Topic: Biz27B-6 on Bitfunder - 100% scam (Read 4179 times)

What are the plans?
We will be going to direct shares managed by ourselves, at least until we can find another marketplace to list at that won't be as vulnerable to government threats.

What do shareholders need to do?
For now, please make sure your BitFunder public address is a valid bitcoin address that you control. We know there are a few shareholders who have non-bitcoin addresses there. The one with a postal address has already been contacted through other means. We understand that this means we will need to handle exchanges ourselves, and we need to develop a means to securely and privately issue buy and sell orders. We're working on that.

Dividends, when we have them, will be distributed to the public bitcoin addresses we get from the BitFunder site. Emails may be encrypted and sent to [email protected] : the GPG key to use is
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We did actively raise funds, but in person. Most shares have been sold directly and the transfer functionality used. I'd bet Ukyo can verify that.

Most of the investors are personally known to me and they know what the business is and does. I'd bet Ukyo can tell you how many of these investors were brought to the website by me, and how many only own shares of Biz27B-6. Doing a quick check of the asset listing page, of the 45 investors in Biz27B-6 only 14 hold shares in other assets; which means about 70% of the investors only hold our asset. That 70% can be assumed to know what the business is, else they wouldn't hold just that.

The reason we keep our identity unexposed on these very public sites should be obvious. Our biggest threat is the government and those who would impose arbitrary regulation. The majority of our shareholders are quite aware of who we are and how to contact us. A few shareholders have already contacted us and we have already discussed our plans with them.

We've added this info as a news item on BitFunder so those who don't frequent this forum will also have it.

In my case, I bought 1 share during the brief time when it was visible to the public and have since held on to it mainly out of curiosity. But now I'm trying to do something with each of the assets I own on Bitfunder (either sell or migrate), so I'm hoping that the issuer will make some sort of announcement soon as to the future of the asset. Otherwise I will probably end up selling soon just so I can take 'deal with this asset' off my things-to-do-list.

The latest story seems to be that this was never intended as a fund-raising exercise at all and was merely intended to provide bookkeeping functions for existing shareholders. But there's a broader and ongoing problem here which comes down to woolly thinking: assuming without argument that what applies to individual consumers should apply to any entities at all, including businesses.

I appreciate the mathematical beauty of trustless systems in general and the quasi-anonymity of Bitcoin in particular, but none of the respect for privacy for individual consumers that is baked into the DNA of Bitcoin has anything whatsoever to do with institutions such as businesses and this fundamental fact about them: without identity, there is ultimately no accountability.

While identity might not be sufficient to provide accountability, it is a necessary condition for accountability.

And maybe I've been asleep at the wheel, but I've never heard one -- not even one -- decent argument as to why an exchange or an investor should tolerate someone aiming to raise money from other people to run a business without coming clean about their own identity. We're not talking about charities aiding political dissidents suffering under oppressive regimes, after all, we're talking about people in business to make a profit. Sure, there are plenty of assertions which boil down to "well, if you don't know, then I'm not going to tell you", but that's just mixing a spoonful of laziness with a dollop of condescension and hoping people will swallow it down without engaging their brains.

The bottom line is that if you are an asset issuer asking other people to fund your business without coming clean about who you are, you are asking to remain unaccountable. And if you're an exchange willing to list such assets, you're signalling that you're OK with that.

What are the plans for this asset with the changes at Bitfunder? Will it remain on Bitfunder, migrate to direct shares or another exchange (like 796.com, Cryptostocks), or shut down? Do shareholders need to do anything? Thanks!

It would also be good to see it in the market list as well iff you are a shareholder. IMHO, for shareholders the site should act the same for private assets as it does for public assets, perhaps with some indicator when displayed in a mixed listing to indicate its private nature. Perhaps a superscript 'p' with a hover text saying "This is a private asset" or something like that. For non-owners it would still be not visible.

I do seem to remember that James/Nefario was working on splitting out listings into classes of assets, which might be worth thinking about. There are some big downsides to that though, like someone being responsible for determining the classifications. Overall, I think private listings is a better way to go, and it does fit in with my original intention of just using BitFunder as a way to outsource shareholder management.

And can we get this thread renamed? Since it is now a private listing, calling it "100% scam" is improper.

They ass has been removed from the market list.

