[BitFunder] TU.SILVER -- Interim Report April 12th, 2013

[Deprived]

Who owns that unsold silver?  The current investors?

The company owns it. Essentially, since I am liable for it, I own it.

I still don't think you grasp the point I was making earlier.

The problem with your 'point' is that it rests on a series of very big "ifs". You keep saying "if". You said "if" ten times when hypothesizing how my business operates. So on a very basic level you don't understand how we operate, and that is why basic questions like "who owns the silver" appear unclear to you. Maybe you should be approaching this a different way. You should ask questions. In this case, I've answered your question above (I own the silver) so there's no need to go into detail on the great number of "ifs" which follow.

Anyway, let me know if you have any questions I can answer. Your points are interesting in and of themselves and I'm sure once you get on track with how we operate you will understand it. Until then, rest assured that everything is okay here.

Oh, by the way, I think there's a clause in the BitFunder contract that states any customer can get access to our books for a fee of one unit of the fund. Let me know if you're interested in that offer. Chat soon!

Well now we're getting to where my confusion came from.

You see, take a look at your financial report.

http://kongzi.ca/silver/20130224TSR.pdf

Look at page 4.

See the bit where it says :

"(A + C + D + E + F) / B = G = 0.13091183 per share."

Well according to your report A is the unsold silver.  And some of the others are revenue from SELLING silver.  All of which you've just said belongs to you.

It's not just a misinterpretation by me of you saying that's the value of assets the COMPANY owns per share - as if you look at your forum psots after posting the report you then proceed to PRICE the shares based on that book value - which makes absolutely zero sense when it includes assets not OWNED by the shares.

As best I can make out you're selling silver, doing some investment and opton-selling at your OWN risk and donating some of any profit you make to investors.  All fine and well - though a misrepresentation when you claim they earned it (as they took no risk nor were their funds used in doing so).  But then you start pricing your units as though they were shares in the company and consistently talking as though the profit/options etc are somehow the investors when you've just clearly stated they aren't.

So here's a simple question:

Why are you including things that aren't owned by the shares when valuing the shares?

Here's your post to show you DO use that value for selling - even though it's entirely unrelated to the price on 1 unit of silver which all they actually buy.

I'm pleased to present the TU.SILVER February Financial Report, and to announce our first dividend of 0.00128 per share.

February Report: http://kongzi.ca/silver/20130224TSR.pdf

Our internal valuation of TU.SILVER: 0.1309 book value.

Dividend paid: 1.024 over 800 shares *(0.00128 per share or 0.98%).

Please see our report (linked above) for more information. Thanks and good luck.

P.S. to whoever just bought 9 shares at 0.1851, you beat my order cancel by about 5 seconds. Please PM me and we can arrange a partial refund so your purchase price is our listed 0.1309 per share.

You're totally inconsistent in what a share represents - at times it's just a means to sell (and represent) silver (plus an entitlement to an occasional donation from you), at other times a portion of the entire value of the company's holdings.  And you then try to sell the former at the price of the latter.

Which is presumably why you now charge more per share than you did in February - despite the price of silver in BTC having fallen a load in the interim.  I'm amazed you can try to sell silver at double spot and still claim (presumably with a straight face) to have good prices.

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[usagi]

Well now we're getting to where my confusion came from.

You see, take a look at your financial report.

http://kongzi.ca/silver/20130224TSR.pdf

Look at page 4.

See the bit where it says :

"(A + C + D + E + F) / B = G = 0.13091183 per share."

Well according to your report A is the unsold silver.  And some of the others are revenue from SELLING silver.  All of which you've just said belongs to you.

It's not just a misinterpretation by me of you saying that's the value of assets the COMPANY owns per share - as if you look at your forum psots after posting the report you then proceed to PRICE the shares based on that book value - which makes absolutely zero sense when it includes assets not OWNED by the shares.

It is entirely a misinterpretation by you. "According to my report", A is the total quantity of silver in the fund (80oz), not the unsold silver. This is in fact proof that each share represents 1/10th of an oz. of silver and has nothing to do with sold or unsold shares.

