Nefario GLBSE

[legolouman]

I don't really understand where the debate is. Because Nefario doesn't have the authority to honor his word means that he is 'all good'?

My understanding:

He acknowledged the shares were fake, but agreed to 'honor' them, making them real GLBSE stock

Goat then buys it, thinking that it will become real stock

Nefario cannot make it stock, because he assumed he had more power than he did. Obviously, he could have known he cannot just 'make more stock'

Now to clean it all up, the fake, but then real, but now fake again stock is being bought back for the initial IPO listing price?


However, at the same time, I feel that if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. It would be like going to a car dealership and being offered a price that is too low. Being told You are paying $$$$, but the contract says $$$$$. Would the dealership be a 'scammer'?

[kjj]

Do you have a citation for the pricing?  I haven't seen anything to suggest that Goat purchased at the IPO price and then sold for a profit.  It sounds more like he purchased them for 10 BTC each, but I don't think he's actually said that explicitly.

Goat never stated or even implied he bought shares for 10 BTC ea.  He did however sell fake shares he knew were worthless for 10 BTC to unsuspecting fools.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=109660.msg1212459#msg1212459

Ahh.  Found it.

I sold 2x at 10 btc and one at 11 btc.

I paid something like .05 btc for them. I still have many more I will sell but looking to get close to 10BTC each 

Goat apparently paid something like 0.05 BTC each for them.  Nefario should offer to repurchase them from him at 0.05 or 0.06 BTC each, out of his own personal funds.  If he does, I think that everyone (except possibly Goat) would consider the matter to be equitably resolved.

The matter of the shares that people purchased from Goat is a different matter.  The good news is that it sounds like there are only 3 of them, and I don't think any of them have come forward, so they might be happy with their 10 BTC collector's items.

[Vbs]

I don't really understand where the debate is. Because Nefario doesn't have the authority to honor his word means that he is 'all good'?

My understanding:

He acknowledged the shares were fake, but agreed to 'honor' them, making them real GLBSE stock

Goat then buys it, thinking that it will become real stock

Nefario cannot make it stock, because he assumed he had more power than he did. Obviously, he could have known he cannot just 'make more stock'

Now to clean it all up, the fake, but then real, but now fake again stock is being bought back for the initial IPO listing price?


However, at the same time, I feel that if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. It would be like going to a car dealership and being offered a price that is too low. Being told You are paying $$$$, but the contract says $$$$$. Would the dealership be a 'scammer'?

It's more like: You go to a car dealership and the vendor, by mistake, offered you a price that was too low, let's say 10% of what it was really worth. Later, after seeing he made a mistake, he says he will honor the price. And you say: "Oh, yes? Then I'll buy 10!!!".

So, while he was trying to cover your "losses" out of good-will, you use that good-will to maximize your own profit at his expense.

[Luke-Jr]

IMO, if Nefario also said not to buy them, he's under no obligation to honour ones bought afterward...

[Bitcoin Oz]

Nefario didnt scam the people Goat sold the shares to for 10btc. Goat scammed them.

[kjj]

Nefario didnt scam the people Goat sold the shares to for 10btc. Goat scammed them.

This seems to be an unfounded accusation.  Do you have some evidence that he acted in less than good faith?

If Goat had inside information that the Nefario would not honor his word, but that information wasn't also available to the people he sold them to, I could see it.  But your dislike of profit doesn't seem sufficient.

[legolouman]

I don't really understand where the debate is. Because Nefario doesn't have the authority to honor his word means that he is 'all good'?

My understanding:

He acknowledged the shares were fake, but agreed to 'honor' them, making them real GLBSE stock

Goat then buys it, thinking that it will become real stock

Nefario cannot make it stock, because he assumed he had more power than he did. Obviously, he could have known he cannot just 'make more stock'

Now to clean it all up, the fake, but then real, but now fake again stock is being bought back for the initial IPO listing price?


However, at the same time, I feel that if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. It would be like going to a car dealership and being offered a price that is too low. Being told You are paying $$$$, but the contract says $$$$$. Would the dealership be a 'scammer'?

It's more like: You go to a car dealership and the vendor, by mistake, offered you a price that was too low, let's say 10% of what it was really worth. Later, after seeing he made a mistake, he says he will honor the price. And you say: "Oh, yes? Then I'll buy 10!!!".

So, while he was trying to cover your "losses" out of good-will, you use that good-will to maximize your own profit at his expense.

This makes sense. Though wouldn't the car dealer like to do the same to you? Buy back you car for 10% its value or sell you cars at 1000% their value?

Generally, I don't see an issue in exploiting a businesses mistake, because you can't expect to make money on trust.

Since I seemed to have missed that Goat sold his shares for 10BTC each, and now wants a refund its like double dipping. Buying those 10 cars for 10% of their value, and soon returning them, demanding full price back.

[sadpandatech]

IMO, if Nefario also said not to buy them, he's under no obligation to honour ones bought afterward...

yep, he made that pretty clear, imo.

