Seeking Discussion - GLBSE bonds for web hosting upgrades.

[burnside]

I'm relatively new to Bitcoin.  I've jumped into the fray recently, doing some small scale mining, and more importantly, I've spent the last couple of weekends coding support for Bitcoin into our website.  

While doing this, and while figuring out the most productive places to put my newly mined BTC to use, I stumbled upon GLBSE.  So here are my thoughts.  Hopefully you all can comment and help me figure out if any of this makes sense.

My company has been in business for ~15 years now.  Until now, I have never sought investment.  I have always funded growth via what was available to me at the local banks.  The debt load for the company is like a seesaw, we incur debt to expand, we spend a few years paying it off, then we incur more debt to expand again.  Thus far this has proven a fairly prudent approach, and we've never bit off more than we could chew.  It occurred to me, as I was looking at the various securities on the GLBSE that maybe issuing bonds would be a better way to approach the company's funding needs.

I've researched the legality of offering up bonds in the US.  It seems legal, at least on the surface.  Small fry's are allowed to offer up bonds to private investors without having to register with the SEC.  So I just have to make sure that at some level my bond investors are "private".  I would thus define the potential pool of private investors in my bonds by saying our bonds are only available to those in the GLBSE Bitcoin Club, (aka, registered members of the GLBSE)  or something of the sort...  However... I'm not really sure if this would pass the test of an actual US courtroom or not.  The definition of a "private investor" seems somewhat vague.

I've researched the various payout strategies and approaches to the various securities.  I know for instance that with our current corporate structure, I cannot offer stocks.  That seems to really only leave bonds.  I've also thought a lot about the risk involved and it seems like most of the risk to the company stems from the volatile and unpredictable nature of the exchange rates.  For example, the company has to operate based on USD, which means revenue comes in in USD, and bills get paid in USD.  

Some of my ideas for bonds are:

COMPANY.BND.A - Initial offering of 100,000 shares at 0.25 BTC/ea.  Bond to mature at 5 years.  Company converts all 25000 BTC to USD, ends up with some amount USD, call this $VALUE.  Company pays interest at 3% of $VALUE, minus the USD->BTC transaction costs at monthly intervals.  Company reserves right to buy back bonds at 1.5x the 5 day average at any given time.  At maturity, company buys back all bonds at $VALUE USD, converted to BTC at that time.  

COMPANY.BND.B - Initial auction of 100,000 shares starting at 0.25 BTC/ea.  Bond to mature at 5 years.  Each share is a coupon entitled to 0.000003% (total offering value = 0.3%) of the company's actual revenue, currently a bit north of $1 mil/yr and growing at ~8% annually.  Company converts all BTC to USD, ends up with some amount USD we will call $VALUE.  Company pays dividends monthly based on company's actual revenue.  Company reserves right to buy back bonds at 1.5x the 5 day average at any given time.  At maturity, company buys back all bonds at $VALUE USD, converted to BTC at that time.

COMPANY.BND.C - Initial auction of 100,000 shares starting at 0.25 BTC/ea.  Bond to mature at 15 years.  Each share is a coupon entitled to .000008% (total offering value = 0.8%) of the company's actual revenue, currently a bit north of $1 mil/yr and growing at ~8% annually.  Company pays dividends monthly based on company's actual revenue.  Company reserves right to buy back bonds at 1.5x the 5 day average at any given time.  At maturity, company buys back all bonds at $0.01 USD, converted to BTC at that time.

All of these options would be extremely stable from a USD perspective and would bring additional stability to the GLBSE.  The last bond feels like the most risk to the company, but it seems to accomplish nearly the same thing as a stock offering.  If growth follows the established pattern, in 10 years 0.8% of the company's revenue would represent a pretty significant gain.

If we do move forward of course all the relevant records and numbers necessary to achieve transparency would be made available to bond holders.  I was trying to figure out a way to authenticate bond holders somehow... It'd have to use the GLBSE site somehow to distribute a new password to the site every 6 months or something.  Does the GLBSE currently have a mechanism for privately emailing or messaging all bond holders?