I am a little busy working on kongzi right now. I'll do my best to answer anything reasonable, but I've already answered this line of questioning and you need to move on from it now.

[Deprived]

It is entirely a misinterpretation by you. "According to my report", A is the total quantity of silver in the fund (80oz), not the unsold silver. This is in fact proof that each share represents 1/10th of an oz. of silver and has nothing to do with sold or unsold shares.

I am a little busy working on kongzi right now. I'll do my best to answer anything reasonable, but I've already answered this line of questioning and you need to move on from it now.

You apparently can't even read your own report.

"A. Silver Backing: 80oz

B.
Issued Shares: 800

C.
Outstanding Shares: 524 (unsold shares: 276, valued at 34.37247926 BTC)"

Now you agree you only sold 524 shares?
You notice that you say there's 276 unsold shares?

You notice 524+276=800?  which is equal to 80 (ounces of silver you have) * 10 (number of tenths of an ounce in an ounce)?

The 27.6 oz of silver for the 276 unsold shares is .... drum-roll .. NOT sold.

That's the silver that you explicitly stated earlier does NOT belong to investors.
Nor do the investments, cash kitty and cash balance in D,E and F.

Now, in fairness, the total of all those things is being split between the sold shares AND the unsold shares - so the amount of silver per share IS 1/10th of an oz.  But the cash on hand logically CAN'T belong AT ALL to sold shares - or when you sold a share the funds from it would then increase the value/share.  And, conversely, when you bought silver nothing would chnage but then when you issued new shares the value/share would drop - as you'd be dividing same total by MORE shares despite no economic activity having occurred.  On the last point to osme extent, this may be mitigated by item C (where, perversely, a value is being given to unsold shares AS WELL AS to the silver backing them in A).  But that then makes calcualtion of share value recursive - as it includes the value of unsold shares which (if they have one) has to be based on the calculated value.  It's pretty much a fairy-tale calculation with no grounding in reality.

ISSUED is not same as SOLD.

You can't have it both ways.

EITHER :

A) The shares only own their 1/10th oz of silver - and should be valued based on 1/10th oz of silver.  And selling price of them should be based on that + storage/shipping costs.  Debatably you could add a bit to this for the donations you make from your private option-selling - but as I believe that'll make a loss or minimal profit it won't add much.

OR

B) The shares own the actual fund - and should be valued based on all assets, at which stage you have to price them according to fund valuation regardless of silver price.  And you also have to protect that value (an issue you've had prior problems with grasping on other securities).

The valuation calculated in your report is actually pretty meaningless.  It has no relation to the value of sold shares (as they don't own it) and it has no real meaning as a company valuation as it's calculated over ALL shares including unsold ones (which don't represent a liability or a meaningful divsor of any kind as they aren't sold).  Even if calculated just for sold shares (and excluding any value for unsold shares) all it represents is the amount of capital the company has for each unit that it has liability for.   It then has SOME meaning as demonstrating ability to honour commitments but no meaning as a VALUATION as the shares you're dividing it by are NOT shares owning the company (which are the ones that would be relevant - if they existed - for valuation purposes).

As I've said repeatedly you've totally confused the issue of ownership of company with ownership of the silver.  That I've also failed to grasp the details is because, in your confusion, you've posted contraictory statements which CAN'T be reconciled into any single, sensible explanation (apparently Investors DON'T own unsold silver or capital but the shares they own have those included in their valuation ... come again?).

[usagi]

You apparently can't even read your own report.
"A. Silver Backing: 80oz

Well according to your report A is the unsold silver.

C.
Outstanding Shares: 524 (unsold shares: 276, valued at 34.37247926 BTC)"

Now you agree you only sold 524 shares?
You notice that you say there's 276 unsold shares?

Yeah, in C. So?

That's the silver that you explicitly stated earlier does NOT belong to investors.
Nor do the investments, cash kitty and cash balance in D,E and F.

You are a very confused individual.

That I've also failed to grasp the details is because, in your confusion, you've posted contraictory statements which CAN'T be reconciled into any single, sensible explanation (apparently Investors DON'T own unsold silver or capital but the shares they own have those included in their valuation ... come again?).