The offer was to reimburse the people who got suckered by the scam issuer. IT was never intended to cover 'illegal' trades executed after that statment time.  Goat knows this.

[sadpandatech]

Nefario didnt scam the people Goat sold the shares to for 10btc. Goat scammed them.

This seems to be an unfounded accusation.  Do you have some evidence that he acted in less than good faith?

If Goat had inside information that the Nefario would not honor his word, but that information wasn't also available to the people he sold them to, I could see it.  But your dislike of profit doesn't seem sufficient.

It's about reasonable expectation.  Goat knew damn well, there was never a reasonable expectation for the fake shares to be worth that. The fact he convinced others of that value changes nothing.

And the damn GLBSE ticker shold ahve been fuggin frozen 7 months ago when this was first talked about...

[legolouman]

Nefario didnt scam the people Goat sold the shares to for 10btc. Goat scammed them.

This seems to be an unfounded accusation.  Do you have some evidence that he acted in less than good faith?

If Goat had inside information that the Nefario would not honor his word, but that information wasn't also available to the people he sold them to, I could see it.  But your dislike of profit doesn't seem sufficient.

It's about reasonable expectation.  Goat knew damn well, there was never a reasonable expectation for the fake shares to be worth that. The fact he convinced others of that value changes nothing.

And the damn GLBSE ticker shold ahve been fuggin frozen 7 months ago when this was first talked about...

Can we blame Nefario for all of this since he didn't freeze the ticker? Or block the ticker altogether way back? I like how he handles situations where action has to be taken.

[Bitcoin Oz]

Nefario didnt scam the people Goat sold the shares to for 10btc. Goat scammed them.

This seems to be an unfounded accusation.  Do you have some evidence that he acted in less than good faith?

If Goat had inside information that the Nefario would not honor his word, but that information wasn't also available to the people he sold them to, I could see it.  But your dislike of profit doesn't seem sufficient.

They were scam trades because Goat had no agreement that he could on-sell those shares. Even real glbse shareholders cant sell their shares to non members.Goat is calling Nefario a scammer because Nefario wont let him make 10,000% profit. Can you see how insane that is

[Bitcoin Oz]

Nefario didnt scam the people Goat sold the shares to for 10btc. Goat scammed them.

This seems to be an unfounded accusation.  Do you have some evidence that he acted in less than good faith?

If Goat had inside information that the Nefario would not honor his word, but that information wasn't also available to the people he sold them to, I could see it.  But your dislike of profit doesn't seem sufficient.

It's about reasonable expectation.  Goat knew damn well, there was never a reasonable expectation for the fake shares to be worth that. The fact he convinced others of that value changes nothing.

And the damn GLBSE ticker shold ahve been fuggin frozen 7 months ago when this was first talked about...

I will agree with that. It allowed Goat to take advantage of people.

[kjj]

Nefario didnt scam the people Goat sold the shares to for 10btc. Goat scammed them.

This seems to be an unfounded accusation.  Do you have some evidence that he acted in less than good faith?

If Goat had inside information that the Nefario would not honor his word, but that information wasn't also available to the people he sold them to, I could see it.  But your dislike of profit doesn't seem sufficient.

They were scam trades because Goat had no agreement that he could on-sell those shares. Even real glbse shareholders cant sell their shares to non members.Goat is calling Nefario a scammer because Nefario wont let him make 10,000% profit. Can you see how insane that is

Two insanes don't make a right.

The shares were his property.  He needs no agreement to sell his property.  And you are pushing a double standard here, you say that Goat is guilty because he should have known that they were worthless, but the people he was selling to had the exact same information (unless some evidence is produced that says otherwise), namely a statement from Nefario, and you don't expect the purchasers to know that they are worthless.  If you want to show fraud here, show me a statement from Goat that he knew to be untrue at the time, not one that you, in hindsight, claim that he should have known to be untrue.

Goat might be a douche for wanting Nefario to buy them for 10 BTC each, but that doesn't make him a scammer, and more than Nefario's mistaken statement about honoring them makes him a scammer.

As far as I'm concerned, if Nefario would replace his forced buyback with a voluntary offer, at the same price, the matter would be fully and successfully resolved.  I'm not a big fan of forced buybacks, and I think that some people may want to hold on to the shares as collector's items.  Hell, I'd pay a couple of BTC for one, if I had a promise from the exchange board that they wouldn't be retracted or renamed, even if they are otherwise totally bogus.

But that isn't my call.  The exchange has considerable authority over such things, and they are in the best position to evaluate their options and the consequences of them.

[DeathAndTaxes]

The issue is a voluntary buyback doesn't resolve the issue of people like Goat committing fraud in the future trying to sell the worthless shares for 10, 100, 1,000 BTC, and then the people saying why didn't GLBSE prevent this.  This all came up again when there was a thread where people were once again attempted to unload the worthless shares.

[Bitcoin Oz]

The issue is a voluntary buyback doesn't resolve the issue of people like Goat committing fraud in the future trying to sell the worthless shares for 10, 100, 1,000 BTC, and then the people saying why didn't GLBSE prevent this.  This all came up again when there was a thread where people were once again attempted to unload the worthless shares.

