ASICMINER: Entering the Future of ASIC Mining by Inventing It

[conv3rsion]

the point is, he set up the PT with the fee, and we (anyone who bought it - i have 28 shares of his) accepted the arrangement. anything else is pointless to discuss, because it's already happened.

Yes, I made the same point. Saying a security isn't trustworthy, when it is completely up front about its fees and convertibility of shares, is ridiculous.

[freedomno1]

I use Thieves excellent work for an exchange and until it hits the board member seat would not support a drain of shares from the fund it was in the release announcement and makes perfect sense, it even provides investor incentive if you read the prospectus. That said you all seem to be missing a key point
The Arbitrage is generally bigger than the dividend between these two exchanges even on btct
A position with a slightly lower cost than the main one can cover and even surpass the dividend compared to that of a full share
Also the cost of entry is the same if you don't like a 5% dividend cut just jump the exchanges on dividends until the gap is too small to make that profitable
Two cents

[BitAddict]

Just bought some shares. Thanks for all the info you write here 

[boyohi]

TAT - Had to reply to your (terrible) example.

If direct (or PT) divs = 100 BTC
Then TAT divs =           95 BTC

an example should be simple and illustrate a point.
Meanwhile, what I mean is that I don't trust your security. You're the one who has to make me trust you, not the opposite.
No transfer to direct shares = no trusting the security.

You guys are looking at this all wrong.

Assume 2.5BTC/Share and 0.035 dividends.
Lets say only have enough to buy .8 of a share and tomorrow is Wednesday. Do I just let 2BTC sit around doing nothing? No. This is where the genius of TAT comes in. I get 80 TAT shares and when dividends hit I get 0.028-5%=0.0266 more BTC then I would have had. Now I'm a little closer to buying a whole share. The fee means very little because if TAT wasn't around I'd just have the BTC sitting there.

TL;DR Make BTC work for you, not the other way around.

[stripykitteh]

TAT - Had to reply to your (terrible) example.

If direct (or PT) divs = 100 BTC
Then TAT divs =           95 BTC

an example should be simple and illustrate a point.
Meanwhile, what I mean is that I don't trust your security. You're the one who has to make me trust you, not the opposite.
No transfer to direct shares = no trusting the security.

You guys are looking at this all wrong.

Assume 2.5BTC/Share and 0.035 dividends.
Lets say only have enough to buy .8 of a share and tomorrow is Wednesday. Do I just let 2BTC sit around doing nothing? No. This is where the genius of TAT comes in. I get 80 TAT shares and when dividends hit I get 0.028-5%=0.0266 more BTC then I would have had. Now I'm a little closer to buying a whole share. The fee means very little because if TAT wasn't around I'd just have the BTC sitting there.

TL;DR Make BTC work for you, not the other way around.

Yes, I always thought this was the purpose of TAT. Reinvest dividends while you're getting enough together for another whole share, or shares. That's what I've been doing. The majority of my AM holding is in whole shares. TATs put the bit left over to work, as well.

[🏰 TradeFortress 🏰]

Alternatively, it wouldn't be a bad idea to buy into BTCINVEST which has some level of diversification or put your coins in CoinLenders.

[KarmaShark]

I do not see the 5% management fee (directly taken from dividends) as an issue here. The only flexibility I would like to see in the future is something TAT touched on in this very thread above. The ability to swap PT for Whole shares in either direction is a feature many investors crave. Because TAT has made it a stated goal to hit the 5000 share threshold and attain a board seat, it makes logical sense to help the fund reach that milestone, which will hopefully open up the doors to greater advantages. Once that board seat has been attained, it is also logical to expect some benefit to be filtered down to the shareholders.

From what I can see here, TAT is a fair alternative to buying whole ASICM shares. You can at any time, buy TAT PT shares on the open market and then convert them to Whole shares. Any time you can do this at your own discretion, should you feel the need to or simply would like to remove another layer of security. There are options available to all investors at this point in the game, with a defined set of risks and rewards for each route. All of these have been outlined clearly in the thread and on this forum so investors can make informed decisions.