Thoughts?  Does this seem like a security anyone would be interested in?

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[burnside]

Future FAQ... ?

[burnside]

It just occurred to me that I could fulfill the private investor SEC requirement by managing my own authentication mechanism into the portal where the company sales numbers would be available.  Anyone prudent and wanting to invest would need to register with the site to gain access.  

Not sure how I'd tell if they ever sold their shares though.  Anyone have any backend experience with operating a security on GLBSE?  What tools do they provide?

[Meni Rosenfeld]

If you're concerned about the currency risk of accepting a BTC loan with USD expenses, you can take a leveraged long BTC position. I don't think bonds tied to USD will be popular.

You'd need to pay about 2% weekly interest (280% annualized) to compete with other offerings.

Getting people to trust you with 25000 BTC won't be trivial.

I don't think GLBSE currently has a feature to message all bondholders, but they might add it sometime. I doubt it will allow you to know whether anyone is still holding their bonds.

All in all I'd say that as long as you can get loans from your bank, you'd need very good reasons to go the GLBSE route.

[burnside]

Definitely appreciate the input.

You'd need to pay about 2% weekly interest (280% annualized) to compete with other offerings.

Precisely why I think something like what I'm offering is needed.  It's only a matter of time before that house of cards comes tumbling down.  I expect a lot of people out there know this at some level.

Getting people to trust you with 25000 BTC won't be trivial.

Not too worried about that.  People have been trusting their online business to our company for well over a decade.  Documentation is easy to find and verify.

I don't think GLBSE currently has a feature to message all bondholders, but they might add it sometime. I doubt it will allow you to know whether anyone is still holding their bonds.

I guess I'll have to make a case with GLBSE for a messaging mechanism.    Somehow all the companies on the NYSE and NASDAQ know where to find their stockholders.  Seems somewhat necessary to operate a security.

All in all I'd say that as long as you can get loans from your bank, you'd need very good reasons to go the GLBSE route.

It mostly boils down to lowering our interest rate a point or two.  I've explored some other options that attempt to cut out the banks and this seems to be one of the better ones.

[Ben Walsh (beamer)]

Bear in mind that a sizeable chunk of the potential investor population will want to remain anonymous. There are a few reasons for this; that's just the personality Bitcoin attracts (given it's properties as a currency), investing with/in Bitcoin is illegal / legally untested in the country of residence of the investor, exposure as an investor in Bitcoin / Bitcoin businesses would damage the reputation of the investor ...

I would certainly aim to ensure that investor registration of any kind is not required, or accept that requiring such will limit the volume and rate of investment.

I would personally consider investing in an asset which did mandate investor registration, however, I would expect additional reward for the higher risk that accompanies limiting the investor demand for that asset.

Of course, much of the reasoning for investors wanting to remain anonymous is equally applicable to asset issuers, however, again, I think it appropriate that investors expect additional reward to compensate for the higher risk that generates too.

[Sukrim]

Company reserves right to buy back bonds at 1.5x the 5 day average at any given time.

I don't like this part. I'd rather have a buyback price that is pegged to the initial value of these bonds.
This can be priced in USD:
Let's say I buy 1 bond for 1 BTC - you get 6 USD for that.
You can buy back the bond any time for 8 USD converted to BTC - even if that means you only pay 0.1 BTC (if Bitcoin bubbles up to 80 USD per coin) on GLBSE.

Otherwise you have a high motivation to bring down bond prices for 5 days (have sock puppet accounts tell you're broke and don't respond or something), buy back and take the profits. I don't want to check more than once every week(!) if my investment is still good...

Also I don't really like the secrecy aspect - if you need that you might be better off elsewhere, as far as I heard there are several P2P loan websites available/popping up.

[burnside]

Bear in mind that a sizeable chunk of the potential investor population will want to remain anonymous. There are a few reasons for this; that's just the personality Bitcoin attracts (given it's properties as a currency), investing with/in Bitcoin is illegal / legally untested in the country of residence of the investor, exposure as an investor in Bitcoin / Bitcoin businesses would damage the reputation of the investor ...

