1. INSURANCE AGAINST WHAT?
A brief time-line for BMF - an investment company (mis)managed by usagi. This is relevant to set the scene. All quotes here (other than when identified otherwise) come from the BMT thread at
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=81993.0May 16th - the fund starts. The OP includes amongst its various points:
*6: I'm well aware of how markets work, I'm not going to bid up (or pay too high a price) for the bitcoin miners after the IPO just to get my hands on their shares. If I did that the NAV would fall after the IPO because I'm an idiot of a trader. I wish to avoid that at all costs.
Obviously usagi then went and did precisely what it had said it wouldn't do - that was just incompetence (and overestimating its own ability) not scamming in my opinion. The share IPOed at 1 BTC per share.
A bit over a month later the value of shares in BMF had dropped by around one third.
As of now, we have 2954 shares outstanding (plus 650 taken as management fee under Motion 61) and we have 1987 bitcoins in assets under management. This leads us to a NAV of approximately 0.67.
But good news - within less than a month the NAV of BMF shares had allegedly been nearly repaired (I have no knowledge of whether it genuinely had grown back or was the result of creative accounting).
NAV update:
Through precision trading we have raised the nav from 0.65 at the time of the motion to 0.866 today!
usagi then signed an insurance contract with CPA - to insure against NAV loss. usagi also runs CPA - which is pretty much a black box (or even a black-hole). usagi was thus representing both BMF and CPA when agreeing the contract. Here is the first mention of it in BMF's thread:
NAV update:
Through precision trading we have raised the nav from 0.65 at the time of the motion to 0.866 today!
This puts us within a month away from recovery. If I can pull a few more good deals like this we could be paying divs again by the end of the month.
I just want you to know I am doing my best to get this done. Let's all hope for the best, thanks.
We have continued to make best efforts towards repairing our NAV and resuming dividends.
To this end we have signed an insurance contract with CPA which indemnifies us against capital loss.
We have decided to
publish this contract, to give a clearer picture of what is going on with BMF these days.
This contract means we will likely begin paying dividends again by next week.
This is good news! Ok, don't celebrate yet, let's get through the week first
Thank you for your support, shareholders.
It's clear from the post that usagi was confident nav was about to reach 1.0 again - and was taking out insurance to ensure it couldn't fall below 1.0 again. Note also that there was no earlier mention of this contract, no share-holder vote on it and no explanation in any detail of what the contract contained.
I quote below the text of the contract:
"A. NAV Insurance Contract
1. BMF ("the customer") will be indemnified (by CPA) against loss defined
as a NAV (Net Asset Value) of less than 1 per unit.
2. CPA will not be liable for loss greater than 500 bitcoins.
3. Multiple indemnification payments are allowed so far as the total amount
does not exceed 500 bitcoins.
4. Neither party may cancel this contract although any party may choose to
accelerate their obligation at any time.
5. All payments by either party must be tagged with .000012 to show that
they belong to CPA Contract #12. Ex. a payment of 95 btc would be sent
as 95.000012.
B. Payment of Premium
1. BMF will send 5 bitcoins per calendar week for 110 weeks to CPA at
[1EGXZ8kPwEeomiepZwwZayZYdH5nQTkc1f] ("CPA Marked Deposit Address").
2. Any and all payments of 5 bitcoins sent to this address will satisfy
BMF's obligation in this regard.
3. Payments made late (after the insured period begins) will be assigned
a late fee of 10%.
4. Multiple payments may be sent at the same time provided the marker is
not changed (i.e. 10.000012 for two weeks, 15.000012 for three weeks).
C. Indemnification
1. From time to time (and/or at the bequest of BMF), CPA will monitor
BMF's NAV (Net Asset Value).
2. At that time, should BMF's NAV be less than one, CPA will transfer
100 bitcoins to BMF at address [1N9xQivX5yEYXafjJfeQYtSiq1iT6h9sek]
("BMF Marked Deposit Address").
D. DISPUTE RESOLUTION
1. Any controversy or claim arising out of or relating to this contract, or
the breach of this contract, shall be settled by binding internet
arbitration at judge.me in accordance with the judge.me arbitration
agreement. The arbitrator's decision shall be final and legally binding
and judgment may be entered thereon.
