Virtex VTX trading disabled

[ceyre]

Yep.
I sure hope Havelock takes it fair share of a hit over this.
HIF sucked to begin with, but I don't foresee good things moving forward if this is how they're going to treat customers who've been with them since the beginning.

Fortunately, I didn't invest too much in VTX.  I was lauding them to my friends about 2 weeks ago as one of the best investment opportunities in BTC... glad my friends don't value my (inebriated, I'll admit) opinion. 

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[MonkeyBear68]

I live in Alberta where this company is located and I too invested since the beginning. In total I am down about 100 BTC when I sold my shares last night. In terms of fiat I actually am up about 25%. I do not believe there was any malicious intent on the part of the owner of CaVirtEx.

Back when I purchased the shares the idea was that they were tied to a value of around $30 per share. Obviously a real world registered company is valued in dollars. If the owner needs to raise dollars and they do it using BTC as a transfer mechanism, then they will not simply hold the BTC. They must use it to invest in equipment etc and grow the company. In the mean time Bitcoin drastically went up in value, the cost of each share is pegged to a real world asset valued in dollars. The cost of a share in BTC has to drop. When I bought my VTX shares I actually considered them as a hedge against Bitcoin, in that if Bitcoin dropped the price would go up to compensate.

I think what has happened is more a function of the fact that Bitcoin has risen so much. The last price of a share of Virtex (as of me typing this) is 0.0451 BTC which is about $30.00. In terms of fiat there is no loss. I had seriously considered buying more VTX shares and becoming a registered owner; I truly believe that Virtex will do very well. The only reason I decided against it was because owning private (real-world) unlisted shares involves much more hassle when trying to buy and sell etc.

To those that acquired my shares and to those considering buying, I think that Virtex will be a successful company. I believe the owner had no choice when trying to expand and grow the company but to remove the "virtual" element of Bitcoin in their valuation. It is ironic because CaVirtEx provides the trading mechanism for Bitcoin itself.

As a customer of Virtex I can tell you that the service they provide is top notch.

Stay Thirsty my Friends - For Bitcoin!!!

[Kosmatos]

MonkeyBear68: That was a great post to put things into perspective. Thanks.

[_mr_e]

I live in Alberta where this company is located and I too invested since the beginning. In total I am down about 100 BTC when I sold my shares last night. In terms of fiat I actually am up about 25%. I do not believe there was any malicious intent on the part of the owner of CaVirtEx.

Back when I purchased the shares the idea was that they were tied to a value of around $30 per share. Obviously a real world registered company is valued in dollars. If the owner needs to raise dollars and they do it using BTC as a transfer mechanism, then they will not simply hold the BTC. They must use it to invest in equipment etc and grow the company. In the mean time Bitcoin drastically went up in value, the cost of each share is pegged to a real world asset valued in dollars. The cost of a share in BTC has to drop. When I bought my VTX shares I actually considered them as a hedge against Bitcoin, in that if Bitcoin dropped the price would go up to compensate.

I think what has happened is more a function of the fact that Bitcoin has risen so much. The last price of a share of Virtex (as of me typing this) is 0.0451 BTC which is about $30.00. In terms of fiat there is no loss. I had seriously considered buying more VTX shares and becoming a registered owner; I truly believe that Virtex will do very well. The only reason I decided against it was because owning private (real-world) unlisted shares involves much more hassle when trying to buy and sell etc.

To those that acquired my shares and to those considering buying, I think that Virtex will be a successful company. I believe the owner had no choice when trying to expand and grow the company but to remove the "virtual" element of Bitcoin in their valuation. It is ironic because CaVirtEx provides the trading mechanism for Bitcoin itself.

As a customer of Virtex I can tell you that the service they provide is top notch.

Stay Thirsty my Friends - For Bitcoin!!!

I am currently down about 100 btc as well, which is why there is no chance in hell I am selling at this price. Sure, in the short term the quick btc rise caused these shares to drop, but we also need to remember that "a rising tide carries all boats". Virtex is positioning themselves very well to become a solid viable exchange that I believe will one day grow to service a global market - a market that is rapidly expanding. You can see that as the btc price goes up so does their volume and in turn their revenue. The fact that these shares are trading at less then IPO when the company has clearly grown significantly in terms of offerings, employees & volume is a complete joke and some people are going to one day seriously regret their decision to sell at such a pittance. I for one picked up quite a bit more in this bargain sale. I guess I'm lucky I'm Canadian.

[freedomno1]

Actually agree that it seems like a good investment less my concerns about share dilution the biggest concern is the rising price of bitcoin
As happened in the IPO on a fiat scale one can easily break even and virtex is doing fine in that regard but on the BTC scale these share purchases could end up being worth a lot more than the Fiat assets it covers during the duration they are held as physical shares.
That said virtex is in a good position to help expand bitcoin in Canada but I would rather trade my fiat for shares than my BTC at this point

[Kosmatos]

As I write this, 11:30AM EST, 1.0 BTC costs $630 CAD. VTX shares are BTC 0.095 approximately. So to get 1% of the company, which is 1000 shares, you need to spend 95 BTC, which comes to about $60,000.

