Which assets are worth investing in?

[bitcoinbear]

There has been a recent rash of assets closing down. I thought it would be good to make a list of securities which are still worth looking at. Depending on the discussion, I will try to keep an updated list.

What I am looking for is things which are not scams, not mining unless there is something special about it (there are other threads discussing the benefits and detriments of such).

To be included in the list they should be agreed by at least two people. Please do not nominate your own assets.

If at any point news comes up regarding the viability or continued existence of any of these assets, please share and they may be removed from the list.

---

List (will be updated):

S.DICE
S.MPOE

[bitcoinbear]

I guess I can start nominating some:

[glbse] IBB - It is one of the oldest assets still trading. Providing loans at 0% is not as sexy as 7% a week, but it seems to be more sustainable. I am a bit confused why the price has remained so high, despite the early losses from bad loans. New shares are being sold right now, so the NAV is being moved closer to the price. Seems like a decent buy if you can get in below the average market price.

[MPEx] s.dice / [glbse] GSDPT - SatoshiDice - Why gamble when you can own the house?

[MPEx] s.mpoe / [glbse] MPOE.ETF - similar to the previous reasoning, people are trading on it, own a part of the action.

[glbse] BitcoinTorrentz - Another long-standing glbse asset providing a service to the community.

[glbse] MOORE - I think this may qualify as an exception to the mining, since it promises to grow and thus continue increasing payment despite difficulty increases?

[Deprived]

Here's a few:

Any of usagi's companies - they can double the value of a security just by buying it.  Which is like printing money.  And their OBSI.HRPT shares are worth 0.1 when everyone else's are worth <0.02.  They also have a sophisticated currency-exchange system which can always be used to find SOME currency in which you made a profit by investing in them (though there could be problems actually converting your shares into monopoly money).

DMC - the guy running that can spot value in deals that everyone else would think was just burning money.

Pirate Debt - you'd lose less money buying this than buying most other securities.  And wouldn't have to damage your brain reading retarded weekly reports about how well your investment is doing.

[bitcoinbear]

Here's a few:

Any of usagi's companies - they can double the value of a security just by buying it.  Which is like printing money.  And their OBSI.HRPT shares are worth 0.1 when everyone else's are worth <0.02.  They also have a sophisticated currency-exchange system which can always be used to find SOME currency in which you made a profit by investing in them (though there could be problems actually converting your shares into monopoly money).

DMC - the guy running that can spot value in deals that everyone else would think was just burning money.

Pirate Debt - you'd lose less money buying this than buying most other securities.  And wouldn't have to damage your brain reading retarded weekly reports about how well your investment is doing.

I think you forgot the sarcasm tags?

I thought about specifically mentioning I want to stay away from usagi's funds, but I thought that would be covered by the "no scams" stipulation.

[markm]

Bitcoins themselves are one of the best investments around, it seems.

Browsing the tables at http://galaxies.mygamesonline.org/digitalisassets.html only about three assets (over toward the right in the shares category) jump out at me as doing better than simply holding bitcoins.

-MarkM-

[Bugpowder]

My list :

1) S.MPOE - Equity stake in a the bitcoin options exchange and MPEX, paid 1.3% this month (record high, aberration?)

2) S.DICE - Satoshi Dice, a bitcoin gambling site yielding 0.5-2% a month dividend payout. http://polimedia.us/bitcoin/assets/S.DICE_Prospectus_Full.pdf

3) BitVPS - A virtual private server service that gets revenues in bitcoin, currently paying dividends at 1-2% / month

4) Gigamining - The #1 bitcoin mining rig operator, who is currently paying out around 6% a month in revenues, but this is falling fast, shares will be upgraded to a new venture, Teramining when a disruptive new technology ASIC mining chips come out.  Higher risk, higher rewards.

5) MPCD.A, MPCD.B - The top two tranches of a bitcoin CDO composed of assorted higher yielding, and risky assets.  Pays 2% / mo for the A tranche, 3% / mo for the B tranche.

6) Bonds backing the MPOE, a bitcoin options exchange.  These bonds provide the working capital for the market-maker of the options exchange.  They yield 5% / month, but face serious risk of capital loss if the options market-maker loses money from the sold positions. Requires high capital.