2. The customer must indemnify (make whole) CPA's incurred legal fees if
they lose their claim, limited to the amount required to be paid by CPA
to judge.me.
3. All judge.me fees related to this contract must be paid in bitcoins."
Here's a summary of the key points:
1. BMF is paying 5 BTC per week for 110 weeks - total premiums of 550 BTC.
2. BMF is insured against "loss defined as a NAV (Net Asset Value) of less than 1 per unit."
3. The total which BMF can claim back is 500 BTC - but only in 100 BTC blocks (there's no mention of any qualifying period between successive claims).
It all seems very straightfroward.
But then towards the end of the month, Pirate defaults and share prices crash everywhere. BMF loses a whole chunk of value and CPA, the insurers, have a major liquidity crisis - to the extent that usagi worried in a different thread that CPA may go to a NAV of zero. CPA's liquidity issues were, of course, not the concern of BMF investors. BMF would just have to wait in line with the other creditors to get paid out, right? Well no - as usagi never claimed on the policy for BMF (and hasn't to this day).
On September 9th I made the following post in the thread:
If NAV has fallen below 1 shouldn't you just ask CPA to audit and pay-out on your insurance policy? The policy was for NAV falling below 1 - and you stated it was about 0.57. If that doesn't trigger a payout what does?
My post was then quoted by someone else and usagi replied to them (but not to my question) as follows:
If NAV has fallen below 1 shouldn't you just ask CPA to audit and pay-out on your insurance policy? The policy was for NAV falling below 1 - and you stated it was about 0.57. If that doesn't trigger a payout what does?
If I am reading this correctly, CPA signed a contract to payout when BMF was below 1 ?
But BMF was already below 1 when the contract was signed. Quote from: usagi on July 15, 2012, 05:36:53 PM
NAV update:
Through precision trading we have raised the nav from 0.65 at the time of the motion to 0.866 today!
This puts us within a month away from recovery. If I can pull a few more good deals like this we could be paying divs again by the end of the month.
I just want you to know I am doing my best to get this done. Let's all hope for the best, thanks.
We have continued to make best efforts towards repairing our NAV and resuming dividends.
To this end we have signed an insurance contract with CPA which indemnifies us against capital loss.
We have decided to publish this contract, to give a clearer picture of what is going on with BMF these days.
This contract means we will likely begin paying dividends again by next week.
This is good news! Ok, don't celebrate yet, let's get through the week first Smiley
Thank you for your support, shareholders.
This is like signing a contract to pay out on your house getting burnt down when your house has already burnt down.
You can't be serious. Look at the date on the post you are quoting. This was announced, publicized, motioned, voted on and passed two months ago. If you wanted to complain you should have done it then. Seriously, go bother hashking, pirate or matthew; look around and you will see I run the finest companies on GLBSE.
And while you're at it, read the contract we signed VERY VERY CLOSELY and you will "see what I did there".
Now. If you're a shareholder, please go vote on the motion
Seriously - You wanna know what my shareholders think of me? Wait till the motion passes and look at the numbers. Until then if you are not a shareholder do not post on this thread or I'll lock it and make a new one with local rules. Please, don't ruin this by dragging innuendo and BS onto here as well.
Now look at what usagi claims in response (to bitcoin.me, my question was ignored):
"This was announced, publicized, motioned, voted on and passed two months ago."
Oh really? Where? This is a blatant lie. There is no publicity and no motion prior to the post announcing it as a done deal.
It is debatable whether the original contract was ever in the interests of BMF shareholders. At a minimum, given that usagi was also wearing the hat of the other party (CPA) shareholders should have been given a proper explanation of what the contract meant for them and why it was good value to pay 550 BTC for 500 BTC of insurance cover.
It's not (in my view) debatable that failing to claim under the insurance (because CPA were short of cash) is defrauding and scamming the investors of BMF. They paid for something - and usagi should have ensured they got that something (and is the only person in a position to honour that insurance). Instead they're just paying 5 BTC a week to CPA for absolutely no gain.
It's absolutely clear from the contract and the context in which it was introduced to investors what this insurance was against. Yet usagi has refused to ever claim on it.
My second point will have to be made later (hopefully today) as I have other things I need to tend to.