 'safe' address and haven't yet become aware of/dealt with the inputs.io scam/theft.

So is the rate 18% or is it variable?  There's a big difference between "we'll pay 18%" and "we'll pay a variable rate based on what we actually make".  Which is it?  Is it's a fixed 18% then proof please of funds sufficeint to pay that (without touching capital).  If it's a variable rate then please define the means by which the rate is calculate and the way by which investors can verify that the rate being paid is the real rate due according to what criteria you use.

Have to say it seems like just a scam to me - ask for cash with vague promises then take the cash and pay fuck-all (or pay a decent rate until investments dry up THEN pay fuck-all).

Here's the updated report I promised.  This includes MINING dividends up to Monday.

BTC Balance (BTC-TC)   0
CIPHERMINE Bonds    260.56000000
BTC Balance (Wallet)    150.79576392
Dividends (Wallet)    3.27310018
Owed by Deprived    0.24621154
TOTAL ASSETS    414.87507564
   
Outstanding MINING   152575
Outstanding SELLING   152575
Outstanding PURCHASE   10479
Effective Units   163054
   
Dividends/Mining Owed   0.00010645
Total Dividends Owed   17.3570983
   
Block reward   25
Difficulty   609,482,680
Hashes per MINING   5000000
   
Daily Dividend    0.00000413
50 days (Min Liquid)    0.00020628
100 days (Forced Close)    0.00041257
365 days (Buyback)    0.00150587
405 days (IPO)    0.00167090
400 days (Post SELLING div)    0.00165027
410 days (Pre SELLING div)    0.00169153

NAV/U    0.00083995    BTC +    0.1598    CIPHERMINE.B1   
NAV/U (if CM.B1 at face)    0.00243795             

"Owed by Deprived" refers to the amount I owe in respect of the last but one difficulty change - where difficulty changed between 16:00 and 00:00 so I personally will be paying the difference between old and new dividends for that date.  I haven't bothered actually transferring the funds into the DMS wallet - as seems silly to pay a fee to transfer there when they'll have to go to an exchange anyway.

Only very minor inaccuracy in the report is that a very small portion of the received CM.B1 dividends are due to an investor who DMS owes 200 Cm.B1 to (he cashed out MINING+SELLING just before transfers got disabled so was unable to send him the shares).  That amount is tiny but will be paid when I transfer him his CM.B1 shares.

Here's the list of dividends included in the above report:

Date   Dividend
04-Nov    0.00000643
05-Nov    0.00000643
06-Nov    0.00000643
07-Nov    0.00000492
08-Nov    0.00000492
09-Nov    0.00000492
10-Nov    0.00000492
11-Nov    0.00000492
12-Nov    0.00000492
13-Nov    0.00000492
14-Nov    0.00000492
15-Nov    0.00000492
16-Nov    0.00000492
17-Nov    0.00000492
18-Nov    0.00000413
19-Nov    0.00000413
20-Nov    0.00000413
21-Nov    0.00000413
22-Nov    0.00000413
23-Nov    0.00000413
24-Nov    0.00000413
25-Nov    0.00000413
   
Total    0.00010645

Yeah, the whole thing stinks of either scam or ignorance/incompetence and the contract/prospectus is missing so much information as to be beyond a joke.

This.

I'm just back from the pub (full of beer) so not necessarily as coherent as I should be.  But the value of SELLING depends very much now on what CIPHERMINE.B1 is worth.  I can't comment on that more as to do so could jeopardise DMS' position (the conflict of interest I referred to earlier refers, at root, to this - I need to be able to act on behalf of DMS without having a contrary interest from being invested in the new exchange).

Bottom line is that, for dividend purposes, I can only value CIPHERMINE.B1 at whatever the lowest price is that I would have to accept were I to sell all our holdings in it.  In theory that's face-value with a 3 month delay - whether that's the case in practice is something I need to resolve over the next few days.

Hopefully everyone who emailed/PMed me now has a response if their mail needed one.  Took me longer than expected to clear the remainder of the back-log and am going out before long so may not get everything posted now that I planned to.  Will see how much I can get done anyway - and do rest tomorrow.

The big question on everyone's mind is, I assume, where (and when) DMS will relist.

The favoured option has been (and remains) the new exchange being developed/run by the Ciphermine team.  But we are NOT committed (in the sense of having promised to go there) to it - and, at present, I am not committed to being involved either as part of the operational team for it OR as an investor in it.  I should be clear that DMS listing there and me being involved in operating/investing in it are NOT tied together - it is possible we may list there without me being otherwise involved in it and it's possible (though unlikely) that DMS could list elsewhere despite me ivnesting in/being involved in operating it.  That's because the criteria for DMS listing there (that it provides the functionaility and enivorment DMS needs) aren't the same as the criteria for my involvement in the site (for me to be involved in operating it, the site needs to match my vision of how an exchange should be run and be something I'm happy to link my name to.  For me to invest in it requires me to be confident that I'll make a profit from my investment).

It IS also possible that if I invest in the exchange it could cause a conflict of interest with my role as a manager of DMS.  The reason for that isn't necessarily obvious - and I'm not going to expand on it - but that's one issue that I do need to sort out before I can make a final decision (if I believe such a conflict of interest is likely then I'd decline to invest - giving precedence to my existing commitment to DMS investors).

