Monthly Report
June 2013
July 3, 2013 OverviewAsset InformationAssets: 100 shares of LTC-GLOBAL Shares Outstanding: 1000 NAV (per share): 0.82953 (based on the LTC-GLOBAL 7 day average price of 260.86 LTC) Dividend InformationDividend (paid 2013-7-3): 2.51453 BTC Dividend per share: .00251453 BTC Monthly Yield (based on NAV): 0.30% Annualized Yield: 3.64% Management FeeNormal Fee (0.08333% of asset value): 21.74 LTC Waived: 0 Fee Paid: 21.74 LTC Detailed information can be found here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Am3m7aRNI-JbdElvTTc5Vmg3bUh2WDAwc2tsLU1JcEECommentaryThe price of LTC-GLOBAL shares has nearly doubled in the last month. I believe this is due to the fact that the exchange has grown a lot both in terms of the number of assets, the total value of all assets, and the transaction volume. The 7-day average price rose from 155.81 LTC to 260.86 LTC. Trading volumes of both LTC-GLOBAL and BTC-TRADING-PT continue to be low, but higher than before. LTC-GLOBAL paid a monthly dividend of 98.32 LTC. After subtracting the management fee and converting to BTC, the fund earned an income of 2.51453 BTC (0.00251453 BTC per share) that was distributed on July 3, 2013. Please note that the NAV is only an estimation of the value of the shares. The trading volumes of both LTC-GLOBAL and BTC-TRADING-PT are low and the bid-ask spreads are very high, so the actual price of a share can vary quite a bit. VotingMotions must pass by a margin of 100 shares to be approved (a YES vote), or fail by a margin of 100 shares to not be approved (a NO vote). Votes with a margin of less than 100 shares receive an ABSTAIN vote. The results of motions that receive less than 200 votes will not be considered valid. At this time, voting for approval is only done for IPOs due to the lack of shares publicly held. Please vote. It is very important for the success of the exchanges and for the value of your shares. Please note the earlier deadlines for IPOs. Voting on IPOs ends sooner than established securities because trading on a security cannot begin until the security is approved. Voting for approval of assets has been temporarily suspended due to lack of participation. However, in the next few days we will be voting to find out how many people would like to resume voting for asset approval. If a sufficient number vote to resume, then I will resume weekly voting on assets. Other Important InformationI act as a market-maker in BTC-TRADING-PT. The goal to to ensure that there are always shares to buy and always someone to sell to, both at reasonable prices. Normally, I set the bid and ask prices to match the bid and ask prices of LTC-GLOBAL, but in the past few weeks I have been pricing bids and asks aggressively, attempting to narrow the spread and increase liquidity of the shares. I have also been acting as a market-maker in LTC-GLOBAL shares, but to a lesser extent. I believe that both these activities have increased the trading volume for both shares and also have contributed to the rise in values of both shares. I plan to continue this activity for the foreseeable future. A few weeks ago, I proposed splitting BTC-TRADING-PT shares 100:1 as a way to increase liquidity and make it easier for people to buy and sell shares. The response was 100% positive so I am going ahead with the plan. I don't have a schedule at this time. Doing the split will take some coordination with burnside, and some effort on his part. When there is a date, I will make an announcement. |
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Any breakdown of the finances of this security?
Its based on trade volume essentially yes and listing fees
Here's a quick summary: Technically, this security is a exchanged-traded mutual fund that holds shares of BTC TRADING Corp. (listed as LTC-GLOBAL on the LTC-GLOBAL exchange). The values of the fund and its shares depend on the value of the BTC TRADING Corp. shares that the fund holds. This fund pays a dividend around the beginning of each month. All dividends paid to the fund by BTC TRADING Corp. are distributed to fund shareholders. Normally BTC TRADING Corp. pays a dividend once each month around the beginning of the month, and the fund's dividend, which is based on that, is paid shortly afterword. I charge a fee of 1% of assets per year, paid monthly from the BTC TRADING Corp. dividend. All the details are explained in the first post in this thread and in the BTC-TRADING-PT Details page on BTC-TC. Now, I think your questions really pertain to BTC TRADING Corp. BTC TRADING Corp. runs two exchanges: LTC-GLOBAL and BTC-TC. The exchanges are very similar, but one is denominated in BTC and the other is denominated in LTC. LTC-GLOBAL is the original, but BTC-TC has become much bigger than LTC-GLOBAL. Both exchanges make money by charging fees. The major fee is the trading fee which is charged whenever a person buys or sells shares. The fee is 0.25% of the sale. The other fee is the listing fee which is a fee for listing a security on the exchange. This fee is currently either 5 BTC or 150 LTC. I don't believe there are any other sources of revenue. Net income generated by the business is distributed as dividends once per month after the end of the month to all shareholders. Burnside also publishes financial information at that time in this thread: https://forum.litecoin.net/index.php/topic,551.0.htmlFinally, there are 10,000 shares of LTC-GLOBAL. This fund owns 100 of them or 1%. It has owned more than that in the past. While 1% is a small amount, I believe that burnside owns 90%-95%, so it is likely that this fund is one of the largest shareholders. |
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Soooooooo, any updates on the split? Things seem to getting... pricey.
