Comparing transaction fees at CoinBr to BTC-TC, CoinBr is 2.5x higher on trades, 10x higher on withdrawals, more than 10x higher on asset transfers, and has a monthly maintenance fee of 0.09 BTC. I'm sure a chunk of that is to cover underlying MPEx transaction costs.
Still, CoinBr looks like it could be pretty handy. Big question I'd have is... what happens to the stocks held in CoinBr if CoinBr goes offline?
The "underlying MPEx transaction costs" are negligible. All the fees are actually used to fund the ongoing development and ensure sustainability of whole thing. CoinBr is not a charity, neither is based on delusions of having > 100k monthly btc trade volume in foreseeable future, like some site you mention. I really doubt you will get better overall profit from any meaningful volume (like, 10BTC or more) by trading passthroughs than when doing it directly on MPEx via CoinBr -
considering not just fees but also buy price, sell price and dividends.
I think I get your meaning. You're right, the 'other exchange' isn't going to make it's founders rich anytime soon.
Regarding whether you get a better deal (part of which is risk/reward) or not by the time you consider buy price and dividends, I would argue that it entirely depends on how many shares you hold. Part of that would be calculating the risk of dealing with the various passthrough operators. Roughly:
A
ton of shares: MPEx is the best deal, and the least risky. (1 middle man between you and the operator.)
Somewhere between a couple shares and a ton of shares: You have to do some math comparing your passthrough options.
Example: on CoinBr you'd have to hold more than 2800 shares of SatoshiDice to make anything on the dividend, assuming a 0.0032 buy price, a 0.09 BTC account fee, and ~1%/mo dividend. With Gamma if you have 2800 shares, you only give up 5% (5% being the Gamma passthru operators fee) of the dividend, not 100%. Obviously if the dividend is higher, the number of shares to break-even is lower. Also, at 1% dividend you have to get over 50,000 shares before the 0.09 BTC/mo account fee is less than 5% of your dividend income.
Quoting the relevant portions here to save everyone the painful extraction:
Will I have my MPEx assets in a usable format if your brokerage closes? How about any BTC in my account?
We will either pay out to BTC address you provided on registration or move all assets to another broker. If the closing will be catastrophical and CoinBr will be completely defunct (unlikely, there are continuously updated database backups on multiple physical locations), you will still have MPEx receipts that allow for reconstruction of your account. Sending them also by email is under development.
Nothing against CoinBr, but is CoinBr not just a passthrough operator itself? You're not a registered broker, you have not sworn to operate under the same rules and guidelines a registered broker operates under. That makes you a passthrough same as anyone else, does it not?
Will MPEx accept these receipts as proof of ownership? How does MPEx deal with a situation where you buy, receive receipt, wait 6 months, sell, wait 6 months, make claim with receipt? I'm sure they can track it somehow, but can you imagine the process of digging through thousands of these things with possibly thousands of sales of the same shares over time? I'd be interested to get some input from MPEx on this one.
Do you accept unlimited liability for clients account holdings?
We assume no liability beyond one implied by law.
So the CoinBr broker (passthru operator) accepts
zero liability unless you track him down and figure out the legal structure where he lives.
Cheers.