Bustabit Crowd Sale [Closed]

[RHavar]

Bustabit is one of the most popular bitcoin gambling sites (probably second only to primedice, at least by amount wagered), and today I'm announcing that it's going up for crowd sale. To avoid repeating myself too much, I'll just post the link to the full details are here:

https://www.bustabit.com/crowdsale


Comments, criticisms and questions are welcome!

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[rens23]

I read about the dividends, when are those paid?

[RHavar]

I read about the dividends, when are those paid?

No fixed time, just when ever the site wants to distribute its money or feels like it has too much money in idle assets

[JessicaG]

Indeed, how are the dividends structured?
Like, when are they paid?
In bits, or in BTC's?
When all tokens sold, do tokens have an expiry date or are dividends lifetime of the site?


Also, 3.000 BTC is quite an amount to raise in only 14 days. My best guess that's related due to the upcoming halving, but perhaps extending the period might be something to re-think.

Also, if the main point is to raise funds, I do not see the benefit of hiding the remaining amount of tokens to be hidden due to sniping.

[JessicaG]

Perhaps you might also want to post this in the "Long Term Offers" board.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=88.0

[RHavar]

Indeed, how are the dividends structured?
Like, when are they paid?
In bits, or in BTC's?

bits are just a millionth of a bitcoin, so it's the same thing But dividends will be paid into the current token holders bustabit account

When all tokens sold, do tokens have an expiry date or are dividends lifetime of the site?

They don't expire, but will be transferrable

Also, 3.000 BTC is quite an amount to raise in only 14 days. My best guess that's related due to the upcoming halving, but perhaps extending the period might be something to re-think.

Also, if the main point is to raise funds, I do not see the benefit of hiding the remaining amount of tokens to be hidden due to sniping.

The main point of hiding the amount of remaining tokens, is just to prevent a vicious cycle of people not investing because they want to wait to make sure the crowd fund looks to be successful. Perhaps I'm being overly cautious and it's a bad idea. But once the crowd sale is over, I'll start providing proof of assets and proof of liabilities so you can verify the amount of tokens wasn't oversold, and what not.

[rens23]

I read about the dividends, when are those paid?

No fixed time, just when ever the site wants to distribute its money or feels like it has too much money in idle assets

That is pretty vague since you are the site, And what will be seen as too much money like what would be the minimum bankroll?

[wormat22]

Indeed, how are the dividends structured?
Like, when are they paid?
In bits, or in BTC's?
When all tokens sold, do tokens have an expiry date or are dividends lifetime of the site?


Also, 3.000 BTC is quite an amount to raise in only 14 days. My best guess that's related due to the upcoming halving, but perhaps extending the period might be something to re-think.

Also, if the main point is to raise funds, I do not see the benefit of hiding the remaining amount of tokens to be hidden due to sniping.

I agree, give us more time to analyze think about investing. 3k bitcoins in 14 days is a lot of money

[RocketSingh]

Why are not u doing it in Just-Dice/bitdice.me style?

[RHavar]

Why are not u doing it in Just-Dice/bitdice.me style?

The Just-Dice / bitdice.me style is great for raising a bankroll to support large bets, but doesn't directly allow for much more. My goal is to use the funds for expansion and what not.

[Indamuck]

Hi - i intermittently invest in the bankroll at moneypot, and play a bit as well. *Love that site, and thanks for your original work there.

I haven't really followed the saga behind your sale to the current owners. Is there some bad blood or ill will? Why wouldn't you simply hook back up with MP and effectively free up your funds from the bankroll?

Your thread caught my attention because I like to invest in casino bankroll, and would love to get a piece of the house as well. I bump into two issues with your offer though. First is that I'm illiquid for the time being so I don't have much to invest. Second is that you are not simply offering a bankroll stake, but an equity stake of sorts, so I would have to do a rough valuation to make sure I'm getting fair value. How did you arrive at the value of the 'tokens' that are on offer?