Bitcoinbear, if you are interested in MPEX investing but can't afford the startup fee, I am willing to offer you a stake in my portfolio.  It's distributed exclusively across the top 5 assets listed above.  This would be a private offering, off-exchange, with gpg signed contracts and a google doc with asset listing.  I am doing this for a few of my friends in real life, thinking about whether its worth the hassle to let online peeps tag along too.  Of course, if you have >400 BTC you are probably better off just buying a seat at the exchange and investing there yourself.

[Fjordbit]

Bitcoins themselves are one of the best investments around, it seems.

Browsing the tables at http://galaxies.mygamesonline.org/digitalisassets.html only about three assets (over toward the right in the shares category) jump out at me as doing better than simply holding bitcoins.

The problem is that this table doesn't seem to take into consideration dividends.

[Deprived]

I think having a piece of satoshidice is pretty cool, being they are currently the most popular addresses, etc. Big part of bitcoin culture.

I think ASICMINER is an interesting gamble. I like the way Flying Dutchman Bitcoin Fund is run.

I agree with you on ASICMINER - it's a gamble, but an interesting one.

It has a chance of a VERY high upside (if their chips work well and they get them out before competitors' ones are around).  It also has a fall-back position if they don't get to the party first but also don't arrive too late (even if they miss being first to mine with ASICs then can still join the mining AND sell chips/rigs - leveraging the relatively cheap Chinese production costs).  And a risk of heavy loss if their chips just don't work. (all those options are heavily simplified).

For me it's a decent gamble to take - and due to a few large initial investors having to offload their shares in a rush the price hasn't risen as much as it maybe should have.  The reason the price should have risen is simple: IF you assume the initial investment was a valid one and decent value then the plan was ALWAYS that there'd be a lengthy period of no dividends before any revenue was generated.  As that period passes without any significant news (for better or for worse) or deviation from the plan then the price should be rising in relation to the lost opportunity cost of just holding those shares during that period.

I'm not convinced that Satoshidice is a good long-term investment - it doesn't seem to have the sort of growth I'd be looking for from a product that was first-to-market with an easily reproducible product.  Basically my concern is that it's a short-term fad that in a year or two will have neglibigle use without ever having repaid the investment (and with no assets of any worth to dispose of).  I'm not SURE it's a bad investment - just not seeing enough to make me convinced it's a good one.

I like the way LDBF is run (nice and transparent) - not quite so convinced that they'll actually make any sort of long-term profit.  Also they have the problem of ANY transparent investment fund - anyone with significant funds can pretty much just mirror their investments and save themselves the management fee.

[markm]

Bitcoins themselves are one of the best investments around, it seems.

Browsing the tables at http://galaxies.mygamesonline.org/digitalisassets.html only about three assets (over toward the right in the shares category) jump out at me as doing better than simply holding bitcoins.

The problem is that this table doesn't seem to take into consideration dividends.

There are no dividends. Dividends tend to make prices go in saw-toothed waves, and complicate the process of valuing an asset and even require advance knowledge of future dividends in order to value them.

Also, I know the vast majority of my original population of participants would simply never bother selling anything that pays dividends, since to them it would be simply a magic money-machine and the concept of amortising the value of such a machine would simply not enter the heads of most of them. Once they own such machines the idea of selling them would seem just totally crazy. They are hoarders, they have rooms piled full of magic swords and/or planets piled high with laser cannons and deathstars, dungeons full of piles of jewels and bars of gold, more suits of magic armour than they could ever use and so on. The idea of selling a magic money machine is crazy, there are plenty of things that do not send you free money all the time to get rid of before selling things that make money out of thin air.

Not having dividends forces people to have to sell in order to "realise" profit... oh wait no even that doesn't actually, since they could instead pile up all their nicely-appreciating assets in a collateral aka leverage aka margin account and borrow something that is not appreciating as fast to buy stuff with. (Even to buy more of the stuff that goes up fastest if anyone is actually selling such things...)

In short I really am not a fan of dividends so I try to discourage their use.

-MarkM-

[MPOE-PR]

I think having a piece of satoshidice is pretty cool, being they are currently the most popular addresses, etc. Big part of bitcoin culture.

I think ASICMINER is an interesting gamble. I like the way Flying Dutchman Bitcoin Fund is run.

BTC-Mining/Namjies's fund is prolly worth the mention along with the Dutchman.

