[BitFunder] Ziggap Bitcoin Sales Service

[ThickAsThieves]

Can we get an update? Thanks!

[1715448163]

1715448163

[1715448163]

1715448163

[Deprived]

Can we get an update? Thanks!

Their website's down, they haven't been selling bitcoins for most of the week and people (or is it Ziggap themselves?) are dumping their shares at near zero.

Other than that, it's all going great.

But I wouldn't expect a big dividend this week.

[Choadzilla]

Is it going to be 10btc again..

[wisard]

Can we get an update? Thanks!

Their website's down, they haven't been selling bitcoins for most of the week and people (or is it Ziggap themselves?) are dumping their shares at near zero.

Other than that, it's all going great.

But I wouldn't expect a big dividend this week.

Seems like they've sold ~2.5 million shares after the IPO. (Unless they transferred it internally to someone - can't make that out. But after the IPO, I had marked 2 addresses having 35 million shares. Now their total is a bit over 32.5 million shares.)

These seem to be the promoter's shares to me. Total is lower than 35 million.

https://bitfunder.com/assetlist
1ByB69QWDduwPsuLqhk8KuyrJZtpPNkKGg
1EQV7kGC3Lf5PYBPY1dAHxizcadgkBGfEu

[burnside]

Site still down, no announcement why.   

[GoWest]

No dividend either.

[Deprived]

Well there won't be a dividend as:

a) The website hasn't been much up for the last week to do any actual trade.
b) It's rather obvious the cash has been used for living expenses/paying down debt - leaving little/nothing to actually operate with.

You only have to look at what little figures have been produced to work out why b) pretty much HAS to be the case.  But here's the logic behind that conclusion for those unable to work it out themselves:

The company/owners were clearly short of cash (not necessarily assets - but liquid cash) when the IPO was launched.  This is a certainty as, were they not cash-strapped, they wouldn't have taken out the BTCjam loan at a high rate of interest in the first place.  This is further confirmed by the indecent haste of the IPO, the early-bird pricing (which is great for raising SOME cash fast - but absolutely horrible for actually selling out) and the total lack of disclosure of what assets the company had.

The business is one which needs significant funds to operate - moving funds around isn't instant, so ability to trade volume is constrained by capital.

Company founders were short of cash but had taken on the commitment to repay the BTCjam loan AND still had to make enough profit to pay their living expenses.

Now look at what profit was actually being made - and consider what portion of that would ctually go the founders (via their shares).  Is that enough to pay living expenses AND repay the BTCjam loan?  Nope it isn't.

So they either need another source of cash or have to raid working capital.  But if they had another available source of cash they wouldn't have needed the BTCjam in the first place - any other source of capital would have been much cheaper.  So it seems likely (not QUITE certain) that they had to steal from company capital (it IS stealing) - which then made the company unable to increase volume/profit leading into a death-spiral.

BTC rising when the debt has been converted to USD just makes a bad situation totally untenable.

The sale of extra shares at below the price they were supposed to sell at is just a desperate last-ditch measure to try to prop up something that's collapsed beyond repair (haven't checked but was a payment imminently due on the BTCjam loan?).  The structure of the IPO pricing meant that once prices stagnated they would always struggle to rise to a level where new shares could sell - as there's a bunch of people who bought at early-bird prices who can sell at a profit and would do so at the first sign of trouble to lock in profits.

And silly thing is the business likely had potential - it just needed an IPO structured so as to have a reasonable chance of actually selling out.

But no need to worry everyone - there's a fresh IPO up for you to invest in which also:

a) Had a big BTCjam debt
b) Won't disclose assets/wallet balances
c) Has shovelled out shares at "early-bird" prices so as to raise some capital fast without having to answer questions first.

And this time it'll all work out great - honestly!

[joris]

Ain't the 'Early Bird' share setups mainly a way to give the knowledgeable insiders a first neat profit on their shares, while draining the available IPO-funds in the market from the venture into the sell walls just below the second IPO-batch prices.

Also the recent big volume sell order against a ridiculous low price smells like it.

Aethero, it seems better to give your investors some bad news, than release no information at all. At least your shareholders can act (un)wisely on it and move on or adhere to your venture. I'll took my BTC-loss already to cover the EUR-investment and still give it a chance by holding onto ca. 20% of my max holdings.

P.S. Except the forementioned IPO, there seems at least one other asset on Bitfunder being devastated by the exchange risk of its loan(s). Accompanied by extended online silence of the issuer. Probably to be followed by the holder of these kind of 'low risk investments'.

