[LABCOIN] IPO [BTCT.CO] - Details/FAQ and Discussion (ASIC dev/sales/mining)

[kokojie]

the 3 million shares should either not be tradeable on BTCT until a certain amount of time
OR the shares should be marked/colored in a way so that people know that they are buying the team's shares. this would also indicate for everyone to panic - heh

I agree, there's a reason there's a IPO "lock up" period for insiders in real world IPO. Especially when labcoin is going against the norm on btct (insider shares are not normally tradable)

[TheSwede75]

Update:

I will talk to the Labcoin team about some form of 'public' solution to this question.

The other 6,000,000 shares are held by investors of BTCSEA CO.,Ltd ,which is not available and limited to open in next 2 years. Pass Through stocks based on these shares are prohibited in next 2 years either.Public shareholders have no such a restriction.

You are definitely correct when it comes to BTCSEA CO. At this time I can personally just communicate that the team is definitely not planning on selling any shares and are 100% committed to the future of the project.

Everything is fine, except for the fact that in current shape of things they can just abandon the ship at any time they want.
I think it is important to (either or both):
- clarify that no founder shares will be sold till some date in the future;
- make founder's accounts public so anybody can check number of labcoin shares they hold.






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[TheSwede75]

the 3 million shares should either not be tradeable on BTCT until a certain amount of time
OR the shares should be marked/colored in a way so that people know that they are buying the team's shares. this would also indicate for everyone to panic - heh

I agree, there's a reason there's a IPO "lock up" period for insiders in real world IPO. Especially when labcoin is going against the norm on btct (insider shares are not normally tradable)

I would like to point out that the 'Lock in' period for founders/insiders is one of those 'sometimes there is one, sometimes not'. I can also say that the Labcoin team didn't even consider this in the IPO process due to no one being interested in selling out shares in the project. That said, I will talk to Sam this weekend to see about a public solution that will allow share holders to feel secure in that the Labcoin founders and developers are not selling out.

[bobboooiie]

In other words, you can sell whenever you want and no one will know.

Surely, burnside would. But still there should be lock on them or at least mentioned in the contract that they cannot sell them

[yufu571]

i just think the LAB team is destroying the future. crazy beginning, crazy end.

[twentyseventy]

Bingo! The shares should not have been rendered. What incentive does the company have to work at all if they can just sell all their own shares?

Come on, TAT. Plenty of companies have founders that are able to sell their shares. Larry and Sergey didn't cash everything out when Google IPO'd, did te

Labcoin has been posting on the Mining forum for a while and they've got a strong incentive to make more money off of the appreciation of their shares than to sell now.

[boyohi]

In other words, you can sell whenever you want and no one will know.

Surely, burnside would. But still there should be lock on them or at least mentioned in the contract that they cannot sell them

Yes. Updating the contract and putting a lock on those 3million shares will be good. If they have no intention to sell, doing this shouldn't be a problem.

[Moebius327]

Update:

I will talk to the Labcoin team about some form of 'public' solution to this question.

The other 6,000,000 shares are held by investors of BTCSEA CO.,Ltd ,which is not available and limited to open in next 2 years. Pass Through stocks based on these shares are prohibited in next 2 years either.Public shareholders have no such a restriction.

You are definitely correct when it comes to BTCSEA CO. At this time I can personally just communicate that the team is definitely not planning on selling any shares and are 100% committed to the future of the project.

Everything is fine, except for the fact that in current shape of things they can just abandon the ship at any time they want.
I think it is important to (either or both):
- clarify that no founder shares will be sold till some date in the future;
- make founder's accounts public so anybody can check number of labcoin shares they hold.

Maybe you can make Read-Only API Keys publicly available so everyone can see your portfolio and prove you won't selll?

[TheSwede75]

Bingo! The shares should not have been rendered. What incentive does the company have to work at all if they can just sell all their own shares?

Come on, TAT. Plenty of companies have founders that are able to sell their shares. Larry and Sergey didn't cash everything out when Google IPO'd, did te

Labcoin has been posting on the Mining forum for a while and they've got a strong incentive to make more money off of the appreciation of their shares than to sell now.

Though I don't think the Labcoin team are quite comparing themselves to Google ( Yet  ) this is the way they see it. That said, I will talk to Sam about some form of solution that allows for more transparency when it comes to the Founder shares.

[kleeck]

Come chat about Labcoin on IRC.

http://webchat.freenode.net/ is a good web-based IRC solution.
Channel: Labcoin
User your Bitcointalk name so we know who's who!

[Ytterbium]

Bingo! The shares should not have been rendered. What incentive does the company have to work at all if they can just sell all their own shares?

Salary? There's no rule that requires founders to keep all their shares in the real world, except for the first six months or so.

Anyway, this thread is full of people who obviously don't know anything about IC production whining on and on about tiny, nit-picky issues. Read the BTCT terms of service.  It's supposed to be a "entertainment purposes only" "virtual" exchange, technically speaking the owners of the company can just run off with all the BTC and abandon the company, whether or not they sell their shares.

If you don't trust them, then you shouldn't hold their shares, period.

UPDATE:

A little off topic-but it may still interest investors that the Labcoin team has already received the first requests from mining operations/individuals for bulk purchases of the 1st Gen 130nm chips. As first-run is ordered and we get closer to mass production of chips we will update share holders on the volume of placed bulk-orders as they are verified.