That's 1% of a $6,000,000 CAD company.

Is Virtex presently worth $6 million, well, that depends on their potential, the potential buyers, their revenue, their visibility, their volume, the number of customers, the names and reputation of those running it, and more. Sure, Joseph David, the CEO, is going to conferences and presenting, and doing some cool stuff with the company, overall. The one about "potential buyers" is definitely the one I would bet on the most. In explosive, exciting fields like bitcoin is, it's easy to imagine someone paying $25 million or more for Virtex. I certainly wouldn't sell it for less than $5M, considering its position in the market at this moment. Of course, I believe bitcoin will still be here in 5 years, thriving. And I bet a lot of others do too.

The only bummer is that our shares are now going to be tied to the dollar. They aren't fluctuating anymore WITH bitcoin. If bitcoin does it's superman thing again and go X100, the non-virtual VTX shares we'll get won't also be worth X100. Consider them fiat, then, like shares in $AAPL. Only some dividends will be BTC. And how many dividends, we don't know.

So all in all, you have to decide: Do you believe in BTC, which on average does a X10 every year at least, or VTX, which has some potential, but surely not going to the moon...

[ThickAsThieves]

The only bummer is that our shares are now going to be tied to the dollar. They aren't fluctuating anymore WITH bitcoin. If bitcoin does it's superman thing again and go X100, the non-virtual VTX shares we'll get won't also be worth X100. Consider them fiat, then, like shares in $AAPL. Only some dividends will be BTC. And how many dividends, we don't know.

You misunderstand how things work. When you buy a stock, any stock mind you, in any denomination, you are selling your bitcoins and taking a fiat-exposed investment. If bitcoin goes up 100x against fiat, then the stock value will go down in some proportion, as we've all seen.

This does not preclude a business from outperforming the value of bitcoin however.

The denomination of your dividends also isn't that important. Hell, the amount of the dividends might not be either.

[Kosmatos]

ThickAsThieves,

Then why has my NEOBEE stock remained at 0.003 BTC more or less even though since I traded my XBOND for it, BTC price went up 10X? (From 130 to 1150 and back to 700). All through, I never saw the NEOBEE stock go below more or less .002. (66%)

If you can explain that one to me, then, okay. Otherwise, well, your observation may have a flaw.

[bobboooiie]

ThickAsThieves,

Then why has my NEOBEE stock remained at 0.003 BTC more or less even though since I traded my XBOND for it, BTC price went up 10X? (From 130 to 1150 and back to 700). All through, I never saw the NEOBEE stock go below more or less .002. (66%)

If you can explain that one to me, then, okay. Otherwise, well, your observation may have a flaw.

For an investor you lack a lot of basic knowledge. NEOBEE is still holding most of the coins they IPOed and not exchanged them for fiat.

[Kosmatos]

Tough crowd!

TAT says: "You misunderstand how things work. When you buy a stock, any stock mind you, in any denomination, you are selling your bitcoins and taking a fiat-exposed investment."

bobboooiie says: "NEOBEE is still holding most of the coins they IPOed and not exchanged them for fiat."

I may lack a lot of basic knowledge, but at least I can spot the contradiction above.

[ThickAsThieves]

Tough crowd!

TAT says: "You misunderstand how things work. When you buy a stock, any stock mind you, in any denomination, you are selling your bitcoins and taking a fiat-exposed investment."

bobboooiie says: "NEOBEE is still holding most of the coins they IPOed and not exchanged them for fiat."

I may lack a lot of basic knowledge, but at least I can spot the contradiction above.

There's no contradiction, and bobboooie does make a good point (however speculative it may be).

Valuating NEOBEE is very complicated task. Unfortunately, it's not a topic that would be appropriate for me to publicly dissect.  ...but that's okay because there is no perfect answer anyway.

[_mr_e]

The only bummer is that our shares are now going to be tied to the dollar. They aren't fluctuating anymore WITH bitcoin. If bitcoin does it's superman thing again and go X100, the non-virtual VTX shares we'll get won't also be worth X100. Consider them fiat, then, like shares in $AAPL. Only some dividends will be BTC. And how many dividends, we don't know.

You misunderstand how things work. When you buy a stock, any stock mind you, in any denomination, you are selling your bitcoins and taking a fiat-exposed investment. If bitcoin goes up 100x against fiat, then the stock value will go down in some proportion, as we've all seen.

This does not preclude a business from outperforming the value of bitcoin however.

The denomination of your dividends also isn't that important. Hell, the amount of the dividends might not be either.

I'm not sure this is totally true.

The shares denominated in $ should be no different than thinking about the BTC price in $.