*If you don't explicitly provide a valuation, I think many people won't take the trouble to look carefully themselves, and your crowdsale will flounder.

**My real assumption  is that you are a smart cookie, and the tokens are significantly overvalued. But you are taking a free shot at potentially profiting from some of the alt-coin/investment frenzy we've been seeing of late.

As it stands, if the tokens launch, I'll try to follow performance and maybe buy in if the prospective returns justify it.

[RHavar]

Hi - i intermittently invest in the bankroll at moneypot, and play a bit as well. *Love that site, and thanks for your original work there.

I haven't really followed the saga behind your sale to the current owners. Is there some bad blood or ill will? Why wouldn't you simply hook back up with MP and effectively free up your funds from the bankroll?

Originally when I owned MoneyPot that was always my goal, but the problem is it's really a very tricky to do so for a few technical reasons. For one MoneyPot is based a lot on atomic bets, and allows investors to invest/divest at will. Because bustabit isn't atomic, this poses a lot of problems. (i.e. for instance, imagine someone bet 1 BTC and the game has got to 10x and they still haven't cashed out ... smart investors would divest before the game ended)

But even if the technical issues were overcome (which they could be with enough time and energy) it doesn't really make much sense from a business perspective. I'd obviously like to lower my personal variance by withdrawing my money from the bankroll, but based on the last 6 months of volume .... that's literally a 500 BTC/year fee =/. For that price, I'll rather a few more restless nights

MP is a great deal for new casinos, but if you've already got the money for a bankroll (and the whole system already built) I don't think you can really justify it.

Your thread caught my attention because I like to invest in casino bankroll, and would love to get a piece of the house as well. I bump into two issues with your offer though. First is that I'm illiquid for the time being so I don't have much to invest. Second is that you are not simply offering a bankroll stake, but an equity stake of sorts, so I would have to do a rough valuation to make sure I'm getting fair value. How did you arrive at the value of the 'tokens' that are on offer?

Just pulled a number out of my ass. Originally I was going to do it more like an auction (kind of how mycellium did it), but I didn't want to part with it too cheap, which would involve setting a min value. And at that point, I figured it was just cleaner to establish a value for people to say if it's worth it. Most of the value (imo) is in it's future potential earning, so is really hard to put a figure on it.

*If you don't explicitly provide a valuation, I think many people won't take the trouble to look carefully themselves, and your crowdsale will flounder.

**My real assumption  is that you are a smart cookie, and the tokens are significantly overvalued. But you are taking a free shot at potentially profiting from some of the alt-coin/investment frenzy we've been seeing of late.

Yeah, it'd rather put a too-high value than a too-low one (as you say, there's no cost to me if it doesn't fully sell). But that said, I genuinely think it's a good deal for investors.  I mean if you look around the space, there's pretty much just shit on offer while this is a business that's already established and has a lot of growing room.

[wormat22]

Hi - i intermittently invest in the bankroll at moneypot, and play a bit as well. *Love that site, and thanks for your original work there.

I haven't really followed the saga behind your sale to the current owners. Is there some bad blood or ill will? Why wouldn't you simply hook back up with MP and effectively free up your funds from the bankroll?

Your thread caught my attention because I like to invest in casino bankroll, and would love to get a piece of the house as well. I bump into two issues with your offer though. First is that I'm illiquid for the time being so I don't have much to invest. Second is that you are not simply offering a bankroll stake, but an equity stake of sorts, so I would have to do a rough valuation to make sure I'm getting fair value. How did you arrive at the value of the 'tokens' that are on offer?

*If you don't explicitly provide a valuation, I think many people won't take the trouble to look carefully themselves, and your crowdsale will flounder.

**My real assumption  is that you are a smart cookie, and the tokens are significantly overvalued. But you are taking a free shot at potentially profiting from some of the alt-coin/investment frenzy we've been seeing of late.

As it stands, if the tokens launch, I'll try to follow performance and maybe buy in if the prospective returns justify it.