They yield 5% / month

Actually there's no fixed limit on what they yield, it's an auction-based model (sort of like how Treasuries are sold). That aside, the yield has sort of stuck around 5%.

then the price should be rising in relation to the lost opportunity cost of just holding those shares during that period.

In practice the opposite is more likely I'd think.

[nimda]

Bitcoins themselves are one of the best investments around, it seems.

Browsing the tables at http://galaxies.mygamesonline.org/digitalisassets.html only about three assets (over toward the right in the shares category) jump out at me as doing better than simply holding bitcoins.

The problem is that this table doesn't seem to take into consideration dividends.

There are no dividends. Dividends tend to make prices go in saw-toothed waves

Those saw-toothed waves allowed me to make a great profit buying and selling Tygrr-bond-P shares in-between dividends with vastly reduced pirate-default exposure

[Deprived]

I think having a piece of satoshidice is pretty cool, being they are currently the most popular addresses, etc. Big part of bitcoin culture.

I think ASICMINER is an interesting gamble. I like the way Flying Dutchman Bitcoin Fund is run.

BTC-Mining/Namjies's fund is prolly worth the mention along with the Dutchman.

They yield 5% / month

Actually there's no fixed limit on what they yield, it's an auction-based model (sort of like how Treasuries are sold). That aside, the yield has sort of stuck around 5%.

then the price should be rising in relation to the lost opportunity cost of just holding those shares during that period.

In practice the opposite is more likely I'd think.

We may be talking at cross-purposes.

Consider ASICMINER as something which starts with value X (IPO price) then at some future date will suddenly become worth Y.  The point at which it becomes worth Y is when the chips begin mining.  Now for the purpose of evaluating Y you have to look at the different possible outcomes and the chance of each then calculate the EV at that point (which includes the chance of zero value due to the chips never working).

For ASICMINER to be a viable investment at all, that value Y (the EV of all outcomes at some future point) has to be higher than X.  If you believe it lower than X then obviously the share only has value if you short it.

My point about value rising was on the assumption that Y is higher than X (that's my assessment and we'll NEVER know if I was right or not - as we'll only know what actually happens, not what the likelihood of that particular outcome actually was).

If we take as a given that Y is higher than X then my argument is that the value of the share should gradually rise from X to Y until the instant when the outcome is known when it'll either drop or rise based on the actual results.  The alternative argument is that the value stays at X until the outcome is known then changes all at once.

My argument in essence relies on two points:

1.  Money not making a profit is an opportunity cost.  I can't see any valid argument against this other than if the contention is that there's no way to make profit from money.  So if the value of the share doesn't rise then there's zero incentive to buy it at the start rather than use your money to make profit and buy into it later.

2.  If it has an expected value Y in the future then its value to you NOW is Y less the profit you could reasonably otherwise make from employing your funds elsewhere in the meantime (to be pedantic that also has to be adjusted to account for your tolerance of risk/variance).

Irrespective of which pricing model you use, as time passes and more information becomes available, you should become better able to estimate what Y is (and adjust your pricing accordingly).  My argument also relied on the fact that so far no news has emerged about ASIC or BFL or any other competitor that changes anything significantly.  BFL have upped their specs as expected - but the key issue is who delivers first.

[Deprived]

Totally forgot my original point - of why we may be talking at cross-purposes.

I was talking about how the share SHOULD be valued.  You may well have been talking about what's likely to happen to its value on GLBSE.  In which case we have no fundamental disagreement - I owuld not be at all surprised if ASICMINER shares took a big dip for reasons totally unrelated to the likely success (or otherwise) of their project.

But as, in my model, that wouldn't change Y - the POSSIBILITY of it happening isn't a reason not to invest (as success would still deliver the same benefits - given how the payout structure is setup).  In fact my original post's point was that it's likely its current price is depressed for reasons unrelated to the project itself.

[bitcoinbear]

Consider ASICMINER as something which starts with value X (IPO price) then at some future date will suddenly become worth Y.  The point at which it becomes worth Y is when the chips begin mining.  Now for the purpose of evaluating Y you have to look at the different possible outcomes and the chance of each then calculate the EV at that point (which includes the chance of zero value due to the chips never working).

For ASICMINER to be a viable investment at all, that value Y (the EV of all outcomes at some future point) has to be higher than X.  If you believe it lower than X then obviously the share only has value if you short it.