Lastly, every single time I have seen a question or concern regarding TAT, voila! You receive an answer in short order. You may not like the answer, however you are not waiting around several days to get key information that impacts your investment decisions. Contrast this with the level of feedback that SDICE shareholders are receiving right now and, well, yeah.




TAT: You have made it clear why you will not be offering convertibility of PT shares right now. You also have mentioned that once the board seat is attained you will be open to revisiting this popular shareholder request. You have made a positive impression on the community to date so I hope we can trust you will keep an open mind to this option when the time is appropriate.

[freedomno1]

Just bought some shares. Thanks for all the info you write here  

Glad our posts help people
Also On another topic I wish you all a very happy Laslo Day Also known as Pizza Day and hope you all get to nom some delicious pizza XD

[Jutarul]

Milestone Alert

With recent share prices of 2.5 BTC/share on all fronts, Bitfountain is now a "million bitcoin company".

Overvalued? Undervalued? P/E ratio looks good, being between 2-3, which still provides some growth potential for company valuation. However, growth will mainly depend on investor sentiment on how strong of a foothold Bitfountain has in the bitcoin mining industry. How much of the recent investment represents true investor confidence and how much is speculation is difficult to say.

I'd like to disclose that the leadership team and the board members are working hard to make sure Bitfountain is here to stay. This requires constant innovation on the technology front and a business model which scales and satisfies the need of the bitcoin mining community. The challenge is that Bitfountain has to full-fill two opposing goals: Maintaining hash-power and fair pricing of their hardware.

To see why this is a problem is to understand the nature of the competitiveness in the bitcoin mining industry. To maintain hash-power, Bitfountain has to constantly produce new mining boards and add them to the operation. Each added board compromises the earnings of any board sold earlier. This leads to an inflation which can be expressed as a generalized network growth and a devaluation of the mining equipment over time. This has implications for capital investment and ROI. However, being in a position to produce their own hardware at margin costs, Bitfountain is able to compete vigilantly with the overall market on the technology front.

I'll leave it up to friedcat to provide more information on these issues as they become apparent.

For now all I want to say:
Well done Bitfountain. You exceeded even the most optimistic expectations.

[Bonam]

Not sure why convertibility is that important? TAT shares are traded on public exchanges like bitfunder and btc-tc which also offer full share passthroughs that are convertible. If you have 100 of TAT's shares, you are free to sell them, buy a full share with the high liquidity available on the exchanges, and then convert to a direct share at your leisure.

5% management fee is also not bad. The comparison to mutual funds misses the point that there are thousands of mutual funds in competition with each other and spreading their costs over holdings worth billions of dollars, driving down the fees. In bitcoin world there are like what, 40 or 50 different exchange traded securities, only a small subset of those being companies with any real legitimacy, and only a couple fund/ETF type vehicles? TAT being first to market with an affordable (1/100) share of the most profitable and legitimate bitcoin company (ASICMiner) could probably have charged a 20% fee and still had near as much demand, there being no alternatives.

As for security... presumably the largest risk at each step is that someone along the chain (friedcat, TAT, burnside, ukyo, etc) would run with your money. The higher the profit they make by operating a legitimate operation, the lower their incentive to run with the money. Is it better to make 500 BTC every month or run off with 10,000 BTC once and never make any again? How about if you're only making 5 BTC per month? Given the relative lack of other security provisions besides the reputation of certain specific individuals, I'd much rather said individuals be earning a solid income stream that makes them want to stay legitimate. In short, I'd be more worried about security with someone offering something for no fee.

[AMuppInTime]

You are welcome to your own interpretation, but I have to warn you that thinking one layer deep is why some people make less money than others. Your example completely ignores my point.
Regarding my security, what do you find lacking?

You don't have to warn me, numbers speak to me well enough.
1) I think 5% is overkill for someone who essentially does nothing a spreadsheet wouldn't do. The overhead should be 3.5% tops.