This is getting embarrassing Deprived... Tell you what, I agree with you, you're right. I'm going to bow out of this one now

[Deprived]

You apparently can't even read your own report.
"A. Silver Backing: 80oz

Well according to your report A is the unsold silver.

C.
Outstanding Shares: 524 (unsold shares: 276, valued at 34.37247926 BTC)"

Now you agree you only sold 524 shares?
You notice that you say there's 276 unsold shares?

Yeah, in C. So?

Christ, I have to spell out even basic maths to you.

TOTAL silver in A is 80 oz.

TOTAL shares in C is 800 - corresponding to 80 oz (10 share per oz).  In C there's 276 UNSOLD shares of the 800 - so 27.6 oz of the 80 oz in A is unsold silver.  So when you add A into the total you're adding in unsold silver as well as sold.

To be fair you then suggest various other ways of valueing the shares.  But proposing valuing them on TU/SILVER's assets at all is just deceitful.  You may just as well propose valuing it based on shares of Microsoft - they get ownership of just as many Microsot assets as TU/SILVER ones (above the silver itself) when they buy a TU/SILVER share.  Which is to say NONE WHATSOEVER (other, of course, than the 1/10 oz of silver).

The questions are pretty simple:

1.  Do shares own anything other than silver?
2.  If answer to 1. is YES then How do they ever claim that back?  And are you ensuring you don't reduce that value by, for example, selling silver or issuing new shares
3.  If answer to 2. is NO then why do you price shares as if they did - and pretend the shares have earned income when they haven't (it's donated, not earned, as there's no contractual obligation or definition of what extra capital will be held to generate income.  A promise to give 30% of profits means absolutely NOTHING when there's no associated commitment to maintain a certain ratio of capital generating that income - and when the capital can be withdrawn at any time anyway due to not being owned by the shares)?

Seems answer to 1. is NO - they only own silver.  In which case you can't value them based on the income as there's no definition of how much investment capital will be maintained per share - so the value of your investments/options trading will vary (effectively at random) based on how much of your personal money you decide to put in TU.SILVER at a time.  And also on how much of the silver you personally buy you decide to try to make 1% on by selling options rather than just sell.  As those things can't be quantified and are not subject to any contract they can't conceivably be priced in - especially when any value associated with them has to be surrendered for free anyway if/when someone turns in shares for silver (there's zero mention of refunding any value above the silver on redemption).

[Deprived]

The point of not investing into silver while we have unsold stock is to provide the ability to continually purchase silver even if we can't sell it, not blow our load and then get stuck with an inventory no-one wants.

AS I'm handing out free advice, here's another bit.

The reason you can't sell stock COULD just possibly be this:

Asks
Quantity    Price    
50    ฿0.14010

Now I know some silver bugs have various problems but I'm sure most of them have a decent idea of what the spot price of silver is and can use a calculator.  And that's OVER DOUBLE it even at yesterday's BTC price of $45 - let alone the current much higher rate.

Now either:

A.  That IS your ASK - in which case you may want to get within 50% of the price everyone else charges for silver: you may claim to have good prices but 50% over what even expensive competitors charge is NOT competitive.

OR

B.  That's NOT your ASK - in which case of course you won't sell it if you don't put up any Asks.

[usagi]

C.
Outstanding Shares: 524 (unsold shares: 276, valued at 34.37247926 BTC)"

Now you agree you only sold 524 shares?
You notice that you say there's 276 unsold shares?

Yeah, in C. So?

Christ, I have to spell out even basic maths to you.

TOTAL silver in A is 80 oz.

TOTAL shares in C is 800 - corresponding to 80 oz (10 share per oz).  In C there's 276 UNSOLD shares of the 800 - so 27.6 oz of the 80 oz in A is unsold silver.  So when you add A into the total you're adding in unsold silver as well as sold.

What, you think DeaDTerra didn't look at our books or something? Wow Deprived, this is getting truly pathetic. Please, just take the out I'm giving you. You're right. You can stop now

AS I'm handing out free advice, here's another bit.