My point about value rising was on the assumption that Y is higher than X (that's my assessment and we'll NEVER know if I was right or not - as we'll only know what actually happens, not what the likelihood of that particular outcome actually was).

If we take as a given that Y is higher than X then my argument is that the value of the share should gradually rise from X to Y until the instant when the outcome is known when it'll either drop or rise based on the actual results.  The alternative argument is that the value stays at X until the outcome is known then changes all at once.

My argument in essence relies on two points:

1.  Money not making a profit is an opportunity cost.  I can't see any valid argument against this other than if the contention is that there's no way to make profit from money.  So if the value of the share doesn't rise then there's zero incentive to buy it at the start rather than use your money to make profit and buy into it later.

2.  If it has an expected value Y in the future then its value to you NOW is Y less the profit you could reasonably otherwise make from employing your funds elsewhere in the meantime (to be pedantic that also has to be adjusted to account for your tolerance of risk/variance).

Irrespective of which pricing model you use, as time passes and more information becomes available, you should become better able to estimate what Y is (and adjust your pricing accordingly).  My argument also relied on the fact that so far no news has emerged about ASIC or BFL or any other competitor that changes anything significantly.  BFL have upped their specs as expected - but the key issue is who delivers first.

Perhaps the waiting time with no updates has weakened the investors' confidence. It may also be as you suggested earlier, a few of the initial investors needed their money for other things (like paying back money they lost on Pirate).

[Deprived]

Consider ASICMINER as something which starts with value X (IPO price) then at some future date will suddenly become worth Y.  The point at which it becomes worth Y is when the chips begin mining.  Now for the purpose of evaluating Y you have to look at the different possible outcomes and the chance of each then calculate the EV at that point (which includes the chance of zero value due to the chips never working).

For ASICMINER to be a viable investment at all, that value Y (the EV of all outcomes at some future point) has to be higher than X.  If you believe it lower than X then obviously the share only has value if you short it.

My point about value rising was on the assumption that Y is higher than X (that's my assessment and we'll NEVER know if I was right or not - as we'll only know what actually happens, not what the likelihood of that particular outcome actually was).

If we take as a given that Y is higher than X then my argument is that the value of the share should gradually rise from X to Y until the instant when the outcome is known when it'll either drop or rise based on the actual results.  The alternative argument is that the value stays at X until the outcome is known then changes all at once.

My argument in essence relies on two points:

1.  Money not making a profit is an opportunity cost.  I can't see any valid argument against this other than if the contention is that there's no way to make profit from money.  So if the value of the share doesn't rise then there's zero incentive to buy it at the start rather than use your money to make profit and buy into it later.

2.  If it has an expected value Y in the future then its value to you NOW is Y less the profit you could reasonably otherwise make from employing your funds elsewhere in the meantime (to be pedantic that also has to be adjusted to account for your tolerance of risk/variance).

Irrespective of which pricing model you use, as time passes and more information becomes available, you should become better able to estimate what Y is (and adjust your pricing accordingly).  My argument also relied on the fact that so far no news has emerged about ASIC or BFL or any other competitor that changes anything significantly.  BFL have upped their specs as expected - but the key issue is who delivers first.

Perhaps the waiting time with no updates has weakened the investors' confidence. It may also be as you suggested earlier, a few of the initial investors needed their money for other things (like paying back money they lost on Pirate).

The recent price slumps were 100% due to a large investor dumping to all orders above 1.0 every day or two.  I actually watched it happen one day - he obviously put all his shares up on Ask at a low price then cancelled what was left after he'd cleared the orders.  I saw his 3,600 shares up on ask briefly.  What I don't know is if it was only one investor - but the same pattern was repeated most days: bids slowly rose then one person wiped them out down to somewhere in the 0.1 to 0.105 range.  Doing it over a lengthy period like that is the act of someone who needs to cash out (but not desperately enough to sell at a loss) - not the act of someone who knows the project has gone horribly wrong (the latter would need to shift the shares faster before others found out the secret information).

I wouldn't say there's been NO updates - there was a brief update which indicated proto run would be done in 3x - 5x days time : putting arrival of the first small batch (for testing and mining) at late october - mid november.  That doesn't really change anything - BFL's update was actually less specific on dates (but did give higher specs than previously) and only talked about October/November for a potential manufacturing-site inspection.

