.

[coblee]

Is there going to be an exact time for the IPO?

[1713550018]

1713550018

[MrTeal]

Will you announce each week where on the scale of 500 to 2000 bonds you will be, and how far in advance will you announce it.

[Sukrim]

How close will this hit. My guess is around 1.1? Making 16% interest?

I'm curious as well.  Perhaps a bet is in order?
http://betsofbitco.in/item?id=337

Seems like it's VERY easy to manipulate that bet though - all you need is to place a buy order at 1.1001 or something and you still will make 18 bitcents from the contract as well as win the bet with 100% certainty.

[mcorlett]

On what date was your account with pirate opened?

[rdponticelli]

Interesting. A nice opportunity for poor us, who arrived very late to Pirate's party...

[exahash]

Is there going to be an exact time for the IPO?

Yes I will get that published here and in the OP as soon as I figure it out.

From the updated OP:  These bond auctions will take place every Saturday morning at 2 AM UTC.  That is every Friday evening at 7 PM PDT, 8 PM MDT, 9 PM CDT, 10 PM EDT

Thank you for clarifying that.

Will the buybacks take place before or after the new auctions?

This is relevant for people who want to roll-over a prior bond to a new one.  I'd suggest doing buybacks first, but there may be some other angle you want to play.

[OgNasty]

How close will this hit. My guess is around 1.1? Making 16% interest?

I'm curious as well.  Perhaps a bet is in order?
http://betsofbitco.in/item?id=337

Seems like it's VERY easy to manipulate that bet though - all you need is to place a buy order at 1.1001 or something and you still will make 18 bitcents from the contract as well as win the bet with 100% certainty.

The community seems to be betting that it WILL NOT happen at this moment.

[Sukrim]

2 AM UTC is quite early in the morning for most of Europe... just for information.

As far as I understood it, you anyways want to have new tickers every week, right? People then can simply reinvest the following week...

[MrTeal]

How close will this hit. My guess is around 1.1? Making 16% interest?

I'm curious as well.  Perhaps a bet is in order?
http://betsofbitco.in/item?id=337

Seems like it's VERY easy to manipulate that bet though - all you need is to place a buy order at 1.1001 or something and you still will make 18 bitcents from the contract as well as win the bet with 100% certainty.

Depends on what the bet means. Is that the highest price that a bond is sold for, or the lowest? If the bet refers to the lowest price that is still accepted, then it would be much more difficult to manipulate.

[Rygon]

This is an awesome idea, I plan on buying a few bonds since I'm too late for the Pirate's original offer. GLBSE is inaccessible at the moment (at least I can't get in). But it brings up an interesting question: what is the contingency plan if GLBSE is inaccessible at an inconvenient time, or it (god forbid) data is lost? Do you have some sort of backup plan to get the bitcoins back tot the right people?

[Sukrim]

You can then just issue a sell order at 1.28 and let it sit there until we buy it up 28 days later

See, that's also an interesting point:
Will you issue a dividend @ 1.28 per share 28 days later or will you put up a buy order @ 1.28 per share until they all are sold back?

It might be more convenient for shareholders if you pay a dividend and render the shares worthless through this, much less interaction required at least... also it might save you some fees I think.

[Rygon]

This is an awesome idea, I plan on buying a few bonds since I'm too late for the Pirate's original offer. GLBSE is inaccessible at the moment (at least I can't get in). But it brings up an interesting question: what is the contingency plan if GLBSE is inaccessible at an inconvenient time, or it (god forbid) data is lost? Do you have some sort of backup plan to get the bitcoins back tot the right people?

Thank you for your interest.  Yes, GLBSE does appear to be down at the moment.  We are working though our contingency plans and will post them when we are done.  For now there is one point to keep in mind:

If for some reason you cannot get in to sell your shares (site down, etc.) and you really need the money remember that PPT is backed by the bitcoins lenders and we will be happy to make you a short term loan using your PPT bonds as collateral.  When the site comes back up you can sell your shares, pay us back and keep the change.

Great!

[Sukrim]

I also thought about the "bond recycling", but as far as I know, there's no way for you to force users to sell you their shares back. Also you can not just hand out 0.28 BTC as far as I understood, as you want to make your cut by selling 1 BTC shares for > 1 BTC each week.

You could create new shares and keep a buyback offer open, this is exploitable however:
Let's say you sell 2000 shares and 4 weeks later buy back 1877 of them @1.28. You then have an open buy order for 123 shares @1.28. Then, to get back to 2000 shares emitted, you issue 123 more share, totalling to 2123 shares, sell 2000 shares and most likely this buy order will be fulfilled quickly, but not by the sleepyheads that did forget to sell their shares in the first place.

If possible with GLBSE, you could ask them to destroy the shares after paying the final dividend, they might need a way to liquidate assets anyways. Perhaps a feature request for a "liquidate asset" button (paying a final dividend and destroying all shares or returning them all to the issuer) might be in order?