Interesting. Hopefully we'll get more details about that: order size, cost, payment date, delivery date etc.  On the other hand you don't want to give out information that could give competitors a better advantage.

[dexX7]

I advise everyone to get not too crazy. I mean, you gave and trusted them 7000 Bitcoin and now there is a trust issue with outstanding shares? Don't get me wrong, I'm pro transparency and I assume people in the Bitcoinland are those with the most trust issues for very good reasons and this should be kept in mind and honored by every asset issuer.

Here is some brainstorming:

If you really want to expose company held shares to the public but don't want to expose your personal portfolios, transfer them to parking accounts which are only for company shares. Those portfolios could be made visible to the public and your private privacy remains untouched.

[Ytterbium]

Come on, TAT. Plenty of companies have founders that are able to sell their shares. Larry and Sergey didn't cash everything out when Google IPO'd, did te

Labcoin has been posting on the Mining forum for a while and they've got a strong incentive to make more money off of the appreciation of their shares than to sell now.

While this is true, insiders typically can't sell for the first six months after their IPO.

IMO people are panicking over nothing. Nothing prevents them from taking all the money invested and living large without worrying about the investors at all, since BTCT securities are "for entertainment purposes only" and not legally binding. The fact that they didn't just let people bid as high as they wanted and sold shares at the original IPO price, rather then taking twice as much, indicates they're not just in it for a quick buck.

If you'er not comfortable trusting these guys with your money, then sell your shares.  I don't understand what makes people both paranoid about the founders and at the same unwilling to sell the shares - instead coming on the forum and venting their frustration and cognitive dissonance on the boards.  

Unless they're trying to get other people to sell in order to lower the price and buy more, of course

BTCT enables options trading, but so far no one has offered to sell any put options. Theoretically you could hedge your ownership by writing a call option as well.

But seriously just chill.  If you don't trust these guys with your money, then don't hold the shares.

[canth]

I advise everyone to get not too crazy. I mean, you gave and trusted them 7000 Bitcoin and now there is a trust issue with outstanding shares? Don't get me wrong, I'm pro transparency and I assume people in the Bitcoinland are those with the most trust issues for very good reasons and this should be kept in mind and honored by every asset issuer.

Here is some brainstorming:

If you really want to expose company held shares to the public but don't want to expose your personal portfolios, transfer them to parking accounts which are only for company shares. Those portfolios could be made visible to the public and your private privacy remains untouched.

+1 - this makes the most sense. I trust the LabCoin founders as of right now - they've invested enough that it wouldn't make any sense to pull out at the time being.

However, if we're completely candid there may be a time when things aren't so rosy and the stock price is high enough that members of the team could sell out massively (over time). In the 'real world' this would be prevented by insider trading rules and the required disclosure of sales by any officers of the company.

Putting the shares in a holding account or otherwise sharing this information with shareholders will maintain confidence that LabCoin employees and owners are doing what is best for shareholders.

[ThickAsThieves]

But seriously just chill.  If you don't trust these guys with your money, then don't hold the shares.

It's not as simple as that. The greater issue here is the legitimacy of the market itself.

We care, so we kick and scream. I don't want issuers acting like scammers, or investors buying into scams, regardless of whether I hold shares.

It affects everyone. It affects the value of everything, and bitcoin's health in general.

[chriswilmer]

But seriously just chill.  If you don't trust these guys with your money, then don't hold the shares.

It's not as simple as that. The greater issue here is the legitimacy of the market itself.

We care, so we kick and scream. I don't want issuers acting like scammers, or investors buying into scams, regardless of whether I hold shares.

It affects everyone. It affects the value of everything, and bitcoin's health in general.

+1

[hammurabi]

But seriously just chill.  If you don't trust these guys with your money, then don't hold the shares.

It's not as simple as that. The greater issue here is the legitimacy of the market itself.
We care, so we kick and scream. I don't want issuers acting like scammers, or investors buying into scams, regardless of whether I hold shares.
It affects everyone. It affects the value of everything, and bitcoin's health in general.

That statement should be quoted, so I quote it right away!

One can wonder, why labcoin forgot to put that into their prospectus, while for example btcgarden didn't.
Answers can be so much different depending on reasons behind it.
For example the idea might not crossed their mind at all or
they didn't want to put any constraint on themselves to feel free.

In contrast one can also wonder why, at the same time, btcgarden didn't forgot to put such a clause in their prospectus.
Have a thought of abandoning their company crossed their minds?!

[boyohi]

But seriously just chill.  If you don't trust these guys with your money, then don't hold the shares.

It's not as simple as that. The greater issue here is the legitimacy of the market itself.

We care, so we kick and scream. I don't want issuers acting like scammers, or investors buying into scams, regardless of whether I hold shares.

It affects everyone. It affects the value of everything, and bitcoin's health in general.

+1 its important for a company to address our concern.

[ajk]

TAT you called pump and dump on Activemining are you sad that you didnt get any IPO shares and trying to bring down the price? I dont get how this is any different from any real world company CEO's dont hold private shares they are all listed on the market

Edit: TAT called pump and dump on ActM when the price of the shares were like .0007 you were only a little incorrect in that assumption considering the valuation of the company is like 8X that now

[ajk]

The only way I would agree that its negative is that if they sell massive amounts of shares without letting us know having the shares listed publicly doesnt mean that they are doing shady things regardless of whether the option is there,

If they sell massive amounts of shares we will probably know who it is then you are correct till then its speculative and just trying to cause fear