Essentially all we've learned is that both operations haven't had any significant delays that they're willing to admit to and that neither is yet able to commit to a firm delivery date.  That's no different to when ASICMINER launched.

[Deprived]

The recent price slumps were 100% due to a large investor dumping to all orders above 1.0 every day or two.  I actually watched it happen one day - he obviously put all his shares up on Ask at a low price then cancelled what was left after he'd cleared the orders.  I saw his 3,600 shares up on ask briefly.  What I don't know is if it was only one investor - but the same pattern was repeated most days: bids slowly rose then one person wiped them out down to somewhere in the 0.1 to 0.105 range.  Doing it over a lengthy period like that is the act of someone who needs to cash out (but not desperately enough to sell at a loss) - not the act of someone who knows the project has gone horribly wrong (the latter would need to shift the shares faster before others found out the secret information).

I wouldn't say there's been NO updates - there was a brief update which indicated proto run would be done in 3x - 5x days time : putting arrival of the first small batch (for testing and mining) at late october - mid november.  That doesn't really change anything - BFL's update was actually less specific on dates (but did give higher specs than previously) and only talked about October/November for a potential manufacturing-site inspection.

Essentially all we've learned is that both operations haven't had any significant delays that they're willing to admit to and that neither is yet able to commit to a firm delivery date.  That's no different to when ASICMINER launched.

This may have been ABMO winding down.

The second half maybe.  There was someone else doing it before you did it (it started before you put your 5k up to debunk my theory).

[pieppiep]

After I've made some nice profit with mining bonds/shares but lost most of it with the pirate thing.
I've sold some bitcoins to get my initial investments in euro back and play with the few bitcoins I've left.
Now I've created my own trading bot for an exchange site that I'm currently testing.
I started with 3.15 BTC and now I have 3.35 BTC, 6.3% increase in a little over a week.
The profit is not yet enough to pay for the electricity to keep my computer running, but I'm thinking about renting a vps somewhere and running the bot on it, or try to port it to linux so it can run on the raspberry pi I have and buy some more coins to get more profit.
I've started this week to write down every hour what my current profit/loss is, yesterday I've made 0.56% profit.
The best thing about this is that I don't have to wait for dividents and have full control over it, but it is a little more work to do.

I was initially thinking about making an esset on GLBSE someday, but not anymore.
I haven't decided if and how I make the bot public, but I am thinking about running it like a service for people. They tell me their api-key and I run it with the parameters they like. But if I ever do that, I have to improve and rewrite some parts of the bot.

[MPOE-PR]

I think having a piece of satoshidice is pretty cool, being they are currently the most popular addresses, etc. Big part of bitcoin culture.

I think ASICMINER is an interesting gamble. I like the way Flying Dutchman Bitcoin Fund is run.

BTC-Mining/Namjies's fund is prolly worth the mention along with the Dutchman.

They yield 5% / month

Actually there's no fixed limit on what they yield, it's an auction-based model (sort of like how Treasuries are sold). That aside, the yield has sort of stuck around 5%.

then the price should be rising in relation to the lost opportunity cost of just holding those shares during that period.

In practice the opposite is more likely I'd think.

We may be talking at cross-purposes.

Consider ASICMINER as something which starts with value X (IPO price) then at some future date will suddenly become worth Y.  The point at which it becomes worth Y is when the chips begin mining.  Now for the purpose of evaluating Y you have to look at the different possible outcomes and the chance of each then calculate the EV at that point (which includes the chance of zero value due to the chips never working).

For ASICMINER to be a viable investment at all, that value Y (the EV of all outcomes at some future point) has to be higher than X.  If you believe it lower than X then obviously the share only has value if you short it.

My point about value rising was on the assumption that Y is higher than X (that's my assessment and we'll NEVER know if I was right or not - as we'll only know what actually happens, not what the likelihood of that particular outcome actually was).

If we take as a given that Y is higher than X then my argument is that the value of the share should gradually rise from X to Y until the instant when the outcome is known when it'll either drop or rise based on the actual results.  The alternative argument is that the value stays at X until the outcome is known then changes all at once.

