It is incorrect that BTC Trading Corp is operated by a US Citizen. It is operated by a group of gentlemen that reside in Belize from an office in Belize City. While I hold a large stake in the company, my role is roughly that of a webmaster. I do not have access to the corporate bank account for instance, and core site operations like asset approvals, etc, are handled by the shareholders.
I apologize, I was reading the "Organization and Management" section of the LTC-GLOBAL asset. It mentions "Currently LTC-GLOBAL is majority owned by burnside", with the domain is maintained under your services in the U.S., and under "Financial Management" where it states "All costs to date have come out of burnside's pocket.", it appears is you are the "Big Cheese"/"Head Honcho"/owner along with the people you are designating as "shareholders" that buy into the "Corporation"(not sure what type?) that is registered in Belize? You might seriously want to consider posting an 'About Us' page listing off the Belize corporation information, as well as listing the people behind the corporation, and official titles and responsibilities. Show the people that it is a real corporation, and it has to means to operate as one.
(Also, it is very common for many small~medium businesses to post pictures and full profiles of the people operating, and making the decisions in the company.)
As it stands from an outsiders point of view, it's all you bud.
(And any "shareholders" a court decides to indict.
) (While I was kind of joking about that, it is still a serious consideration.) So seriously think on putting something up to help show show _everyone_ who might be interested, and how real of a corporation that it is.
Lawyer and I did a lot of research into this. While not impossible, this would be an incredible feat until you have some significant revenue. The problem is that most (every country I could find except for the Cook Islands) already have the equivalent of an SEC and require exchanges to be registered. They're not going to approve you for trading in other than the local currencies, and will require your exchange to operate solely within their jurisdiction. I would absolutely love it if you find somewhere out there that is a good home for legit BTC exchanges, but even if you did, it would still be illegal for that exchange to solicit US investors. I know everyone likes to poke fun at it, but there's more legitimacy in the virtual exchange (educational and entertainment purposes only...) than you might think. The very fact that everyone on the forums pokes fun at it legitimizes it because it's something I can hold up in court, "see your Honor, no one took it seriously, they all understood what it was." Anyway, I digress.
Oh yes, no one said it would be easy in any way shape or form. That's why no one has done it yet.
If you do not look, and press on, you never know.
As far as it being a joke, the moment you get into court, all laughs and games aside, the judge will ask you point blank, "If it's all 'virtual currency', fun and games, and exactly 'how' the users get this 'virtual currency' to trade it on your site since you do not sell it yourself. You could say "Users can 'mine' it using their already bought computers.", but I promise you within the first cross-examination, the DA will ask if "mining" uses additional electricity, and generally requires some investment of some sort, and could be traded out by many other central places for real currency, and if it has any sort of agreed value online or otherwise".
Putting that aside, you COULD argue that you are no different than a game company like World of Warcraft with your own 'virtual currency'. The problem is that unlike SecondLife, and many other's, you are not using your own 'virtual currency'. This is something you might want to consider doing with some simple fee-less third party exchanges, or possibly internally.
Although, I am curious what your lawyer thought about publicly trading "fake" shares of the "real" Belize corporation and treating those "fake" shares as "real" ones by giving out "real" dividends of "real" profits to those share holders as if they actually owned the "real" shares of the company, and how to deal with the Belize securities dept. if they come asking. (As you said, they won't be happy.) I do understand that you are claiming it is all fake, and has no value.. but I just don't see a judge agreeing with that in any way. "Yes your honor, none of our 'virtual shareholders' hold any real stock in our company. We just.. pay them out real profit worth of shares in that amount.. as if they actually owned them. It's all fun and games... for learning.. you see... ?" (Please, PLEASE tell me I missed something, because I feel bad now that I have considered and written this, and it is 5:10am.
)
Short answer. It's in the FAQ... "Q: Why should we trust this site after so many others have failed?", and on the main page in the list of done todo's where each feature has been crossed off as it was developed.
Longer answer: litecoinglobal.com had this from day... 1? maybe 2? (btct.co being a clone of litecoinglobal.com) There are no less than 3 different ways the asset issuers can get at the data. In the website. Via JSON API. And via email. The email is automatic... you get a copy of all your shareholders in your inbox twice a day. MPEx poked all kinds of fun at me for the email feature, but the bottom line is that I have no idea if anything will ever happen to the site and I don't want to be responsible for anyone's economic loss. So it'd be easy to shift from one of BTC Trading Corp's exchanges to another exchange elsewhere because we've always been about making it easy for the asset issuers to do their thing. This may eventually be to our detriment, as the issuers really could leave at any time, but I still feel strongly that it's important to give your users the tools they need to succeed.
Ahhh, I apologize, I must have overlooked it or perhaps did not consider that the same. I think a lot of the problem is that many users do not trust the asset issuers when it comes down to money. Everyone has a scammer tag in their holster ready to quick draw the moment something even remotely smells funny, regardless of how well known, or reliable the issuer has been. We have already seen cases of people questioning issuers "where did XXX shares come from? Why do you have them? Do you have proof you owned them before YYY?" I guess in this respect, and the information not being out there for everyone to see, and not being 100% fully transparent just screams (to me, along with all the other voices in my head
) like it would still lead to many MANY more potential major incidents with a lot of "he said, she said".
Suggestion: You may want to re-examine your theory on BTC addresses being anonymous and maybe only display them to the asset issuers that need them.
Again, I try to make all my projects as transparent as possible. I am even looking to allow users to be able to use multiple addresses so they can split their holdings on the public list, however even that feels like it would be abused in some way. If you do not want people to know who you are, just create a new address that will only ever be used for an emergency claim. I just do not see a reason why everyone can not have a copy of the same data, and be on the same page as long as it maintains user privacy. As an exchange, we are responsible for maintaining a simple form of data that people have traded with their real money for. I can not stress enough to anyone how important that data is, and what a large responsibility exchanges have to insure data integrity up to the worst possible case scenarios. This also help's users feel assured that the exchange itself is not scamming the system. Many accusations of 'trusting' GLBSE's data flew pretty quick. With even just some holdings information withheld, for whatever reason, leaves an opportunity for people to worry that 'unclaimed' shares might be falsely listed under another person/s. Giving a list to asset owners is nice. Letting users click and see something that references what is theirs and knowing that other people are checking too and adding up the totals to see that the numbers balance out... to me, this is not some 'feature', but a sense of relief and confidence in the safety of their investment that the users deserve to have access to.
BitFunder aims to help protect everyone, issuers, and users alike in a fair and balanced fashion.
I can say, with all honesty that I am impressed with BitFunder and hope that you succeed. It's a great looking site, easy to use, and seems to introduce some great new features. I have a lot of respect for you and have no doubt that you'll be a great asset to the community.
I do also like your systems voting model, it is a very unique and interesting system.
(Just make sure no one confuses it with a "real" shareholders vote!
)