300 shares of 500 shares is  a lot different than 300 shares of 10,000,000

People wanting these fake shares would do well to remember that wrt to future value.

[stochastic]

I'm calling it now: Nefario will pay for this out of his own pocket. Everything will go back to normal.

So many scams going around these days, he could really reap the benefits of being known for truth, honesty, integrity, and having a safe sexchange.

+1

Yes, I think we can all agree that having a safe sexchange is of considerable importance to the bitcoin economy. But back onto the topic at hand.

Really what happened is 7-8 months ago there was a scam on GLBSE that a number of people fell for. This was prior to the time that GLBSE started to vet assets. On a weekend when I was away someone launched an asset called GLBSE, a number of people bought it without checking if it was legit.

Total amount scammed was along the lines of about 30BTC.

The problem we currently have was caused by how I dealt with this. Failing to reserve the asset name GLBSE I felt had enabled it to happen. And I announced that those assets that were sold would be honored, at the time I thought I had the power to make this decision.

Turns out I didn't, GLBSE has bylaws and rules which it operates by (despite what some people think I can't do what I like) and to issue more shares (which is what this would amount to) required a vote of approval from existing shareholders. It also requires a vote of approval to allow someone who is not already a shareholder to become one.

Now several months later we're registering GLBSE as a legitimate company, with registered shareholders, because we want to bring on real companies to list. So this means we have to cross the T's and dot the i's. As a result I can't leave this issue as it currently stands.

What can I say, I messed up several months ago and now it's back to bite me in the ass.

Did I make a mistake while running the first bitcoin stock exchange in the early days, yes and I'm probably going to make other mistakes down the line, I'm human and what we're doing has never been done before, so that seems inevitable.

Did I scam people, intentionally mislead or swindle them? No.

GLBSE and I didn't sell any of those shares and we didn't profit from them, quite the contrary we're buying them back at the price they were originally sold, so thats a direct cost to us.

When I made those statements about honoring the asset, I did so in good faith, based on the assumption that I had the power to do so, that assumption turned out to be wrong.

You opened GLBSE up to serious litigation problems in the future.  I would say find some kind of way to settle this with people that own the fake shares.

[kjj]

The issue is a voluntary buyback doesn't resolve the issue of people like Goat committing fraud in the future trying to sell the worthless shares for 10, 100, 1,000 BTC, and then the people saying why didn't GLBSE prevent this.  This all came up again when there was a thread where people were once again attempted to unload the worthless shares.

Meh.  Just re-list them, with a big notice on the details page that they are only collectors items with no inherent value, and not actual shares in any company, certainly not in the exchange itself.  Then when GLBSE goes public, they can take the ticker GLBSE2, as a history lesson, and a reminder that mistakes can have long lasting and far reaching consequences.

Many of us that are involved with bitcoin are doing so because we find depriving people of their rightful property distasteful.  GLBSE should consider very carefully what messages they want to send to their customers.  Some of us are already uncomfortable that all shares are held in street name.  Well, worse than street name, actually, since a single entity is acting as both brokerage and exchange.  This is an opportunity to show that GLBSE respects the ownership of the properties that it is custodian of, even when it hurts.

Also, love your loaded phrasing.  Classic.

[Bitcoin Oz]

The issue is a voluntary buyback doesn't resolve the issue of people like Goat committing fraud in the future trying to sell the worthless shares for 10, 100, 1,000 BTC, and then the people saying why didn't GLBSE prevent this.  This all came up again when there was a thread where people were once again attempted to unload the worthless shares.

Meh.  Just re-list them, with a big notice on the details page that they are only collectors items with no inherent value, and not actual shares in any company, certainly not in the exchange itself.  Then when GLBSE goes public, they can take the ticker GLBSE2, as a history lesson, and a reminder that mistakes can have long lasting and far reaching consequences.

Many of us that are involved with bitcoin are doing so because we find depriving people of their rightful property distasteful.  GLBSE should consider very carefully what messages they want to send to their customers.  Some of us are already uncomfortable that all shares are held in street name.  Well, worse than street name, actually, since a single entity is acting as both brokerage and exchange.  This is an opportunity to show that GLBSE respects the ownership of the properties that it is custodian of, even when it hurts.

Also, love your loaded phrasing.  Classic.

The thief didnt respect the property of GLBSE either. If anyone wants to be mad at someone be mad at them.

You cant just go into a house that has its door open and take their shit without permission.

[Nefario]

We've offered to buyback the fake asset for 0.12BTC per asset, and to PM me if you want to do so.

I'm going to be speaking to our lawyer on this in the morning and taking his advice on what action to take regarding this for anyone who doesn't want to take this offer.

[stochastic]

We've offered to buyback the fake asset for 0.12BTC per asset, and to PM me if you want to do so.

I'm going to be speaking to our lawyer on this in the morning and taking his advice on what action to take regarding this for anyone who doesn't want to take this offer.

Good plan.