The reason you can't sell stock COULD just possibly be this:

Asks
Quantity    Price    
50    ฿0.14010

Lol, this guy! I'm in tears! THANK YOU, Deprived! I'm going to have to put this guy on ignore just to get some work done, I'm laughing so hard!

[Bugpowder]

Lol, this guy! I'm in tears! THANK YOU, Deprived! I'm going to have to put this guy on ignore just to get some work done, I'm laughing so hard!

Deprived is within the top 5 of most insightful posters on this message board.  You should probably put him on ignore though, responding to him just gives him motivation, and what TU.SILVER needs is pure, unadulterated stream of your consciousness.  Frankly I don't see why he bothers with your microstakes pseudo fund.  Waste of his time.

[rpietila]

Yeah, I also find it pathetic. It is OK to start small, but making too big a noise relative to your actual position in the market just, makes your appear childish and scares away the actual investors.

Take this as a kind word from president of the depository, whose holdings are 100,000+ ounces of silver.

(Yes, I know there are guys with 1000 times more than I have, and I would be grateful if they ever talked to me (which they don't ))

[MPOE-PR]

Lol, this guy! I'm in tears! THANK YOU, Deprived! I'm going to have to put this guy on ignore just to get some work done, I'm laughing so hard!

Deprived is within the top 5 of most insightful posters on this message board.  You should probably put him on ignore though, responding to him just gives him motivation, and what TU.SILVER needs is pure, unadulterated stream of your consciousness.  Frankly I don't see why he bothers with your microstakes pseudo fund.  Waste of his time.

Personally I keep tabs on this thing because usagi's insanity is usually amusing. To wit:

"TU.SILVER is the largest precious metals fund in the community, and has more than 20 times the liquidity of all other precious metals funds combined.
[...]
We have been in operation on BitFunder since January 2013. We have over 50oz. in sales and have redeemed more than 10oz of silver directly to customers.

Go figure, I seem to recall one guy who had not one but two one-ounce gold mints running some sort of microfund.

[🏰 TradeFortress 🏰]

Lol, this guy! I'm in tears! THANK YOU, Deprived! I'm going to have to put this guy on ignore just to get some work done, I'm laughing so hard!

Deprived is within the top 5 of most insightful posters on this message board.  You should probably put him on ignore though, responding to him just gives him motivation, and what TU.SILVER needs is pure, unadulterated stream of your consciousness.  Frankly I don't see why he bothers with your microstakes pseudo fund.  Waste of his time.

+1. Don't disregard advice even if it's critical.

[repentance]

Yeah, I also find it pathetic. It is OK to start small, but making too big a noise relative to your actual position in the market just, makes your appear childish and scares away the actual investors.

Take this as a kind word from president of the depository, whose holdings are 100,000+ ounces of silver.

(Yes, I know there are guys with 1000 times more than I have, and I would be grateful if they ever talked to me (which they don't ))

Perhaps usagi should diversify into sex parties and chocolate. 

[Deprived]

AS I'm handing out free advice, here's another bit.

The reason you can't sell stock COULD just possibly be this:

Asks
Quantity    Price    
50    ฿0.14010

Lol, this guy! I'm in tears! THANK YOU, Deprived! I'm going to have to put this guy on ignore just to get some work done, I'm laughing so hard!

Hmm, maybe I did miscalculate the price - or perhaps I didn't factor in things like shipping, the markup on coins etc properly.

Shame there's not some spreadsheet that could work all of that out.

But wait - what's this?  Seems to be usagi's books - complete with a tab to calculate the bids/asks at which TU.SILVER should trade taking into account markups/fees etc.



Seems like your OWN books say you're charging more that double the correct rate (the boxed cell is what usagi's spreadsheet indicate would be the correct sell price).  Why the over 100% markup?

Do note that the fonts may differ slightly as I imported into Excel - but the content is 100% from a pretty recent copy of your own books.

Still laughing?

[MPOE-PR]

A better question is perhaps "Why does he bid over spot?".

[Deprived]

A better question is perhaps "Why does he bid over spot?".