Hey man, I've actually done a DCF on BaB, and I can assure you it's 'tokens' are worth at minimum .001 btc per token even assuming no growth over the next 5 years.

[Indamuck]

Hey man, I've actually done a DCF on BaB, and I can assure you it's 'tokens' are worth at minimum .001 btc per token even assuming no growth over the next 5 years.

Hey man, I do DCF for a living, but haven't bothered here for a couple of important reasons. First, OP has arbitrary control over 'expenses' and a whimsical dividend policy. Reality is that for these 'securities' the 'dividends' are going to be whatever OP pulls out of his ass that week, or that month. Speaking of, he's also likely to arbitrarily buy back the 'tokens' at a price of his own choosing. Wherefore your terminal value then?!? He doesn't get them listed, or sees that they only trade on Bustabit, and then buys them back at a price of his own choosing. Sound like fun? Run that through a DCF and see what it gets you.

And his argument for not tapping moneypot's bankroll just doesn't sound right. He could tap MP's roll, while still also investing in his own action I would think. In fact he could have a very flexible exposure to his action, or the action across entire MP app universe.

Anyway, CAGR of MP's bankroll' returns has been well over triple digits for months. It would take something pretty compelling to make me look elsewhere. If Bustabit had an investable bankroll I'd definitely be looking closely.

**Sorry if I came off indignant wormat22. This deal doesn't look reasonable to me. And your post (quoted above) sounds like something Kramer would say on some cheesy Saturday morning show.

[RHavar]

Speaking of, he's also likely to arbitrarily buy back the 'tokens' at a price of his own choosing.

Just to be clear, I'd only be buying them back from people selling them.

And his argument for not tapping moneypot's bankroll just doesn't sound right. He could tap MP's roll, while still also investing in his own action I would think. In fact he could have a very flexible exposure to his action, or the action across entire MP app universe.

huh? If all I wanted to do was lower my volatility, I could easily allow bankroll investors and double the size of the bankroll overnight. It would probably take two or three days to implement (bustabit already has a concept of a bankroll, it's just purely provided by me at the moment). The problem is easier to solve (people's divestment and investments would be queued until between games). By implementing my own crowd-fund bankroll, it'd literally save me months of development time, be less risky, and I wouldn't be outsourcing perhaps the most critical part of a casino away. It would be a lot safer for me to personally invest in (no counterparty risk). Oh yeah, and I don't need to give a 3rd party half the expected earnings

MoneyPot definitely has advantages, especially for a new casino wanting to leverage its bankroll and players. But keep in mind, BaB is pretty established and probably doing >5 or 6x the volume.

Anyway, CAGR of MP's bankroll' returns has been well over triple digits for months. It would take something pretty compelling to make me look elsewhere. If Bustabit had an investable bankroll I'd definitely be looking closely.

From my conversations with other investors, that seems like the universally desired solution

[RHavar]

There's been very little token purchases after the first day, with all the investors I knew to be buying tokens have already done so and only a ~1/3rd sold. So instead of wasting everyones time, I've issued a full refund on your bustabit account  (+0.01 BTC as a thanks).

All larger withdrawals I will likely be processing manually and I'll try contact investors via email to confirm with them the instructions are correct. So please be patient, and give me 12+ hours to process the withdrawal.

Thanks everyone, and I'll try release something more appealing in the near future =)

[wormat22]

There's been very little token purchases after the first day, with all the investors I knew to be buying tokens have already done so and only a ~1/3rd sold. So instead of wasting everyones time, I've issued a full refund on your bustabit account  (+0.01 BTC as a thanks).

All larger withdrawals I will likely be processing manually and I'll try contact investors via email to confirm with them the instructions are correct. So please be patient, and give me 12+ hours to process the withdrawal.

Thanks everyone, and I'll try release something more appealing in the near future =)

It wasn't a bad idea, I just think trying to raise $2 million through crowdfunding was implausible to start with....a smaller amount would have worked better I think