[ThickAsThieves]

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.

[Deprived]

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 own 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 the one 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.

It's pretty clear the massive sell right down to 20 satoshis/share was by the issuer - there are 2 big blocks of shares which can ONLY be asset issuer's plus unissued and those have fallen whilst officially no shares were being sold.

Well done on getting out in time - I'm one of those who got low-ball bids filled by the dump.  The bids were there to pick up panic sells of course - just wasn't expecting it to be the issuer who panicked and sold (yet).  I'd (mis)calculated that the shit wouldn't hit the fan until next month for this security - so hadn't cleared my position yet.

[Deprived]

P.S. Except the forementioned IPO, there seems at least one other asset on Bitfunder being devastated by the exchange risk of its loan(s). Accompanied by extended online silence of the issuer. Probably to be followed by the holder of these kind of 'low risk investments'.

Assume you mean Bakewell.  Loans in danger there are personal ones he took out, not ones from the company.  His company's actually fine - or would be, were he not stealing from it by dumping shares that weren't his to sell.

He has a past record of hiding from problems rather than facing them, so I wouldn't expect him to show his face too soon.  But I'd be less concerned about that one than this one (though still, obviously, pretty concerned).

[kakobrekla]

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

Not until the money parts them.

[joris]

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)...

Flipping is fine and fair in playing the market, but it hurts raising capital for the venture. Anyway, it doesn't matter if the issuer sells his already owned (virtual) shares to keep the proceeds. Not claiming it's the case, though.

If you plan well ahead and make everyone aware of the upcoming opportunity with early bird shares within a reasonable time frame, I suppose early bird shares can support a venture's marketing.

@Deprived - I've seen your comments in Bakewell's thread on the share dumping, but in general missed the nuances of the loan. Intermingling of the personal situation of the issuer(s) and the managed asset is probably a risk in ZIGGAP as well as in Bakewell.

[MPOE-PR]

Well there won't be a dividend as:

a) The website hasn't been much up for the last week to do any actual trade.
b) It's rather obvious the cash has been used for living expenses/paying down debt - leaving little/nothing to actually operate with.

You only have to look at what little figures have been produced to work out why b) pretty much HAS to be the case.  But here's the logic behind that conclusion for those unable to work it out themselves:

The company/owners were clearly short of cash (not necessarily assets - but liquid cash) when the IPO was launched.  This is a certainty as, were they not cash-strapped, they wouldn't have taken out the BTCjam loan at a high rate of interest in the first place.  This is further confirmed by the indecent haste of the IPO, the early-bird pricing (which is great for raising SOME cash fast - but absolutely horrible for actually selling out) and the total lack of disclosure of what assets the company had.

The business is one which needs significant funds to operate - moving funds around isn't instant, so ability to trade volume is constrained by capital.

Company founders were short of cash but had taken on the commitment to repay the BTCjam loan AND still had to make enough profit to pay their living expenses.

Now look at what profit was actually being made - and consider what portion of that would ctually go the founders (via their shares).  Is that enough to pay living expenses AND repay the BTCjam loan?  Nope it isn't.

So they either need another source of cash or have to raid working capital.  But if they had another available source of cash they wouldn't have needed the BTCjam in the first place - any other source of capital would have been much cheaper.  So it seems likely (not QUITE certain) that they had to steal from company capital (it IS stealing) - which then made the company unable to increase volume/profit leading into a death-spiral.

BTC rising when the debt has been converted to USD just makes a bad situation totally untenable.

The sale of extra shares at below the price they were supposed to sell at is just a desperate last-ditch measure to try to prop up something that's collapsed beyond repair (haven't checked but was a payment imminently due on the BTCjam loan?).  The structure of the IPO pricing meant that once prices stagnated they would always struggle to rise to a level where new shares could sell - as there's a bunch of people who bought at early-bird prices who can sell at a profit and would do so at the first sign of trouble to lock in profits.

And silly thing is the business likely had potential - it just needed an IPO structured so as to have a reasonable chance of actually selling out.

But no need to worry everyone - there's a fresh IPO up for you to invest in which also:

a) Had a big BTCjam debt
b) Won't disclose assets/wallet balances
c) Has shovelled out shares at "early-bird" prices so as to raise some capital fast without having to answer questions first.

And this time it'll all work out great - honestly!

You're getting pretty good at this, color me jealous.

