auction for 1 EBAY share

[grondilu]

*** EDIT:  THIS AUCTION IS CLOSED NOW.  See end of thread ***


I own one ebay share in my portfolio.

As an experiment, I sell it for bitcoins.  What this means, is that I hereby promess (yes, you have to trust me), that if at any time I receive some dividends from eBay, I will convert them into bitcoins, and transfer it to you.

I'll make a short auction for this.  No starting price.  Auction will end at block 98,000

[1713953952]

1713953952

[1713953952]

1713953952

[1713953952]

1713953952

[Anonymous]

So we only get a dividend we dont actually get ownership of the share?

What is the usual dividend you get and how often do they pay it ?
 

[grondilu]

So we only get a dividend we dont actually get ownership of the share?

What is the usual dividend you get and how often do they pay it ?

I can't unfortunately "give" you the share.  Too much fees would be included for transfering it.

Basically owning a share means you have a vote right (but who cares about that for such a small quantity of shares ?) and the right to get the dividend.

I can promess I'll transfer the dividend.  All I can do to convince you that it is the same as owning the share, is to engage my reputation.


Basically I do pretty much what my bank is doing for me :  they own the share and they engage their reputation when they promess they'll pay me the dividend.


As for eBay's dividend policy is concerned, they have NEVER paid any dividend, but they might do in the future.  It's up to you to beleive in that or not.
I don't.  That's why I sell the share.

Notice that if you buy the share to me, you will be able to sell it to someone else later.  Basically all you'll have to do is to give me a new bitcoin address.

[nanotube]

so essentially... once someone buys the share from you, he'd have to trust you /in perpetuity/ to keep delivering any possible future dividends. and trust you not to get hit by a truck at some point, or if you do, to trust you to put it in your will that "this ebay share belongs to some guy" when they distribute your assets after your demise?

not sure i like that proposition.

[grondilu]

so essentially... once someone buys the share from you, he'd have to trust you /in perpetuity/ to keep delivering any possible future dividends. and trust you not to get hit by a truck at some point, or if you do, to trust you to put it in your will that "this ebay share belongs to some guy" when they distribute your assets after your demise?

not sure i like that proposition.

Again, this is essentially what any broker do.

Also, nothing prevents you from pricing this risk and thus to give a low bid, considering that I might be a thief or die next year.

An eBay share that I sell certainly worths less than an eBay share sold by an official broker.  But it doesn't worth 0BTC.

[nanotube]

so essentially... once someone buys the share from you, he'd have to trust you /in perpetuity/ to keep delivering any possible future dividends. and trust you not to get hit by a truck at some point, or if you do, to trust you to put it in your will that "this ebay share belongs to some guy" when they distribute your assets after your demise?

not sure i like that proposition.

Again, this is essentially what any broker do.

well, no... brokers have official account books... if a broker dies, you don't have to worry about getting your shares. (not to mention that a brokerage firm is usually not a single guy, and further to mention that these firms have insurance against various losses that may happen).

Also, nothing prevents you from pricing this risk and thus to give a low bid, considering that I might be a thief or die next year.

An eBay share that I sell certainly worths less than an eBay share sold by an official broker.  But it doesn't worth 0BTC.

yes, of course. i was just pointing out the risks to potential bidders.

[FreeMoney]

so essentially... once someone buys the share from you, he'd have to trust you /in perpetuity/ to keep delivering any possible future dividends. and trust you not to get hit by a truck at some point, or if you do, to trust you to put it in your will that "this ebay share belongs to some guy" when they distribute your assets after your demise?

not sure i like that proposition.

This is a good point. As offered we're essentially speculating more on your trustworthiness and health. So... how old are you? Are there any heart problems in your genetic history?

Maybe make it a year or three? At least this prevents us having to mostly guess on how long the arrangement will last than on the company itself.

[grondilu]

This is a good point. As offered we're essentially speculating more on your trustworthiness and health. So... how old are you? Are there any heart problems in your genetic history?

Maybe make it a year or three? At least this prevents us having to mostly guess on how long the arrangement will last than on the company itself.

Well, it's not as if you were investing thounsands of dollars, anyway.  We're talking about ONE share of ebay, which is about 20$ I think.  Hang on, let me check :

:r!yahooquote EBAY
EBAY   eBay Inc.   30.75   12/14/2010   NasdaqNM   


Ok... $30.75 is a little more than I thought.  Still, it's not exactly a huge amount.  So I hope you will agree with me that it's too a small amount to speculate on someone's death !

