I'm skeptical.

+1 


Communication is so hard these days...

Open on time?! Pshaw!

With BFL finally doing something, it would be REALLY nice to see some added hashing for ASICminer this week.

I welcome the higher standards for assets, and hope it's a permanent trend across bitcoin business.

Great change, awesome idea too!   

It's a bet that more options traders will bet incorrectly than the bot that writes them.

One way is that Early Bird pricing instills short-term investor confidence, however unjustified that may be. A successful IPO sells, and there are obviously a lot of blind followers still out there. They take the brisk sales as a cue that other people are willing to risk investment. Even if you know for a fact that investment is from flippers, it's not like those flippers would bankroll a whole first round of an IPO if they didn't think it was worth the price of the next round.

Take AMC for example, where were the flippers on that one? That IPO was dead in the water because it was utterly deserved. If flippers decided to hop in, he may have had a chance at more uptake, but they simply weren't willing to take that risk, thus no validation was provided for less confident investors to follow along and buy in after the big boys.

Also consider that many flippers, like myself, do actually invest "long-term" (there is no true long term in bitcoin investing imo) in that very asset as well. As a matter of fact, I have held shares in every IPO I flipped right up until the point I felt that business was going to start resulting in a loss for me. Sometimes I even waited too long and got stuck, but that's not because of early bird pricing, it's because most bitbusinesses just suck in the end.

The flippers may take a profit, but they also bankroll the business. In this sense, a flipper is no less "genuine" an investor than someone who just wants to buy and hold 100% of their investment. There are "real world" situations like this on Wall Street as well. Sure, this can feel a little like insider trading, but all you need to do is stay in chat rooms and watch the securities forum for announcements. Is that time-consuming? Hell yes. Can it be profitable? Hell yes. But I have no concern for those that don't want to work as hard as myself, yet expect to make as much profit trading.

My first instinct getting into bitcoin investing was to seek out the best sources of information, and watch them like a hawk. Combine that with a little good sense and you can do pretty well.

Regarding the concern over insider trading, I have yet to see any shares of an IPO be sold without at least IRC/forum notice, but I also don't audit that behavior. Surely there is SOME info that is shared about an IPO beforehand with some people, as I doubt Ukto leaves 100% of his vetting to himself. Either way, if there are enough "insiders" and flippers, and flash IPOs become heavily chastised, it will probably just result in more businesses making private deals first, and then IPOing at higher overall prices, denying all opportunity for flippers without large bankrolls and insider connections.

Is that better or worse? Honestly I don't care, I'll seek out the best info resources for the best profits and keep doing my thing within whatever dynamic boundaries are created.

Please don't confuse any of my perspectives above to mean that I don't think there's room for improvement on ALL fronts of bitcoin business and investment. There probably are a number of alternative ways to handle things that are better than the status quo, not limited to different pricing "schemes", better vetting processes, better accountability of revenue and expenses, etc, etc, etc. I'm simply saying that it's not hard for me to find some rationale in early bird pricing.

Flipping shares is definitely part of my game (and I have arguments for why early bird shares can be a good thing, but we'll save that for later), but I held my shares in Ziggap for a while after the IPO, because of aethero's otc reputation, projected divs, and potential to be a half-decent company.

However, after the two suspiciously neat dividends of .0000002, no communication, and the downtime, I decided to unload everything I had left. While I'm not the one that drove down market price, I'm sure what I did primed that to happen. Some other seller sold deep into obnoxiously low bids not longer after I bailed out, and now the price is crippled severely.

Their next loan payment is due on the 1st I think, so we'll see what happens. Hopefully, everything is fine, and I'll regret bailing out.

Either way, hopefully the bitcoin community is learning that it's time for a higher standard of business.

You mean this?  https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=112876.msg1670011#msg1670011

First you say I'm completely wrong, then you say there's a complicated relationship.

LTC is certainly heavily manipulated, but that's not the topic.

Correlating to BTC price to LTC price manipulation is absurd. LTC follows BTC inversely, and even when it does, it's not always by enough to matter.

He didn't buy 100, he asked about buying 100 because he thought he'd have IPO'd and had tons of BTC by now.

Such a hideous thing. Welcome to bitcoin, if enough of you join us, maybe you'll recoup your losses in bitcoin value.

This thread is oozing professionalism!

This is silly, step back for a second. How does comparing your C-peens matter..?

Because there will be no profits this month, which means no dividends. Price will probably fall below .003

Can we get an update? Thanks!

So you actually accept credit cards to buy BTC, and live to tell the tale?