[ANN] TorBroker - Fund your account in Bitcoin, trade >1000 real stocks and ETFs

[JordanL]

Just one question: are you all fucking crazy?

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[ValtteriRyhtila]

If these guy's have 1,000BTC to put up for insurance then they can also buy their own offshore fully legal brokerage/securities trading financial services company and do this on clearnet. Nothing illegal about anonymous directors running a brokerage service in Belize, Panama, Seychelles, or even New Zealand if you have a local employee there. As long as you are licensed in that country you can operate. Hell you could operate a legal brokerage out of Liberia.

I'm interested, but can you respond have you considered that^^, and why you are not implenting this that^^ way?

In other thoughts, I'm pretty sure that this is going to be one of the main reasons when the feds start their attack on bitcoin.

[only]

Just one question: are you all fucking crazy?

Care to elaborate?

[TorBroker]

If these guy's have 1,000BTC to put up for insurance then they can also buy their own offshore fully legal brokerage/securities trading financial services company and do this on clearnet. Nothing illegal about anonymous directors running a brokerage service in Belize, Panama, Seychelles, or even New Zealand if you have a local employee there. As long as you are licensed in that country you can operate. Hell you could operate a legal brokerage out of Liberia.

We are fully aware of such offshore companies. However, according to our research, being a registered broker in any of the jurisdictions we have looked into requires you to perform time-consuming and intrusive KYC.

Also, if it is publicly known which companies are handling TorBroker accounts, our employed brokerages could be facing political pressure to close our accounts. We would also be attracting the attention of the authorities in the local jurisdiction where these companies are operating. With our current model, there is no political entity that the major securities regulators can pressure.

[kangasbros]

What makes me suspicious is the 1% fee. I would believe in the service more if it had 5% fee.

Edit: not that I would still put any money to this.

[MPOE-PR]

Just one question: are you all fucking crazy?

Care to elaborate?

He means this is so obviously a scam you'd have to be about as dumb&deluded as Kludge to miss it.

Alternatively, Personal responsiblity and the Ponzi scam; So you think you're going to start a Bitcoin business, right?

[TorBroker]

What makes me suspicious is the 1% fee. I would believe in the service more if it had 5% fee.

Note there is currently a minimum of $10. For small orders the commission is therefore larger than 1%. For large orders it is 1%.

[TorBroker]

What makes me suspicious is the 1% fee. I would believe in the service more if it had 5% fee.

BTW, it is not obvious we would profit more from a 5% fee. There is an optimum price point where if you both go lower or higher you will make less money. Determining it requires experimentation.

[marcus_of_augustus]

Might be interesting to have a kind of bitcoin bond held in a 1-of-2 signature address against the account to reduce the trust required on the user side.

Say like user has $20k in stock positions in their account then there is a btc 1-of-2 address with $2k worth of btc (10%) that has both user and tor-broker as signors ... or something like that, maybe use a 3rd party independent arbiter as signor for 1-of-3 multi-sig so that either party can get the bonded funds out if it all turns to custard.

[begining_summer]

TorBroker

First of all, I'm very interested in idea of your project.
As non-US citizen, I see a good opportunity to avoid many annoying meaningless bureaucratic obstacles.

BUT how do you proof that I will trade at real stock markets through TorBroker (i.e. is it a bucket shop or not)?

[TorBroker]

TorBroker

First of all, I'm very interested in idea of your project.
As non-US citizen, I see a good opportunity to avoid many annoying meaningless bureaucratic obstacles.

BUT how do you proof that I will trade at real stock markets through TorBroker (i.e. is it a bucket shop or not)?

There is probably no way for us to prove it. But if we did not hedge customer positions on the real markets, we would be taking on significant risk when our customers do well and request payout from us.

It comes down to what is in our long term interest. With our current fee structure (1%, minimum 10USD, on trades), and with full hedging in the real markets, we are guaranteed to make money on every trade that our customers perform. This is unlike some other Bitcoin trading platforms out there with non-transparent business models that have a high risk of losing money. The way we do it, we have a financial incentive to hedge every position and keep running for the long term.

[TorBroker]

Platform enhancements, fees promotion, and video

TorBroker is releasing a new update of our trading platform today. Enjoy these compelling new features:

• Better securities list interface
• Improved order system
• Performance and stability enhancements
• Lower fee: Pay a minimum of only $5 on trades for the next month (Promotion ending on the 11th of July)

And to bring private, unbureaucratic trading to more people, we will be spreading this short promotional TorBroker video. Please share!

http://s23.postimg.org/4oerdmvsr/hj53k45280h.png

[statdude]

Do you plan to add international securities?

[PrintMule]

It will meet same fate as the others, crackdown, forced verifications or simple poof...

Don't expect it to last

[slacker]

I found a security hole:

Code:

         <!--[if lt IE 9]>
             <script src="http://html5shim.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/html5.js"></script>
         <![endif]-->

Anyone who run a tor exit node can change this script and make some bad things.

Also this:

Code:

 <script src="//ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.8.1/jquery.min.js"></script>

is actually a link to Google (according to a Firefox browser):

Code:

http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.8.1/jquery.min.js

and not to

Code:

http://torbrokerge7zxgq.onion//ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.8.1/jquery.min.js

as you may think.

Loading a JavaScript thought an insecure tor exit node can be very dangerous.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-TmmYpaY6slI/UbhVt8gZ0ZI/AAAAAAAAADM/Tx_1waB_ozY/s1600/torbroker-bug-proof.png

[tumak]

Regarding scam warnings:

If they're paying dividends (or even equity voting rights) for securities they're doing passthru for, it's legit.

Otherwise just another bucketshop.

[slacker]

If they're paying dividends

I thought that bucket shops pay dividends... Can you point out one bucket shop that do not pay dividends?

(or even equity voting rights)

They cannot provide voting rights because if they do, they can expose themselves to the regulators.

[tumak]

I thought that bucket shops pay dividends... Can you point out one bucket shop that do not pay dividends?

Then it's not a bucketshop, as far as user is concerned, it's a passthru, regardless of whether it's held or not - there is no difference to be told from the outside.

Usually one has to wait for large dividend which the bucketeer cannot cover from his profits, and at that moment they're exposed.

They cannot provide voting rights because if they do, they can expose themselves to the regulators.

That's why "even", but don't oversimplify, there are bearer instruments ...

[slacker]

In order to prevent third parties from linking the trading activity at TorBroker to activity in the real markets, TorBroker will randomly split all orders up and execute these through different legal entities on different brokers.

How you resolve the problem with multiple fees you should pay for every transaction? For example if you split one order into 3 parts you should pay 3 times minimum fee required by the broker and the overall fee may exceed $10 (your fee).

Significant activity also allows us to subtract opposite customer positions from each other, obfuscating even further the origin of our activity in the regulated markets.

This will work only if you accumulate significant amount of customers (active traders).

[slacker]

Usually one has to wait for large dividend which the bucketeer cannot cover from his profits, and at that moment they're exposed.

The real bucket shops can cover any amount of dividends because for every long position there is a corresponding short position. When someone is receiving dividend, other is paying dividend. For example when John has 100 long shares, Thomas has 100 short shares. Of course there is exceptions but statistically the profit from non-hedged big positions will be almost equal to the losses from non-hedged big positions.

The wise bucket shops will hedge too big positions that cannot be hedged within the bucket shop.