Anyone who holds shares can easily access the asset page from their 'My Assets' page.

I will will be adding a flag in the near future so that its news posts are not public.

I am still a bit in debate over making the asset only viewable by shareholders.

I was thinking this solution as long as I was reading the thread. So +1 to it.

I think this is more than good.
Then for other people who want to do private personal things, not even public, they can use bitfunders services as well.

I will try to get this setup and done tonight after one or two other releases.

^^I fixed it for you.^^

A good exchange ensures their listings meet certain minimum requirements (I.E. not a scam), then individual investors decide whether or not to invest.

It isn't that hard, it happens IRL all the time.  Your false dilemma is false.

That would be a good thing.  New investors could get their first share(s) by transfer (payment would be off-exchange anyway) then thereafter trade with one another.  It would reduce clutter for the rest of us - and prevent anyone trying to get listed with the intention to sell to the public by claiming it was just for private management of shares.

Only shareholders should also see news-releases from it.  If the issuer wants to market to the public then they can give disclosure sufficient to make informed investment decisions like most of the other companies do.

Well an exchange COULD go down that route - but Bitfunder wasn't.  Ukyo has already he said he's rejected a lot more listing applications than were accepted.  So clearly some level of information IS required - the problem, in your case, is that he may have that information but investors don't.  So listing yours whilst rejecting a load of others netiher meets what you'd like OR what I'd like.

You'd apparently like an exchange where anyone who paid the fee could list, correct?  

I actually DON'T oppose that.  What I oppose is one where a significant number of assets are rejected due to meeting unspecified qualifications then a couple that fail to meet any reasonable set of requirements to allow informed decisions by investors are listed.

Either have no critieria for listing (other than paying the fee) OR have a consistently applied set.  Once some restrictions ARE applied that it's important to apply them consistently - as investors KNOW there's a barrier to being listed and so being listed at all gives some degree of credibility.  When the information on which that credibility was formed is not disclosed (Ukyo refers to himself knowing information that the public doesn't have) then some investors are going to invest purely on the basis that they believe Ukyo in way endorses the offering (as he rejected a load - so clearly only accepts one he believes are OK).

Let's just look briefly at what would happen if things went the way you say you'd like - where the operator of the exchange made no judgment on submissions for listing.  There'd be a TON more listings on Bitfunder (pretty sure Ukyo said he's rejected more than he accepted) and most of them would be utter crap.  And when people see uttercrap getting listed, every scammer/HYIP/ponzi merchant would be running their own.  So you'd have page after page of listings with no useful information provided.  At that stage the ONLY things that would trade would be ones giving full disclosure - as with 50 listings like yours (no identification and no proof of anything) none would get any significant investment.  It would NOT help legitimate businesses that didn't want to diclose information - it would help scammers (as ANY sales is fine for them).  And legitimate businesses with proper disclosure would be buried amongst page after page of junk - though would still get a decent amount of trade no doubt.

IF Ukyo had intended that to be how Bitfunder was, then I absolutely would NOT have made this thread.  As there'd have been dozens or scores of assets with as bad or worse information provided.  And at that stage it would be obvious to even the most stupid investor that there was a lot of crap around they shouldn't touch with a barge-pole.  This thread was necessary (in my view) because there's only TWO such listings that have managed to get listed (the other one is so obviously a scam that it didn't even deserve a thread).

The reason I still believe yours is a scam is NOT because I'm sure you don't have a business (I'm by no means sure of that -and have said so earlier in this thread).  It's because by being for sale amongst a bunch of securities it's falsely being portrayed as an investment opportunity - when, to those who know nothing about it, it's at best a gamble not an investment.  Plus there ARE rather scam-like aspects of it (such as the accounting - where you may have some reason for doing it, but it no way then meets your claims of transparency anyway: shuffling funds between your own wallets is NOT transparent even if it were representative of actual economic activity elsewhere.).

Hey,

I like his idea.

What if I make the asset a private listing.
Not listed on the market, and only shareholders can even view the asset page / interact with it?

But requiring the exchange to define "sufficient information" is in itself a problem. Making the exchange get proof of information accuracy would be expensive and time consuming, a burden that isn't necessary. It would also expose them to the threat of lawsuits (or at least as much as can be done in bitcoinland). But if the exchange isn't required to have actual proof of the accuracy of the information, then why even require it? It would certainly be in the interest of most assets that are intended to be publicly traded to list all the verifiable information they can. But why not let people decide for themselves how much information is enough to decide? For most people, the lack of information itself should be sufficient to decide not to invest.