[Deprived]

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)

Early-bird shares aren't, of themselves, a bad thing.  The way they're being done on recent Bitfunder IPOs IS a shockingly bad thing.

There's two things wrong with it (and they're linked):

1.  The depth of the discounts,
2.  The lack of advance notice.

Point 2 directly contributes to point 1.  IF the company gave advance notice of the launch then when they placed the shares there'd be bids already there raising the price at which they actuallly sold.  That would raise more funds for the company and provide additional information on which to base further pricing.  Dumping them without warning 100% leaves money on the table.

I can think of three reasons for doing it the way it's been done:

1.  An immediate need for cash right now - not in a few days.
2.  To allow insiders to profit (at the expense of the actual company and genuine investors)
3.  Because the details of the IPO wouldn't fare well with public examination before shares were sold.

ALL of those are terrible from an investor's perspective.  Numbers 1/3 are good for the company if (and only if) it's in a desperate situation and/or not viable.

I'm open to other explanations of how leaving cash on the table helps a good company - especially when by selling at the early-bird price (rather than the higher price that would have been obtained with prior notice) they tend to reduce/suppress further demand by setting an apparent low valuation on the shares.

Whilst I'm on the subject of design flaws in the way IPOS are being done, can we please stop with all this crap about selling shares of profits not of the company?  It doesn't protect against any issues related to unlicensed securities trading (a share of profit makes it a security without an associated equity entitlement needed).  It appears to just be a way in which 'companies' think they can get away with dividending out random amounts without producing any books - and without identifying what the company actually owns prior to IPO.

Either sell shares or issue bonds - not this abortion that lies somewhere in-between that is becoming fashionable.

S.DICE did it - but their operations are transparent and their cost of doing business negligible.  For most other businesses it's totally unsuitable - as assessing/confirming profits NEEDS proper accounts and also details of assets.

If you won't disclose assets, won't sell equity, won't give voting rights then take out a loan (bond) as you clearly have no interest in actually having shareholders.

[Bugpowder]

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)

I'm open to other explanations of how leaving cash on the table helps a good company - especially when by selling at the early-bird price (rather than the higher price that would have been obtained with prior notice) they tend to reduce/suppress further demand by setting an apparent low valuation on the shares.

We cannot exclude complete financial incompetence in this case.

[Deprived]

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)

I'm open to other explanations of how leaving cash on the table helps a good company - especially when by selling at the early-bird price (rather than the higher price that would have been obtained with prior notice) they tend to reduce/suppress further demand by setting an apparent low valuation on the shares.

We cannot exclude complete financial incompetence in this case.

Well yeah - but then a company led by financial incompetents wouldn't meet my criteria of how it helps "a good company".

[ThickAsThieves]

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.

[zx9r]

They are online now...

[MPOE-PR]

Point 2 directly contributes to point 1.  IF the company gave advance notice of the launch then when they placed the shares there'd be bids already there raising the price at which they actuallly sold.  That would raise more funds for the company and provide additional information on which to base further pricing.  Dumping them without warning 100% leaves money on the table.

This would be exactly how the BitBet IPO worked out. From the contract:

(b)The representatives of BitBet have elected to offer a total of 3`000`000 (three million) shares, as follows : one block of 10`000 (ten thousand) shares at a price of 0.00001 BTC each ; upon sale of this block, one further block of 10`000 (ten thousand) shares at a price of 0.0000103 BTC each ; upon sale of this block, one further block of 10`000 (ten thousand) shares at a price of 0.00001061 BTC each ; upon sale of this block, one further block of 10`000 (ten thousand) shares at a price of 0.00001093 BTC each ; and so continue with blocks of 10`000 (ten thousand) shares at prices per share ever increasing by 3% rounded upwards until the exhausting of the 3`000`000 (three million) shares offered. Trading will begin on the midnight of the fifth day after this contract was published on MPEx.

This was announced a few days in advance, the IPO itself was pretty exciting (and pretty successful). S.BBET is currently trading significantly over the 0.00001 earliest bird price, and I'd think this all comes to a fine example of how to do early bird correctly.

Whilst I'm on the subject of design flaws in the way IPOS are being done, can we please stop with all this crap about selling shares of profits not of the company?  It doesn't protect against any issues related to unlicensed securities trading (a share of profit makes it a security without an associated equity entitlement needed).  It appears to just be a way in which 'companies' think they can get away with dividending out random amounts without producing any books - and without identifying what the company actually owns prior to IPO.

Indeed.

S.DICE did it

They did?!