I agree. The response has been 100% positive, so I am definitely going to do the split as soon as possible. There are some logistics involved, and I am working on them. I don't have a date yet, but I intend to do a 100:1 split. I will provide more information when I do the monthly update (which will come out after LTC-GLOBAL pays its dividend). |
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CLOSED Satuday, June 29, 2013 The fund is closed. All remaining shares have been bought back. |
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Weekly Report Sunday, June 23, 2013 OverviewAssets: 0.03 oz. Shares Outstanding: 3 NAV: 0.1188 Reminder: The fund will close on Saturday June 29, 2013. All remaining shares will be bought back at the spot price of gold at the time of the closure. |
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I assume both 100x walls are from you. May I ask, why?
Yes. The walls are there to provide liquidity. I want to make sure that there is always someone to buy or sell shares. Normally, the walls are placed near the bid and ask prices of LTC-GLOBAL (the underlying asset), but I have reduced the spread somewhat in a recent attempt to jump-start the market. Read this post: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=131891.msg2391256#msg2391256 |
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Taking only half the value sounds like a pain in the butt, I would probably unfund them completely in a single transaction, and then redo my sendmany that I had already prepared the first time around.
That's the solution I was looking for. Thanks Mike. infested999, those are private keys. |
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If you performed your steps as described, you would lose the balance as your client would send the change to a different change address and you would destroy the private keys.
I would recommend not doing that ;-)
Import your keys, and send the correct amount to new wallets. You shouldn't re-use a paper wallet once it's been imported.
Each wallet has two inputs with the same amount. If I send the exact amount of an input, one of the inputs will be emptied and the other will remain, and there won't be any change, right? I would prefer to keep the current paper wallets. Here is a picture of them:  |
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I accidentally did a sendmany twice, sending too much money to several paper wallets. I would like to undo that if possible without leaving the paper wallet private keys anywhere. Using bitcoin-qt, I could do this for each paper wallet: create a new wallet, import the private key, send the extra amount (accounting for any Tx fee), destroy the wallet.
Is there an easier way? A different client perhaps?
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I used 1.125" labels from sheet-labels.com for my coins. The part number is SL266. The labels are slightly smaller than the space on the coin so that you don't have worry as much about aligning them perfectly. Also, because my printer doesn't have good registration, I had to add quite a bit of buffer around the edge of the labels in case the paper wasn't aligned perfectly. I used the minikey format to generate the QR code. I chose the Q error correction level (30% maybe?). Fewer bits with more error correction makes the QR code more durable and requires less camera resolution to read the code. Take a look at the difference. Here is a minikey with Q error correction:  Here is a base-58 key with Q error correction:  |
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In a continuing effort to increase the liquidity (and decrease the spread) of BTC-TRADING-PT shares. I am considering a 10-for-1 stock split. I would like to get some feedback on the idea.
Basically, a stock split would work like this: for every share a person owns, they would receive 9 additional shares. They would now own 10 times as many shares, so each share would be worth 1/10th as much. In addition, each share would receive proportionally less dividends. In the end, there would be no change in the value to shareholders. It would be like holding 10 dimes instead of 1 dollar.
Currently, the value of a share is about $30 (up from $1.80 in December, woo hoo!), so buying or selling shares must be done in $30 increments, which is too high for many people. A 10-for-1 stock split would reduce the increment to about $3, making it easier to buy and sell.
The stock split would not affect fees because fees are based on total value rather than number of shares.
Any opinions?
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In my opinion, trading volumes in LTC-GLOBAL on the LTC-GLOBAL exchange and BTC-TRADING-PT on the BTC-TC exchange are too low. I believe the primary reason is an excessive bid/ask spread. In a large part, this spread is due to the lack of volume-- in other words, the problem is self-perpetuating.