I would certainly aim to ensure that investor registration of any kind is not required, or accept that requiring such will limit the volume and rate of investment.

Very good points.  If (big if) I were able to convince GLBSE to build a "message broadcast" mechanism, then registration on a per-bondholder basis would not be necessary.  I'd broadcast a new login/password to the portal at some regular interval.  No need for the company to know to whom the message is being delivered.

[burnside]

I don't like this part. I'd rather have a buyback price that is pegged to the initial value of these bonds.
This can be priced in USD:

I like that, that's way better.

Also I don't really like the secrecy aspect - if you need that you might be better off elsewhere, as far as I heard there are several P2P loan websites available/popping up.

Secrecy with respect to records and revenue?  That's a fair perspective.  I guess I just haven't wrapped my brain around all the implications of making that information public.  Beyond the SEC issues and the requirement for investors to be private, the company itself is private and there needs to be a pretty compelling reason to share publicly that which could easily be limited to involved parties.

[GeoRW]

If BTC price goes up your bonds will degrade. As bitcoins supply will halve at the end of the year, that will very likely happen. So unless someone wants to short bitcoin he will not buy your bonds. It really does not matter what company you have and what dividends you will pay, your bond holders will lose much more money if your bond price plunges which is very likely to happen.

[burnside]

If BTC price goes up your bonds will degrade. As bitcoins supply will halve at the end of the year, that will very likely happen. So unless someone wants to short bitcoin he will not buy your bonds. It really does not matter what company you have and what dividends you will pay, your bond holders will lose much more money if your bond price plunges which is very likely to happen.

That is one direction it could go.  There are a few different spins on it.

If you bought into it by buying BTC with USD (or another currency) then you're not out anything with respect to USD.

The person holding Bitcoin right now and wondering if things are going to go south in December would have a relatively safe place to put their coins through what could be a pretty wild ride.

Per my original post, I am not really convinced the rate of returns on many of the current GLBSE entities are sustainable.  If I thought they were, I would be dumping all of the company's cash into BTC and paying for improvements with the returns.  Too risky.  There are too many things still up in the air with Bitcoin, and it was that doubt that led me down this path.

Maybe I'm in the minority, feeling like there is room for some more stable, traditional securities?

[Meni Rosenfeld]

Per my original post, I am not really convinced the rate of returns on many of the current GLBSE entities are sustainable.  If I thought they were, I would be dumping all of the company's cash into BTC and paying for improvements with the returns.  Too risky.  There are too many things still up in the air with Bitcoin, and it was that doubt that led me down this path.

Maybe I'm in the minority, feeling like there is room for some more stable, traditional securities?

I'm very confident the vast majority of the popular Bitcoin-related deposits are legitimate, in the sense that they will pay back every last satoshi of deposited principal.

I'm moderately confident that the interest rates which are unthinkable in traditional banking terms will stay with us for a while. Bitcoin is a whole new world, in rapid growth, full of real and perceived opportunities which honest people wish to act on. The rates might go down to the 1% weekly range and there may be a few defaults which give people pause, but there will still be very lucrative offers.

It doesn't make sense to make an offer now that is less lucrative in comparison, on the grounds that "eventually there will not be high-interest opportunities". When the opportunities dry up you can try your luck, right now people have no reason to choose you.

Members of the Bitcoin community don't have the collection infrastructure of established banks in your country, so most would not put too much weight on your company's history. So you should not expect to receive low interest rates for the smaller perceived risk.

[exahash]

It doesn't make sense to make an offer now that is less lucrative in comparison, on the grounds that "eventually there will not be high-interest opportunities". When the opportunities dry up you can try your luck, right now people have no reason to choose you.

^ This.

Try to think of the bonds on GLBSE as uncollateralized personal loans.  As such they have rates comparable to payday loans, pawn shops, etc. 

If you can get money from a real US bank at a single digit APR, you are way ahead of the GLBSE bond issuers (all of them).