Nope, I don't want to make the exchange the arbiter of what is acceptable or not.  I want the exchange to ensure companies listing provide sufficient information for investors to make that decision.

Actually, it wouldn't be as vague as you think if you knew more about the business. And those not yet signed up can see it when they do. But go ahead and don't believe me.


Sure, a fool and his money are soon parted. People are free to use bad judgement, and hopefully they will learn from it. Some people do need to learn the hard way, and sometimes even idiots get lucky. Whatever. The private display functionality will hopefully be online soon enough and you can pretend you live in a world of perfect information once again :-)

Well that would solve everyone's problems - yours and mine.  And Ukyo could still get revenue from the trading so it works for the exchange.  If he does it then he should add some way for people with zero shares to be white-listed to see it - e.g. some box where they type in a ticker name (given to them by the owner) and from then on it gets displayed.

So you think the best way to inform your investors (who know what the business is) is to post a news item that has NO details in (becuase it's posted in public)?  And to do so at a time when (according to YOU in the news post) a lot of them aren't even signed up to Bitfunder?

Giving no information to half of them is the best you could think of?  Surely if they know about the business anyway you could actually send them .. I dunno -- maybe some actual information?  Or is it your intent just to give vague generalities about unidentified people doing unidentified things even to those who (allegedly) already know what the business is?

To answer a question you raised - why would someone who knows nothing about the business buy shares?  Well, speaking personally, I happily buy shares in businesses I believe are scams regularly (for my fund).  I do so because scammers, especially early on in the life of their 'business', are exceedingly predictable and easy to exploit.  Specifically, they'll happily sell shares at any price - but won't let the price crash : so you can back them into buying the shares back at more than you paid for them.  That's why I had an order up at 1% of your listed price - and I hope it's why the guy at 20% of price had his up (I pulled mine after he outbid me - as I don't like to go over 5-10% on blatant scams.  I'll go to 30-40% on more subtle ones where the likelihood of selling on to an idiot is much higher).

Other people, I guess, treat it like a lottery ticket - that's the ones who never research what they invest in anyway: so not knowing the identity of the business doesn't especially affect their (nonexistent or unused) judgment.

Yay, looks like this can happen. Thanks for the suggestion Deprived.

No, I didn't misunderstand your point. You want to make the exchange be an arbiter of what is acceptable or not, instead of allowing each individual make that decision for themselves. That is inherently authoritarian and leads inevitably to corruption.

The idea of limiting display of certain assets to current shareholders is a good one though. I would be glad for Ukyo to add that and use my asset as a first test case. In fact that's so good an idea I'll toss him a half bitcoin to do it if he agrees. (I know that's hardly enough, but I'm not rich.)

I did have an advisor tell me to not list so many shares for sale, but he doesn't really understand the nature of a truly free market yet. That's why I changed the number of shares for sale, to keep an investor happy. He is still thinking traditional stock market.

As far as selling shares at a price that you might think is less than I should, opinions change. Who is to say what a fair value is? Since I have no way of knowing whether a bid is from a legitimate shareholder or not, I can only assume they are placing lower bids hoping to get a discount. Who else would bid on an asset that has no identifying information?

As far as transfer vs bid, maybe its just easier to let the system handle what the system was built for than to recreate the system's functionality by manual processing.

I already explained why the recycling of bitcoins through the various addresses happened, but to recap: we still have more revenue from non-bitcoin sources and to have the bitcoin addresses accurately reflect the revenues and expenses we need to recycle some of them. As I said earlier, if there was an intent to commit fraud, then why wouldn't the amounts recycled be much larger?

And why would I use the news system to communicate with my investors when I could send some of them emails, some of them facebook messages, some of them tweets, and walk over to others' houses and tell them in person? Jeez, let me think about that. LOL

I'm not going to say I'm perfect. Maybe I have missed something. But that doesn't mean that the asset is a scam. All this all means is that it isn't for everyone. In fact we are explicit that it is only for those who already know what it is.

But the tl:dr of this all is, if you don't know what it is then don't invest in it. That's pretty obvious and simple.