There's not actually anything wrong with that - provided the bid is at less than the cost of buying silver elsewhere.  Coins DO trade at a significant markup to spot.

Problem is, of course, that the tiny spread he intended to run just doesn't work if actually left up as orders.  As the BTC/USD rate can easily move far more than that spread during a few hours - making it very easily for a trader to exploit by buying from out-dated Asks then selling into Bids when they get updated.  That's why it just can't run how it started out - when it actually DID have a tight spread and good prices.  For about a week.  That week is, of course, the only time I've traded the shares

My guess is he that the stupidly high prices right now are mainly to try to trick people into buying and exercising options - there are/were options up which could be bought and then exercised at just UNDER the current Ask.  Only need one idiot to fall for that to make up for the profit on selling a load of silver at genuine competitive prices.  But regardless of the motive, the current Ask price makes a total mockery of any delusional claims to be in any way competitive with other silver sellers on price.

[usagi]

But wait - what's this?  Seems to be usagi's books - complete with a tab to calculate the bids/asks at which TU.SILVER should trade taking into account markups/fees etc.

[snip]

Seems like your OWN books say you're charging more that double the correct rate (the boxed cell is what usagi's spreadsheet indicate would be the correct sell price).  Why the over 100% markup?

Do note that the fonts may differ slightly as I imported into Excel - but the content is 100% from a pretty recent copy of your own books.

Still laughing?

Let me say this once and be perfectly clear.

dan.r.miller@gmail.com

share transferred. I won't share publicly.

You, MPOE-PR, and DannyM/pigeons, are being jerks.

First, pigeons lied to me, that he wasn't going to share the report. I'm going to remove his access now (no, you can't have your share back). Second, you were lied to by pigeons because you were given an edited version of the spreadsheet which did not explain what the ask figure represents. It is the end-calculation of the first spreadsheet. There are THREE further calculation sheets that number goes through before I get a book value.

You have been told over and over that you do not understand what you are talking about. You have been told to talk to DeaDTerra who does our books. But instead of honestly approaching DeaDTerra with questions you have chosen to engage me with dishonest debating tactics and flat-out lies.

From now on, if you or anyone has a question regarding the company's finances you MUST speak to me or DeaDTerra about it privately. I am not interested in enabling a troll.

[Deprived]

In the actual spreadsheet, which you have to pay to get access to, the figure is explained as a internal cost-of-silver figure before any other operational costs are applied. It is the end-calculation of the first spreadsheet. There are THREE further calculation sheets that number goes through; the Cash Position calculator, the Position calculator, and the Book Value calculator. Get it straight Deprived: What you have published and stated regarding Tu.SILVER is an outright a lie.

You have been told over and over that you do not understand what you are talking about. You have been told to talk to DeaDTerra who does our books. But instead of honestly approaching DeaDTerra with questions you have chosen to engage me with dishonest debating tactics and flat-out lies.

MPOE-PR also doesn't know what she is talking about. In our report dated February 4th, 2013, we show that our volume and value is as we stated. Considerign that GOLD and LGF are two separate funds we are indeed the largest single fund in the community. This is a fact, not an insanity and it pains me to see you falling all over yourselves trying to put me down. Leave me alone.

My goal with Tu.SILVER is not to make a lot of money. It is just to provide a service and to participate in the bitcoin economy. It is a VERY small company. Yes, that's right. It's not worth your time. So please just leave me alone. I don't like jerks.

So these extra calculations somehow add over 100% to the price you charge the public?

You seem to have a problem understanding DeadTerra's role in this.  All he does is verify that your accounting is accurate.  He's not vouching for other things - like that you charge a reasonable price for silver you sell.

Do you seriously think he COULD explain why you add well over 100% markup to a price that already includes shipping, coin markup, Bitfunder fees etc when determining the price you sell at?  An auditor does NOT determine whether a company sells goods at a 'fair' price - they determine whether what you've recorded as being your financical transactions is actually accurate.