Consider leveraging up with the bank and putting that money in to high-rate GLBSE bonds instead!

[burnside]

Maybe I'm in the minority, feeling like there is room for some more stable, traditional securities?

I'm very confident the vast majority of the popular Bitcoin-related deposits are legitimate, in the sense that they will pay back every last satoshi of deposited principal.

I'm moderately confident that the interest rates which are unthinkable in traditional banking terms will stay with us for a while. Bitcoin is a whole new world, in rapid growth, full of real and perceived opportunities which honest people wish to act on. The rates might go down to the 1% weekly range and there may be a few defaults which give people pause, but there will still be very lucrative offers.

Somewhat off topic, but as a relative noob, Where do you think the gains are coming from?  The mining securities and their gains make a certain amount of sense to me, none of the other operations do.  (Though if you're buying bonds based on MHash/bond there's nowhere to go but down.)  With no underlying 'work' or 'product' to back them up, I'm a little confused as to where the 6%/week is coming from.  The only thing I can think of is that it's coming from USD and other currencies buying into the Bitcoin market, and in that case we should be seeing the exchange rate going up, not returns on BTC investments?  Definitely would appreciate any insight on this.

It doesn't make sense to make an offer now that is less lucrative in comparison, on the grounds that "eventually there will not be high-interest opportunities". When the opportunities dry up you can try your luck, right now people have no reason to choose you.

I'm not sure I agree with that.  I noticed that there are 'GOLD', 'SILVER', and 'USD' securities.  The latter of the bunch especially highlights the market I would be trying to reach.  I suppose that instead of offering shares backed by deposits in a bank account, these would be bonds backed by a company and it's assets.

Members of the Bitcoin community don't have the collection infrastructure of established banks in your country, so most would not put too much weight on your company's history. So you should not expect to receive low interest rates for the smaller perceived risk.

That definitely makes sense.  Thank you.  I'm still very much on the fence, but my enthusiasm is starting to align more with reality.   

[Meni Rosenfeld]

Maybe I'm in the minority, feeling like there is room for some more stable, traditional securities?

I'm very confident the vast majority of the popular Bitcoin-related deposits are legitimate, in the sense that they will pay back every last satoshi of deposited principal.

I'm moderately confident that the interest rates which are unthinkable in traditional banking terms will stay with us for a while. Bitcoin is a whole new world, in rapid growth, full of real and perceived opportunities which honest people wish to act on. The rates might go down to the 1% weekly range and there may be a few defaults which give people pause, but there will still be very lucrative offers.

Somewhat off topic, but as a relative noob, Where do you think the gains are coming from?  The mining securities and their gains make a certain amount of sense to me, none of the other operations do.  (Though if you're buying bonds based on MHash/bond there's nowhere to go but down.)  With no underlying 'work' or 'product' to back them up, I'm a little confused as to where the 6%/week is coming from.  The only thing I can think of is that it's coming from USD and other currencies buying into the Bitcoin market, and in that case we should be seeing the exchange rate going up, not returns on BTC investments?  Definitely would appreciate any insight on this.

In case you're unaware, any deposit/bond you see with >4% weekly interest rate is a pirate pass through, "Pirate" being pirateat40's Bitcoin Savings and Trust program. They explicitly state that they forward all funds to the program, and do not offer any guarantee in case he defaults. By calling them "legitimate" I mean that they will live up to their end of the deal - pay interest, and return principal on demand, as long as Pirate doesn't default.

What Pirate is doing with the funds is anyone's guess. And trust me, many people have guessed.

As for deposits unrelated to Pirate - they are used for mining, Bitcoin businesses, short-term loans, market arbitrage, and so on. Most are very open about what they're doing.

It doesn't make sense to make an offer now that is less lucrative in comparison, on the grounds that "eventually there will not be high-interest opportunities". When the opportunities dry up you can try your luck, right now people have no reason to choose you.