...
I am going to price my bids and asks more aggressively and lower the spread on BTC-TRADING-PT compared to LTC-GLOBAL. I hope this will increase the trading volume. I believe that this move will also reduce the spread on LTC-GLOBAL to some extent due to competition and arbitrage.
...
It is now one week later. Here are the results: Not only did I actively narrow the spread on BTC-TRADING-PT, but I also used the fund to provide support for also actively narrowing the spread on LTC-GLOBAL. The results seem good; however, my program started a few days after dividends were paid, so it is not clear how much it contributed to the increased volume in both securities. LTC-GLOBAL on LTC-GLOBAL Burnside's 150 share ask at 149 LTC helped me a lot. It made it easier and less risky for me to narrow the spread. I was able to get the spread down to about 10 LTC (about 8%), which was much better than before, but still too high. Unfortunately, when Burnside's ask was removed, that was the end of my market-making with LTC-GLOBAL shares because the spread became too wide for me to affect with my relatively meager number of shares. BTC-TRADING-PT on BTC-TC Volume of BTC-TRADING-PT on BTC_TC is still better than before. My program to narrow its spread remains active (it is about 25%), and I have decided to become even more aggressive. This will probably open up some arbitrage opportunities (at my expense), but I'm going to go ahead and see what happens. |
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In my opinion, trading volumes in LTC-GLOBAL on the LTC-GLOBAL exchange and BTC-TRADING-PT on the BTC-TC exchange are too low. I believe the primary reason is an excessive bid/ask spread. In a large part, this spread is due to the lack of volume-- in other words, the problem is self-perpetuating.
In my very humble opinion, which is certainly less informed than yours (no sarcasm), I think there are two problems much larger than that, which are actually its causes. 1. The dividend is way too low. Even if this month's dividend is a record, it's still 7.37% per year. Now, if not for the dividend someone might buy it for the voting power, but obtaining a seat costs too much (~2400€). 2. While the site has a very nice and handy theme, it still has so many bugs and quirks which may make people unconfortable, especially developers who may fear something might break badly. Don't misunderstand me, btct.co is a really great platform and I'm very happy to be able to use it, still these are the reasons I guess why not many people are interested into buying it. If the price of the shares were just too high, then people would sell and bring the price down. The problem is that the price is too high for buyers and too low for sellers. That is the problem I am trying to solve. If I can narrow the spread and increase the liquidity, then perhaps the price to buyers would fall to a level that you feel is appropriate, and the price to sellers would rise to a level that they feel is fair. |
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Weekly Report Saturday, June 15, 2013 OverviewAssets: 0.03 oz. Shares Outstanding: 3 NAV: 0.1364 Reminder: The fund will close on June 29, 2013. All remaining shares will be bought back at the spot price of gold at the time of the closure. |
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Weekly Report Saturday, June 8, 2013 OverviewAssets: 0.04 oz. Shares Outstanding: 4 NAV: 0.1249 I regret to inform shareholders and anyone else that may be interested that I have decided to close the fund. The reason is that the participation in the fund has been much too low to justify its existence. I am surprised that the interest in owning gold is so low, but I suppose that it just can't compete with bitcoin in terms of return on investment. The fund will remain open until June 29. At that time I will do a forced buyback of any remaining shares at the spot price (of gold). In the meantime: - Shares can continue to be traded until June 29, or until I have bought back all remaining shares.
- I will buy back any shares at the current spot price. We must both be present to do this.
- I will buy any ask priced at or below the current spot price.
- I will continue to post a bid for the remaining shares at about 95% of the spot price.
- I will no longer accept gold deposits in exchange for shares.
If anyone is interested in buying the fund's gold (or any other gold), please send me an email or a PM. If you have any concerns, questions, or comments, you can post them here or send me an email or a PM. |
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In my opinion, trading volumes in LTC-GLOBAL on the LTC-GLOBAL exchange and BTC-TRADING-PT on the BTC-TC exchange are too low. I believe the primary reason is an excessive bid/ask spread. In a large part, this spread is due to the lack of volume-- in other words, the problem is self-perpetuating.
It is in the best interest of the fund to increase liquidity, so I (the manager of the BTC-TRADING-PT) act as a market-maker, providing a constant supply of shares to buy and sell. Normally, I set my bid and ask prices on BTC-TRADING-PT to be the same as the current bid and ask on LTC-GLOBAL. The idea is to avoid competition between the two securities and between myself and fund's shareholders, and also to limit arbitrage opportunities against my positions. However, now I am going to try something new.
