While we are complaining about shady business tactics, how about the "shares held by the company for growth and maintenance" which seems rather odd to me. Why state "100% profits go to dividends" when part of those dividends just go back to the company? The usual way of doing things would be to report a retained earnings of the company as x% of the profit, and the other (100-x)% get dispersed to the shares as dividends, any shares held by the company do not receive dividends. (this is being done by Bakewell, and the two new listings Zipgap and BitcoinPride, on BitFunder)
Yeah that's a pretty abhorrent practice that serves no useful purpose. It just adds unnecessary complexity and confusion - es[ecially when shares have voting rights (NOT the case on Zig/Pride). Some BTC companies will go to any lengths to avoid having to do any sort of proper accounts.
There's not even any meaningful definition of what profit IS in the two listings you mentioned. Both will hold significant amounts of both USD and BTC - so there should really be a definition of what profit actually is. If the exchange rate changes in either direction does any resultant change in the value of assets (in whichever currency they account in) mean that a profit/loss was made? If not, then how are accounts being done to exclude such impact? Value change arising from exchange-rate movement has to either be included or excluded when calculating profit : we don't even know WHETHER it's included let alone the detail of how accounting will be done.
The contracts are silent on a bunch of things that should be in there: but that's BTC world for you. Contracts written by the financially illiterate. On the bright side at least they're actually genuine companies with actual product and a non-zero chance of success - a massive step up from the blatant scams/deceptions listed on Bitfunder recently:
Biz27B - where the scammer hasn't even bothered saying what his business is and instead pretends it's listed to track invetsment of private shareholders when it's obviously an attempt to sell unspecified crap to the public. There MAY be some business behind it but it's inherently a fraud when he claims a purpose for listing which is obviously a lie (he claims he can't stop shareholders selling to the public - but is actually the one trying to do it himself). If his plan is so shit he can't even reveal WHAT it is then he should have the decency not to list - OR the exchange should have the self-respect to tell him to fuck off. As he hasn't revealed what the business (supposedly) is, it's hard to be SURE it's a scam. But if it isn't, it's almost certainly some worthless junk - as not revealing the nature of a succeessful business would just be giving away too much value to be done by anyone rational. It does give him the chance to drop hints etc and try to fool people into believing he's a business that he isn't (without actually ever making a claim) - which is the best chance he has of making this particular scam pay off (and on at least one level it absolutely IS a scam as there's demonstrable lies in the limited information he's provided - meaning he's trying to obtain money under false pretences).
Exchange.ESIF - think of anything which makes it obvious something is just an outright scam and this one has it. In trumps.
So although there's lack of detail/disclosure in the new two they ARE a big step in the right direction and, also in their favour, they aren't mining companies, investment funds or gambling sites.