I'm not sure I agree with that.  I noticed that there are 'GOLD', 'SILVER', and 'USD' securities.  The latter of the bunch especially highlights the market I would be trying to reach.  I suppose that instead of offering shares backed by deposits in a bank account, these would be bonds backed by a company and it's assets.

A GOLD security caters to a specific market - those who think the value of gold is going to increase. A fixed-interest bond needs to compete with others in the same category.

[burnside]

Try to think of the bonds on GLBSE as uncollateralized personal loans.  As such they have rates comparable to payday loans, pawn shops, etc. 

Agree on the first half.  

I'm trying to be different regarding the second half.  Break the mold, so to speak.

If you can get money from a real US bank at a single digit APR, you are way ahead of the GLBSE bond issuers (all of them).

I'm not sure about that.  If you look here:

https://docs.google.com/a/buffalo-studios.com/spreadsheet/pub?key=0Ai_uEhrsiYu0dHdObDIwbEFKcXJlX1ZLV3VRSjlycWc&single=true&gid=0&output=html

Via process of elimination, in a 5 year plan:

+ The company's bonds would likely come out ahead of all of them with a "days to even out costs" greater than 1825. (365 x 5)
  + Of those remaining, the company's bonds would most likely also come out ahead of all of the 'perpetual mining bonds'.  (with a few exceptions, like possibly MOORE.)
    + Of those remaining, ~80% would be PPT or PPT backed.  Maybe good now, not sure how stable those are?  Do you trust they won't collapse in under 5 years?
      + Those remaining would be our competing bonds.  And looking at what is left there, I suspect the company's bonds would compete favorably.

Consider leveraging up with the bank and putting that money in to high-rate GLBSE bonds instead!

I'm doing that with my personal funds.    Not sure I'm ready to commit company funds to that yet.
  - Pirate and the surrounding ecosystem are too Madoff-ish to be risk the company's stability. (IMHO)
  - The perpetual mining bonds are poorly thought out.  (from an investors perspective!  I think the mining co's are making out pretty good.)
  - Half of the mining companies actually offering up real shares don't have hardware yet.  (heh, "it's ordered, no idea when it will arrive.")
  - And of course, less than half of the securities on GLBSE are verified.

Brings me back to this:

Try to think of the bonds on GLBSE as uncollateralized personal loans.  As such they have rates comparable to payday loans, pawn shops, etc.  

Is that what GLBSE is trying to be?  Or are they trying to be more than that?  I was under the impression that they were trying to legitimize things more, not just be a p2p loan op.

[burnside]

In case you're unaware, any deposit/bond you see with >4% weekly interest rate is a pirate pass through, "Pirate" being pirateat40's Bitcoin Savings and Trust program. They explicitly state that they forward all funds to the program, and do not offer any guarantee in case he defaults. By calling them "legitimate" I mean that they will live up to their end of the deal - pay interest, and return principal on demand, as long as Pirate doesn't default.

What Pirate is doing with the funds is anyone's guess. And trust me, many people have guessed.

One of those things only time will tell.  And when it does it'll probably be via CNN. 

A GOLD security caters to a specific market - those who think the value of gold is going to increase. A fixed-interest bond needs to compete with others in the same category.

Very good point.  Are you familiar with most of the securities on GLBSE?  Or anyone subbing this... what securities would be in the same category as what I'm contemplating?  It'd be good to make a list and compare.

[Meni Rosenfeld]

 - The perpetual mining bonds are poorly thought out.  (from an investors perspective!  I think the mining co's are making out pretty good.)

Care to explain? If you read the thread were mining bonds were invented (OP and preferably some of the comments), you'll find that a lot of thought has been put into the concept. The real goal is a perpetual hashrate market, but for now bonds are a superior model to companies.

In a nutshell, it allows investors to focus on the value of hashrate, without bothering with the particular technical details of how to obtain it, while shifting risks to those in the best position to evaluate them.

Whether it's "better" for investors or issuers is mostly a matter of the price, and that is determined by the market.

[burnside]

 - The perpetual mining bonds are poorly thought out.  (from an investors perspective!  I think the mining co's are making out pretty good.)