Since we have a move up in the BTC price, everything BTC related should also go up in price in terms of $.  Especially companies in Canada that has shown the surprising foresight to leave BTC companies alone in terms of money transmitting. A rising tide lifts all boats and all that jazz... No?

Now I can understand there would be a lag effect as btc begins to move up very quickly far beyond it's mean. We have people try to cash out of stocks in order to sell at the top of the bubble, we have btc moving far more quickly then it should while companies like virtex stay at relatively the same growth rate short rate, we have the people seeing the stock crash who then decide it's time to bail. If it wasn't for this delisting I think we would have seen VTX begin to slowly creep up again, especially as we moved closer to the next dividend announcement. While this delisted totally screwed my trading plan in this regard, I will most certainly keep holding and managed to pick up a few more due to this fire sale. btc is 50% less and stocks are 42% less then just a few weeks ago, this leads to some killer savings.

Do you hold any VTX TAT?

[MonkeyBear68]

I am not certain how much competition this new entrant (see the link below) might provide, but that is another consideration.

http://www.coindesk.com/canadian-mining-company-pays-wages-bitcoin-plans-new-cryptocurrency-exchange/

It is too bad Virtex has no plans to list on a stock exchange. Buying and selling private shares is very involved. Although Virtex has huge potential, trying to find private buyers for shares is a pain.

[gog1]

I do use Virtex and liked it, but I am quite concerned as financials were never released, and sounds like they are looking for new capital which will only dilute the thing further.  Current valuation is about 1x trading revenue.

[nodroids]

So I was buying lightly, holding out to make my bulk buy when the financials and dividend payout were announced. Luckily thus far I have been able to buy in at an average share price of .17 btc. All with the plan to wait for a dip in BTC price itself, buy more BTC to cover my ratios for crypto services companies to crypto coins themselves, buy more at .11 per share or lower closer to the financials release, and then request for legal share listing if the dividend was declared. Would have brought my virtex share hodlings under my 2014 revenue model of .145 per share and had me holding legal securities in my home country, although you Americans should've been into it too considering all our treaties on securities, cap gains, dividends, etc.

All things considered, it's basically all priced in at this fire sale, I do have the cash to buy more bitcoin and keep my ratios for share in services vs. pure bitcoin low and come in under my valuation for legal shares in a company that has played it's cards pretty well, legally, operating, market share and capitalization wise. Virtex is the best exchange hands down, the world over. If they want to expand to other markets he's super well positioned to when the regulatory regime comes. For now just playing the regulatory games in one home country is enough for any exchange. Cavirtex is trotting out the dog and pony show for the regulators as best as possible, jumping through all the hoops with a good lawyer to track the correspondence and show prudently responsible respect for the law.

Last day to pull the trigger! I think I'm going to buy just a little bit more to make the administration and sale of shares worthwhile. Then my original plan still pans out. Don't like it as much as holding "the superman act of BTC" but it's still not a bad play, and not too far from my original plan.

Joseph probably doesn't even lose us old whales as customers with this either, you shrewd, prudent Canuck bastard you. Take pride Canadians, this is a great Canadian businessman in the making we just got played by! And for our troubles we get the first legal securities in crypto history for one of the only potential 'blue chips' openly available in the ecosystem.

[gog1]

I find the valuation rather rich.  From bitcoincharts.


7d   1,216.51   919,683.19   755.9997
30d   19,107.26   14,742,502.46   771.5653
6m   119,003.73   38,486,617.22   323.4068
1y   346,498.75   57,123,055.30   164.8579

The last 30 days is rather volatile, let's discount that volume for a second.  From this, we can see the first 6 month of the year, volume is approx
$18.6 million.  Volume for the past 6 month minus the last 30 days, for a total of 5 months, is $23.7 million.  I highly doubt the volume of last 30 days is sustainable over the year.  Let's be very liberal, and assume they do $100 million in volume next year, revenue will come in at $3 million (1.5% fee x 2) unless they do market making (activities such as arbing across exchange) or having other income sources.  Just having 8 full time + 6 part time doing call center (verification) function is quite costly, plus you have programmers, marketing people, etc. where the latter don't earn minimal wage.  There's other general administrative expense like rent, office expenses, etc. so that doesn't left a lot for profit.  If Virtex engaged in market making, it would had been quite profitable but I don't think they are into that - otherwise, the price difference between Virtex and other exchange would not have been so dramatic throughout the whole year.  However, with prices now a lot closer, market making will not be a big revenue driver even if they engage in it now.

Right now, the whole thing is valued at $12.5 million and you have the threat of dilution (the CEO is looking for new source of fund).

[freedomno1]

Well delisting day so be ready to hold committed investors 

[gog1]

With trading no longer available, anyone want to sell OTC?  Or is it even possible?

[MikeXBT]

Any updates on what's happening with vtx for those holding? Have any of you received physical shares yet?

[_mr_e]

Any updates on what's happening with vtx for those holding? Have any of you received physical shares yet?

Yes, shares have been sent out.