The code-base for the initial functionality of the exchange is, to my understanding, fairly complete - requiring just final testing, third-party penetration testing and final user interface implementation.  It's still likely to be a few weeks away.  Right up until it launches I'll be continuing dialogue with other exchanges - if somewhere else provides a better fit for DMS' requirements then I'm in no way averse to listing elsewhere.

Here's the main points I'm considering in respect of exchanges we could list on:

1.  Obviously it needs the basic functionality - ability to trade, pay dividends etc.
2.  The ability to transfer shares is essential for DMS - to split PURCHASE and to redeem pairs of MINING/SELLING (there's no other way of doing these functions).  This rules out a lot of exchanges immediately.
3.  I must have ability to obtain a list of investors (either by email address or by BTC address) - BTC-TC closed down very neatly (nice job by burnside), Bitfunder more messily (continuing excuses why people can't withdraw BTC - I got all mine out a while back luckily) and thoe who have been around for a while will remember GLBSE's shoddy closure where some assets never received lists of investors and many that did receive them had to wait months.  I'm not chancing that with any new place I list - this functionality has to be in place or be promised to be in place shortly.
4.  Accountability.  Kate who runs Ciphermine is based in the UK - as am I.  So if anything gos wrong I have immediate access to a variety of means of recourse.  Knowing the identity of someone in a different country doesn't overcome the practical issues involved in taking action (of whatever nature) should they defraud you.  There's also the linked issue of wanting an exchange operator to have a good reason not to defraud (of particular relevance with relatively new exchanges) - i.e. significant assets other than the exchange which they wouldn't want to jeopardise.  With most operators I have no knowledge sufficient to give me such confidence.
5.  Ciphermine.B1.  With these being a large part of DMS' current assets there is definitely a benefit initially in being on the same exchange as they're listed on.  Redemptions initially would have to be part cash, part bonds - which is far easier where the bonds can be sent back to the same account as sent in the MINING/SELLING/PURCHASE.  This isn't a critical requirement - but rather is something that tips the balance when all other factors are close.

I'm sorry that we aren't relisted yet - I'd expected the exchange to be up at the end of last month.  But lisitng somewhere where we couldn't operate effectively isn't an attractive option.  And do remember that I have probably more reason to want to be relisted than anyone else - all the time we're not listed I earn exactly zero in management fees whilst still havign to expend time and, on occasion, BTC (e.g. the 1/3 of times difficulty change is between 16:00 and 00:00).  Hopefully I'll have more information by the end of the weekend - if I don't have a firm date by middle of next week (when all current changes of BTC addresses will be finalised) then I'll consider doing a payment of existing MINING dividends and accept that there'll be extra hassle and delay when we do get to relist.

Will have to post the updated financials tomorrow - as heading out now.  Have now got exact times for recent difficulty changes so can give precise figures.

Still working through my back-log of non-urgent PMs/mails - but wanted to correct an error in an earlier post by me.

I stated that the largest holder of PURCHASE hadn't provided a BTC address - that's no longer true.  I'd been using an old list from a few days before BTC-TC finally closed - appears they provided an address prior to it finally shutting its doors.  Here's the stats on accounts without BTC addresses:

Mining

152575 shares
193 Investors
16 investors with no BTC address
1933 shares with no BTC address

Selling

152575 shares
153 Investors
5 investors with no BTC address
227 shares with no BTC address

PURCHASE

10479 shares
71 investors
6 investors with no BTC address
40 shares with no BTC address

If you haven't provided a BTC address and want to (or have provided one and need to change it - e.g. because it's an inputs.io address or an address you for some other reason can't sign) then this is the procedure:

1.  Email me (MUST be from the email address you used on BTC-TC) at deprivedltcasset@hotmail.co.uk stating the BTC address you want to use and which shares you own.
2.  I'll wait a few days then reply to you.
3.  You then reply to my email (this exchange of emails is necessary to prevent anyone spoofing an email address in the header)
4.  I'll wait another few days then update my records at which point I'll email you again.

If you already emailed me about this and haven't received an initial reply it'll either be because you only emailed me in the last few days OR you'll be being emailed within the next hour or so.
The delays are necessary to ensure someone with short-term access can't change your BTC address on record.

Yeah, send me an email at deprivedltcasset@hotmail.co.uk (it MUST be from the email address you used for your BTC-TC account) and tell me which you held shares in (Mining/Selling/Purchase) - and I'll look up how how many you had and reply telling you.

Will be making a more substantive post here in a few hours - just going to finish off replying to all PMs/emails first.

Ideally not.  As mentioned before, if I pay dividends to some shares but not all then the shares stop being fungible (i.e. they aren't interchangable - as some have owed dividends on and others don't) which means they can't be traded on an exchange.  And I can't pay dividends to all - as some people didn't ever specify a BTC address to BTC-TC (it's not just small investors either - the person with the largest number of PURCHASE - a few thousand - hasn't provided a BTC address).  So best solution is to move to an exchange, create accounts for everyone based on email addresses then catch up on MINING dividends there.