I'm not in killer shape but I'm ok and I'm pretty sure I will survive at least a few decades more.

[mpkomara]

You might attract more people with a start/stop date.  i.e. you can replicate a single eBay share for two years.

[grondilu]

You might attract more people with a start/stop date.  i.e. you can replicate a single eBay share for two years.

As I said, at any time you will be able to sell the share, providing you find a buyer.  Therefore there is no reason to put a end date, especially since I doubt eBay will pay any dividend in the next two years.

[mpkomara]

If you sell me the "share" of eBay, and I sell the "share" of eBay to person C, then these two shares are not fungible unless you and C agree to face one another and I can step out of the middle.  If you do not agree to face C directly, then you owe any eBay dividend payments to me, and i owe the exact divident payments to C.  That sounds like trouble.

[grondilu]

If you sell me the "share" of eBay, and I sell the "share" of eBay to person C, then these two shares are not fungible unless you and C agree to face one another and I can step out of the middle.  If you do not agree to face C directly, then you owe any eBay dividend payments to me, and i owe the exact divident payments to C.  That sounds like trouble.

I don't get it.  If you buy my share, you give me a bitcoin address where I will put the dividends.

If you sell it later to someone, you just give me a new bitcoin address which will not be yours but his's.

Seems simple enough to me.

Maybe to make it even clearer the seller can use the signing feature of ECDSA to indicate the new address.

[FreeMoney]

If you sell me the "share" of eBay, and I sell the "share" of eBay to person C, then these two shares are not fungible unless you and C agree to face one another and I can step out of the middle.  If you do not agree to face C directly, then you owe any eBay dividend payments to me, and i owe the exact divident payments to C.  That sounds like trouble.

I don't get it.  If you buy my share, you give me a bitcoin address where I will put the dividends.

If you sell it later to someone, you just give me a new bitcoin address which will not be yours but his's.

Seems simple enough to me.

Maybe to make it even clearer the seller can use the signing feature of ECDSA to indicate the new address.

Giving a new bitcoin address is not good enough. The purchaser needs to be able to transfer the ability to transfer also.

I sell to Person C by giving you his address. Now when he wants to sell to D I have to give you D's address, later D will have to get me to to give you E's address and so on.

The way to fix this might be to give a password to the purchaser. If anyone ever says to you "The password is gopher, please change it to g1427xy" then you confirm and henceforth only accept g1427xy. Obviously the password is needed in order to change the bitcoin address that dividends go to also.

[grondilu]

The way to fix this might be to give a password to the purchaser. If anyone ever says to you "The password is gopher, please change it to g1427xy" then you confirm and henceforth only accept g1427xy. Obviously the password is needed in order to change the bitcoin address that dividends go to also.

I don't like passords.  It's much simpler to just sign bitcoin addresses.  If we can't do it with the very ECDSA addresses, then we'll just use GnuPG.

A gives me his public key and I sign a document saying :

I give my eBay share to A, whose public key is ....

Then if A wants to sell it to B, he writes and sign a similar document :

I give my eBay share to B, whose public key is ....


and so on.

It's basically the same as the way bitcoin works, except that we don't need all the double spending check, since I'll take care of that.

[FreeMoney]

Yeah, that sounds good.

This might be more fun with a company that is both more likely to give a dividend and more likely to go bankrupt. Long term deals for small amounts don't appeal to me much.

[fabianhjr]

Hey, I am worried. While the market from my pov shows it is going to rise soon, afaik eBay hadn't gave a single dividend in its 10 year+ history. Is this past information true? And what dates do you expect a dividend to happen?

[Grant]

Since i don't get to own it, and i have to put a lot of trust, and there is no minimum (this is more like speculating that sometime one day they might pay a divie of 0.0x per share).

I'll kickoff this auction, my bid is 0.000001 BTC 

[grondilu]

I'll kickoff this auction, my bid is 0.000001 BTC 

grrr....  Well,  I guess it's better than nothing.

Grant leads the auction at 0.000001 BTC

[davout]

0.00000101 BTC

[grondilu]

0.00000101 BTC

davout leads at 0.00000101 BTC

Come on guys, won't any of you bid at least 1 BTC ?