Care to explain? If you read the thread were mining bonds were invented (OP and preferably some of the comments), you'll find that a lot of thought has been put into the concept. The real goal is a perpetual hashrate market, but for now bonds are a superior model to companies.

In a nutshell, it allows investors to focus on the value of hashrate, without bothering with the particular technical details of how to obtain it, while shifting risks to those in the best position to evaluate them.

Whether it's "better" for investors or issuers is mostly a matter of the price, and that is determined by the market.

I may have jumped the gun a little there, but I'm happy to give my reasoning. 

I'm an electrical engineering major turned systems administrator turned systems engineer turned hosting company owner/operator.  As such, I've been using computing to deliver services for most of my life.  I have yet to see technology and cpu related computing improvements stand still for anything but the briefest of times in the worst financial situations.  As such, selling a fixed asset, pegged to a fixed computing unit, is bound to follow the same valuation curve as servers do in my business.  That is, you buy it shiny and new at a huge premium, and you recycle it 3 years later, as by then it's no longer worth the cost of power to keep it operating.  The CPU miners have been through this.  The GPU miners are going through this right now.  Eventually the FPGA and ASIC miners will too.  It's inevitable.

So as an investor, looking into one of these mining bonds, I have to make sure that the dividend payout covers the cost of the bond -before- it is essentially worthless.  If you look at the google doc I posted above, you'll see that none of the current dividend payouts cover the entire cost of the bond in under 6 months.  The best right now is PUREMINING with a 220+ day payoff.  How much do you think a 1Mhash share is going to be worth when the difficulty is 10x what it is now, AND the payout has been cut in half?  Special bonus to the mining operator, "The issuer can buy back the bond at a price equal to 1.2 times the highest price the asset was traded on GLBSE over the prior 744 hours."  So when people realize that the dividend on a 1MH bond is going to drop through the floor and the bond value plummets, the mining operator buys it back up and continues on his merry way.  Put simply, a 10x difficulty increase, triggered by ASICs roughly equals a 10x reduction in value on 1MH bond.  And I think 10x is relatively conservative.

Thus, to me, making an investment in a fixed computing unit makes no sense whatsoever.  This is especially the case with the huge jumps ASICS are bringing.  Might as well have invested in 486's after the pentium had already been announced, benchmarked, and slated for delivery.

The way out for the mining operators and investors in their bonds would be to modify the contract to increase the MH output of a given bond 10x.  However if I were an investor shorting the bond, this is the point at which I file a lawsuit against the mining operator for violating the contract.

Am I missing anything?  This is off topic, but I've been meaning to ask about this stuff for a while now.  ;-)  I'll read through that thread you posted asap.

[Sukrim]

Very good point.  Are you familiar with most of the securities on GLBSE?  Or anyone subbing this... what securities would be in the same category as what I'm contemplating?  It'd be good to make a list and compare.

Depends on which of the 3 options you want to have.

A simple loan bond backed by pure trust would be Tygrr.bond-b (former Tygrr-bank) where goat gets loans from anonymous lenders and pays interest. TEEK bonds would fall into that same category.
Something more sophisticated are several mining companies, even up to the point where you can request actual hardware (in the case of "BFLS") in exchange for shares.
Then there are some shares that put up some collateral and pay small interests (GOLD, SILVER etc. - these are backed by these commodities, but not actively trading them or being denominated in them), up to a point where recently someone wants to put up his house as collateral for a loan/bond.

Some other ventures either still have to take off (hello Twitter-ad-network "FZB", CPA, REBATE...), are operating in a little bit shady corner of the internet (TCC, BITCOINTORRENTZ) or were cancelled.

All in all the largest assets by far on GLBSE are currently: Pirate pass throughs ( + their ecosystems, including insurance funds + dividend distribution assets for one big group of pirate investors), X MH/s deterministic mining bonds, funds investing in GLBSE assets and/or giving out loans and "mining companies". There are however some small gems, even including a (in the mean time put on hold) way to invest in parts of the earnings of a race horse in the US.