2) I genuinely don't trust your security because you have nothing invested / no credibility in my eyes short of "I'm connected on linkedin with burnside" which, despite my huge respect for burnside, means squat when it comes to make me trust you - he might be friend with a dude who claims to be Batman for all I care, that won't make me call that guy Bruce Wayne.

3) I see way too much of you on those forums, always out to sell yourself. Let the market talk instead of having puppet posts prop TAT up. What's your company? What do YOU do?

3) I agree with the concept of a 1/100th share, even with a small fee, but you need to provide better backing for the security to warrant that fee. The fact that you prevent people from converting to full share makes sense to try to grow your shares and get to a board seat, but doesn't work in your favor to make one trust you - it makes it sound like it exactly is: the customer is locked in. I don't like to be locked in. At 5%, I think you should let people exchange to direct share for a minor fee (5%) and you'd still come up on top.

4) Currently I would much rather work only with full ASICMINER & PT shares that are backed by people with very public profiles + exchanges built by themselves (read: by people who are more interested in the exchange succeeding rather than a guy out to make more BTCs), than deal with someone shady who is alluding to thievery in his username - it genuinely bothers me that you find the name proper, particularly after Pirateat40. For everyone's sake, I hope you're a honest guy. But I wouldn't touch the shares with a stick right now: you haven't provided anything that would insure us against you taking the money and running - NOTHING protects TAT investors but trust. Investors beware.

This is free advice - no warning - many people are out to scam this community, I'd advise everyone to be very careful. I don't think TAT is out to scam people but others might & you would do well to use escrow, 2 factor, and the new trust system being put into place when dealing with others...

As to you TAT, I wish you the best in that venture and hope you learn plenty doing so and eventually succeed.
 

[VJain]

As someone mentioned above (tired and it's late. Give me a break ), they're buying as many ASICMINER shares as they can via the 1/1 PT, and using the change @ the 1/100 PT.

Great that I can reinvest my change back into the asset without having to wait for the next dividend to come in to optimize things (it's minor, but it adds up in the long run).

As for the not able to trade into real shares... I can totally understand what TAT is doing. If I had 100 1/100 shares, and wanted to trade it into a real share, that'd mean Friedcat would have to handle the transaction. Now imagine if 50 people want to do this a day. That's 350 "pointless" transactions Friedcat would have to handle. Imo, not worth his time. Maybe if I had 5,000 1/100 shares (50 shares) it would be worth it.

For the 5%... I'm not a huge fan, but a 95% return on a 50% an ASICMINER Share dividend is 0%.  If people have so many issues, maybe one of them should step up and run a 1/100 PT themselves?

On a personal note. I'm glad TAT is being 100% honest about why he is doing this. He wants a seat on the board. No bullshit, simple truth.

[ThickAsThieves]

For everyone else, I'm just going to note that I can tell that pierrejo is the kind of person that is "always right" and cannot be reasoned with. Since he has not posed any new questions, nor ascertainable criticisms of substance, I have no more to say to him. I know if respond point-by-point to him any further, this will just clutter an already stuffed thread unnecessarily.

Managing assets is much more time-consuming than it might appear, ask anyone that has actually run a popular one. Thanks to everyone for your support; I'm here to stay and if you ever have questions or suggestions, my door is always open (within reason, of course!)

[AMuppInTime]

For everyone else, I'm just going to note that I can tell that pierrejo is the kind of person that is "always right" and cannot be reasoned with. Since he has not posed any new questions, nor ascertainable criticisms of substance, I have no more to say to him. I know if respond point-by-point to him any further, this will just clutter an already stuffed thread unnecessarily.

Managing assets is much more time-consuming than it might appear, ask anyone that has actually run a popular one. Thanks to everyone for your support, I'm here to stay and if you ever have questions or suggestions, my door is always open (within reason, of course!)