You've slipped back into your old ways - of answering criticism by repeatedly saying "You're wrong" and "I've explained this before".  Without once having explained why you need a 100%+ markup on silver you sell - or how that is, in any way, competitive or a good price for silver.  Or, for that matter, what (if anything) ownership of a share of TU.SILVER represents above 1/10th of an oz of silver (easiest to explain this by defining what they get back in addition to 1/10th oz of silver when they redeem a share).

DeadTerra can't explain WHY you do things the way you do (at best he could relate a hear-say version of what you've told him).  So when my questions are 'Why' then there's no point me asking him.  If I spot a simle arithmetic error then obviously I'll PM him - but I'm not actually interested in that anyway.  As all your shares apparently represent is 1/10 oz of silver + an undefined donated dividend (raised from funds investors neither own or have any future guarantee of the existence/scale of) then the only thing investors actually need to know is that you have enough silver to back the shares.  All the rest of it is pretty irrelevant - what you do with unsold silver that YOU own and investment funds that YOU own is of no relevance: other than when you try to pretend that it's somehow owned by investors (to justify a steep hike in price) whilst at the same time categorically stating that YOU personally own it.

[MPOE-PR]

But wait - what's this?  Seems to be usagi's books - complete with a tab to calculate the bids/asks at which TU.SILVER should trade taking into account markups/fees etc.

[snip]

Seems like your OWN books say you're charging more that double the correct rate (the boxed cell is what usagi's spreadsheet indicate would be the correct sell price).  Why the over 100% markup?

Do note that the fonts may differ slightly as I imported into Excel - but the content is 100% from a pretty recent copy of your own books.

Still laughing?

Let me say this once and be perfectly clear.

dan.r.miller@gmail.com

share transferred. I won't share publicly.

You, MPOE-PR, and DannyM/pigeons, are being jerks.

First, pigeons lied to me, that he wasn't going to share the report. I'm going to remove his access now (no, you can't have your share back). Second, you were lied to by pigeons because you were given an edited version of the spreadsheet which did not explain what the ask figure represents. It is the end-calculation of the first spreadsheet. There are THREE further calculation sheets that number goes through before I get a book value.

You have been told over and over that you do not understand what you are talking about. You have been told to talk to DeaDTerra who does our books. But instead of honestly approaching DeaDTerra with questions you have chosen to engage me with dishonest debating tactics and flat-out lies.

From now on, if you or anyone has a question regarding the company's finances you MUST speak to DeaDTerra about it privately. I am not interested in enabling a troll.

Hey, what do I have to do with anything!

[Deprived]

There are THREE further calculation sheets that number goes through before I get a book value.

I have those sheets too.  And would you believe it - the final book value is STILL below the price you charge.

Not that it SHOULD have any relevance - but you still can't make up your mind what you're selling.

Is it silver?  Well in your (now locked) thread about FinCen compliance you state in the final post that you're a silver store - which would tend to suggest you just sell silver.  And when someone redeems shares all they get is silver.

Or is it ownership to some extent of other assets as well?  Well your pricing seems to suggest so - as does your repeated refence to some book value that contains elements that far exceed just 1/10th oz of silver plus associated costs.

When you make your mind up WHAT you're actually selling then it's likely we can make some sense of your pricing policy.

Or should I PM DeadTerra and ask "What do shares of TU.SILVER actualy represent ownership of - and how are all elements of that paid out when a share is redeemed?  How is the answer to that consistent with claims that TU/SILVER sells silver at a competitive price?".  Do you think he could actually answer that?  If so, wouldn't it make more sense to post the answer here?

[usagi]

Yeah, I also find it pathetic. It is OK to start small, but making too big a noise relative to your actual position in the market just, makes your appear childish and scares away the actual investors.

Take this as a kind word from president of the depository, whose holdings are 100,000+ ounces of silver.

(Yes, I know there are guys with 1000 times more than I have, and I would be grateful if they ever talked to me (which they don't ))

Thanks for the kind words. I am interested in supporting the community and your own efforts as well. I'll PM you with a few questions about silvervault if I may, as it looks like a valuable and needed service in the community. My main question is, if I could somehow store all of TU.SILVER's silver in silvervault. I'd prefer a community option even if it was a little more expensive.