[schnell]

I also thought about the "bond recycling", but as far as I know, there's no way for you to force users to sell you their shares back. Also you can not just hand out 0.28 BTC as far as I understood, as you want to make your cut by selling 1 BTC shares for > 1 BTC each week.

You could create new shares and keep a buyback offer open, this is exploitable however:
Let's say you sell 2000 shares and 4 weeks later buy back 1877 of them @1.28. You then have an open buy order for 123 shares @1.28. Then, to get back to 2000 shares emitted, you issue 123 more share, totalling to 2123 shares, sell 2000 shares and most likely this buy order will be fulfilled quickly, but not by the sleepyheads that did forget to sell their shares in the first place.

If possible with GLBSE, you could ask them to destroy the shares after paying the final dividend, they might need a way to liquidate assets anyways. Perhaps a feature request for a "liquidate asset" button (paying a final dividend and destroying all shares or returning them all to the issuer) might be in order?

+1 TO THIS FEATURE

[schnell]

Burt, I understand the ppt.a, b and everything, but what is the ppt(no extra letter) that is selling?

[Sukrim]

We think we have a way around this - see if you can game it:

I buy all 2000 shares and never release them back to you again, effectively blocking trading with this asset.

On the other hand you earn more from someone not selling back his/her shares than anything else (noone in their right mind will bid above 1.28 for a share), so it's actually in your interest to make it not easy to get the money back automatically...

As far as I get your current plan is:
1) Offer 2000 shares @1.00 BTC each
2) 28 days later: Buy 2000 shares @1.28 BTC each
3) 1 week later: Cancel buy offer
4) 1 week later: Offer all bought back shares @1.00 BTC each, continue at 2)
right?

[schnell]

Burt, I understand the ppt.a, b and everything, but what is the ppt(no extra letter) that is selling?

Ah yes, I meant to mention that - especially the bids that have been placed.  That is the company that is issuing and backing the PPT.x bonds.  It is privately held by the 5 lenders mentioned above.  We each buy shares in this company at 100 BTC each.  The BTC collected in this company just stays there as insurance against a total default by Pirate.  It is not deposited in any Pirate related account as that would defeat the entire purpose of the funds.

So far we have sold 5 shared for a total capitalization of 500 BTC.  By our own rules this allows us to sell 500 x 4 = 2000 BTC in bonds.  In other words we have set aside enough BTC inside of PPT to pay back the bond holders 25% of their investment in case of a default.  You will notice that another 5 shares will be purchased before the next round of 2000 bonds, then another 5 shares, etc.

Some people have bid to buy shares of PPT at very low prices.  This just ties up funds they could be using to bid on other things - like PPT.A

Ah, nice idea.

[exahash]

We think we have a way around this - see if you can game it:

On the day and hour the bonds mature we issue a buy order for all the outstanding bonds for 1.28 BTC each.  This will buy all the bonds except 1) those bonds that are not currently up for sale and 2) those bonds that may be listed for more than 1.28.

There is then a one week buy back period.  This gives everyone a chance to get their bonds listed and sold.

What if you decide to buy back early?

The OP mentions the possibility of your buying back on day 15 at 1.15.   All those people who bought, immediately put in a sell for 1.28, and went on vacation for a month will be SOL?

Seems like a mechanism to forcibly recall all shares is really in order.

[PatrickHarnett]

We think we have a way around this - see if you can game it:

On the day and hour the bonds mature we issue a buy order for all the outstanding bonds for 1.28 BTC each.  This will buy all the bonds except 1) those bonds that are not currently up for sale and 2) those bonds that may be listed for more than 1.28.

There is then a one week buy back period.  This gives everyone a chance to get their bonds listed and sold.

What if you decide to buy back early?

The OP mentions the possibility of your buying back on day 15 at 1.15.   All those people who bought, immediately put in a sell for 1.28, and went on vacation for a month will be SOL?

Seems like a mechanism to forcibly recall all shares is really in order.

Actually that is a fair point.  It was designed to cover the event where the pass-though suddenly stops.  It doesn't protect someone who buys above the "forced buy rate, and it is greatest at the start of the round.  i.e. if the average sale price is 1.10 and we do a buy-back on day two, there would be a lot of pissed off people.

I think Burt can re-word to tighten the circumstances, but the potential remains (at some stage in the future) for Pirate to change his business.

[ShadowAlexey]

As to your concern for the people who might be on vacation during an early buy back event, if we are unwinding the bond offerings we will be leaving the buy orders on the accounts for a very long time in order to give the bond holders plenty of time to sell their bonds.  In this scenario we would also be working with GLBSE to locate and refund all the bond holders directly in to their accounts.   

I just dont get,why not to pay all cost of order as a dividend, so you would have no more obligations on this,and then buy it back at very small rate?