You've set yourself at a point where you tell me what I am - while I really just asked to see more of who YOU were, let that speak what it may.
I am fine with you not speaking to me - but I have a voice and I intend to use it: My points have been stated and I would recommend people invest into Direct shares or ASICMINER-PT on https://btct.co. I think that all of us in this thread will agree.

[matt4054]

Re: converting 100/1 into 1/1, I think it is not that complicated to place a buy order for 1/1 and a sell order for 100*1/100 at the same price, the market is liquid enough on BTC-TC and BitFunder as far as I have seen.

[louong]

Wasn't there another 1/100 PT by Rodyland that was convertible to full PTs? Just let people pick whatever PT or 1/100 PT they want. And let's get back to discussing ASICMINER instead of the PTs?

[ffssixtynine]

I am fine with you not speaking to me - but I have a voice and I intend to use it: My points have been stated and I would recommend people invest into Direct shares or ASICMINER-PT on https://btct.co. I think that all of us in this thread will agree.

Speak for yourself. If someone is running a fund it takes time. If they choose to charge a fee, as happens on many funds, then they can. It's not bad, it's not disreputable, and they don't need to offer other services such as real shares. It is their fund and their choice. It is your choice not to invest in it for the reasons you've given, but please stop banging on about it.

If someone wants to invest in these shares then they do it accepting the 5% fee and the other rules. If an alternative fund comes up which has better terms then they'll move. Until then, that's the market position and it is a free market.

You are always free to manage a competing fund.

[JordanL]

Milestone Alert

With recent share prices of 2.5 BTC/share on all fronts, Bitfountain is now a "million bitcoin company".

Overvalued? Undervalued? P/E ratio looks good, being between 2-3, which still provides some growth potential for company valuation. However, growth will mainly depend on investor sentiment on how strong of a foothold Bitfountain has in the bitcoin mining industry. How much of the recent investment represents true investor confidence and how much is speculation is difficult to say.

I'd like to disclose that the leadership team and the board members are working hard to make sure Bitfountain is here to stay. This requires constant innovation on the technology front and a business model which scales and satisfies the need of the bitcoin mining community. The challenge is that Bitfountain has to full-fill two opposing goals: Maintaining hash-power and fair pricing of their hardware.

To see why this is a problem is to understand the nature of the competitiveness in the bitcoin mining industry. To maintain hash-power, Bitfountain has to constantly produce new mining boards and add them to the operation. Each added board compromises the earnings of any board sold earlier. This leads to an inflation which can be expressed as a generalized network growth and a devaluation of the mining equipment over time. This has implications for capital investment and ROI. However, being in a position to produce their own hardware at margin costs, Bitfountain is able to compete vigilantly with the overall market on the technology front.

I'll leave it up to friedcat to provide more information on these issues as they become apparent.

For now all I want to say:
Well done Bitfountain. You exceeded even the most optimistic expectations.

Thanks for the insight Jutarul, it's very much appreciated. As is the effort provided by you and others on the board and/or leadership team. Each week Bitcountain continues to prove that it is being operated by an extremely competent group, and that the future is bright.  

Also thanks for selling me those shares a few months back for BTC0.5... I can only imagine what your portfolio looks like these days.  

[Faraday]

This discussion should really be in the appropriate place: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=199449.20 this thread should be for discussion on ASICMINER not for a 3 page argument about one specific pass-through scheme.

That aside, I think that a 1/100 share is a good idea and something that the market needed. If you don't like the fee or don't trust TAT with your BTC then don't use it or find/create another one. As far as not being able to transfer to full shares, I don't really see the issue seeing as you can exchange them for BTC then buy full shares on the same exchange, saving friedcat having to deal with even more transfers allowing him to spend his time on more important matters.

I do agree that it is a risk to trust ThickAsThieves with your money, but most things bitcoin related are a risk. And the risk isn't really that large if you sell your shares and buy full ones whenever you have 100, so the amount you are risking is less than the price of 1 full share at any time.

[MikkisJ]

What time it is when they tell the devidend of the week? And does it always happen here first?