My argument in essence relies on two points:

1.  Money not making a profit is an opportunity cost.  I can't see any valid argument against this other than if the contention is that there's no way to make profit from money.  So if the value of the share doesn't rise then there's zero incentive to buy it at the start rather than use your money to make profit and buy into it later.

2.  If it has an expected value Y in the future then its value to you NOW is Y less the profit you could reasonably otherwise make from employing your funds elsewhere in the meantime (to be pedantic that also has to be adjusted to account for your tolerance of risk/variance).

Irrespective of which pricing model you use, as time passes and more information becomes available, you should become better able to estimate what Y is (and adjust your pricing accordingly).  My argument also relied on the fact that so far no news has emerged about ASIC or BFL or any other competitor that changes anything significantly.  BFL have upped their specs as expected - but the key issue is who delivers first.

Your argument hinges on the (unproven) theory that market participants act rationally.

The scenario I envisage goes something like this: guy invests, waits two weeks or two hours, nothing happens, gets bored, divests.

Seems to be borne by the facts so far.

[bitcoinbear]

Here are two more funds, I am interested to hear what other people think of them:

[glbse] SS - clearly run by somebody who has actually read an accounting textbook, monthly statements are complete and easy to understand

[glbse] KRAKEN - The one man left standing in the bitcion lending world?

[Deprived]

I think having a piece of satoshidice is pretty cool, being they are currently the most popular addresses, etc. Big part of bitcoin culture.

I think ASICMINER is an interesting gamble. I like the way Flying Dutchman Bitcoin Fund is run.

BTC-Mining/Namjies's fund is prolly worth the mention along with the Dutchman.

They yield 5% / month

Actually there's no fixed limit on what they yield, it's an auction-based model (sort of like how Treasuries are sold). That aside, the yield has sort of stuck around 5%.

then the price should be rising in relation to the lost opportunity cost of just holding those shares during that period.

In practice the opposite is more likely I'd think.

We may be talking at cross-purposes.

Consider ASICMINER as something which starts with value X (IPO price) then at some future date will suddenly become worth Y.  The point at which it becomes worth Y is when the chips begin mining.  Now for the purpose of evaluating Y you have to look at the different possible outcomes and the chance of each then calculate the EV at that point (which includes the chance of zero value due to the chips never working).

For ASICMINER to be a viable investment at all, that value Y (the EV of all outcomes at some future point) has to be higher than X.  If you believe it lower than X then obviously the share only has value if you short it.

My point about value rising was on the assumption that Y is higher than X (that's my assessment and we'll NEVER know if I was right or not - as we'll only know what actually happens, not what the likelihood of that particular outcome actually was).

If we take as a given that Y is higher than X then my argument is that the value of the share should gradually rise from X to Y until the instant when the outcome is known when it'll either drop or rise based on the actual results.  The alternative argument is that the value stays at X until the outcome is known then changes all at once.

My argument in essence relies on two points:

1.  Money not making a profit is an opportunity cost.  I can't see any valid argument against this other than if the contention is that there's no way to make profit from money.  So if the value of the share doesn't rise then there's zero incentive to buy it at the start rather than use your money to make profit and buy into it later.

2.  If it has an expected value Y in the future then its value to you NOW is Y less the profit you could reasonably otherwise make from employing your funds elsewhere in the meantime (to be pedantic that also has to be adjusted to account for your tolerance of risk/variance).

Irrespective of which pricing model you use, as time passes and more information becomes available, you should become better able to estimate what Y is (and adjust your pricing accordingly).  My argument also relied on the fact that so far no news has emerged about ASIC or BFL or any other competitor that changes anything significantly.  BFL have upped their specs as expected - but the key issue is who delivers first.

Your argument hinges on the (unproven) theory that market participants act rationally.

The scenario I envisage goes something like this: guy invests, waits two weeks or two hours, nothing happens, gets bored, divests.

Seems to be borne by the facts so far.

Nah, my argument doesn't hinge on that at all.  As I thought, we're talking at cross-purposes.

I was talking about how I (rationally, I hope) value the share.
You're talking about how the market (irrationally) value it.

For accounting I obviously use market values - but for investment decisions I use a more rational valuation.  I aim to make money FROM the irrational behaviour of both investors and asset issuers (pretty sure I told you that already in a different thread where you asked why I still use GLBSE).  So I'm about the last person who would claim the GLBSE market acts rationally.