I am going to price my bids and asks more aggressively and lower the spread on BTC-TRADING-PT compared to LTC-GLOBAL. I hope this will increase the trading volume. I believe that this move will also reduce the spread on LTC-GLOBAL to some extent due to competition and arbitrage.
The downside is that I will be competing against traders more than before. Traders will have to raise their bids and reduce their asks in order to get ahead of my large positions if they hope to trade. On the other hand, I feel that traders that place their positions up against mine are missing out on opportunities to trade as a result of their misguided attempt to maximize their spread. If they lowered their spread, they would trade more and make more money in the end. I am effectively forcing them to lower their spreads.
I believe that this move will be beneficial to everyone in the long run, and I hope that everyone agrees with me. If it has no effect or it causes problems, then I will return to the normal policy.
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Monthly Report
May 2013
June 5, 2013 OverviewAsset InformationAssets: 100 shares of LTC-GLOBAL Shares Outstanding: 1000 NAV: 0.357 (based on the LTC-GLOBAL 7 day average price of 155.81 LTC) Dividend InformationDividend (paid 2013-6-4): 1.68399 BTC Dividend per share: .00168399 BTC Monthly Yield (based on NAV): 0.47% Annualized Yield: 5.64% Management FeeNormal Fee (0.08333% of asset value): 12.98 LTC Waived: 0 Fee Paid: 12.98 LTC Detailed information can be found here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Am3m7aRNI-JbdElvTTc5Vmg3bUh2WDAwc2tsLU1JcEECommentaryAfter falling sharply over the last couple months, the price of LTC-GLOBAL shares has recovered somewhat as the BTC-TC exchange has grown quite a bit. The 7-day average price stands at 155.81 LTC. Last month, the increase in the value of LTC in terms of BTC compensated for fall in the price of LTC-GLOBAL. This month, the stabilization of the LTC/BTC market and recovery of the price of LTC-GLOBAL has resulted in a dramatic increase in the NAV. By the end of the month the NAV rose to 0.357 BTC (+166%). Trading volumes of both LTC-GLOBAL and BTC-TRADING-PT continue to be very low. LTC-GLOBAL paid a monthly dividend of 86.67 LTC. After subtracting the management fee and converting to BTC, the fund earned an income of 1.68399 BTC (0.00168399 BTC per share) that was distributed on June 4, 2013. Please note that the NAV is only an estimation of the value of the shares. The trading volumes of both LTC-GLOBAL and BTC-TRADING-PT are low and the bid-ask spreads are very high, so the actual price of a share can vary quite a bit. VotingMotions must pass by a margin of 100 shares to be approved (a YES vote), or fail by a margin of 100 shares to not be approved (a NO vote). Votes with a margin of less than 100 shares receive an ABSTAIN vote. The results of motions that receive less than 200 votes will not be considered valid. At this time, voting for approval is only done for IPOs due to the lack of shares publicly held. Please vote. It is very important for the success of the exchanges and for the value of your shares. Please note the earlier deadlines for IPOs. Voting on IPOs ends sooner than established securities because trading on a security cannot begin until the security is approved. Voting for approval of assets has been temporarily suspended due to lack of participation. |
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Bought a couple of bags, time to fund them with 0.01 and hand them out to pretty much everyone.
Way ahead of you ...  Those are private keys (minikey format) on the back. I initialed each one to give it a personal touch. |
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Weekly Report Saturday, June 1, 2013 OverviewAssets: 0.05 oz. Shares Outstanding: 5 NAV: 0.1105 I regret to inform shareholders and anyone else that may be interested that I have decided to close the fund. The reason is that the participation in the fund has been much too low to justify its existence. I am surprised that the interest in owning gold is so low, but I suppose that it just can't compete with bitcoin in terms of return on investment. The fund will remain open until June 29. At that time I will do a forced buyback of any remaining shares at the spot price (of gold). In the meantime: - Shares can continue to be traded until June 29, or until I have bought back all remaining shares.
- I will buy back any shares at the current spot price. We must both be present to do this.
- I will buy any ask priced at or below the current spot price.
- I will continue to post a bid for the remaining shares at about 95% of the spot price.
- I will no longer accept gold deposits in exchange for shares.
If anyone is interested in buying the fund's gold (or any other gold), please send me an email or a PM. If you have any concerns, questions, or comments, you can post them here or send me an email or a PM. |
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