Q&A ROUND 1
1.
I'm commenting here purely from the perspective of a BMF shareholder - not evaluating the bond itself.
That is what I am looking for. I'd like this to pass as a BMF motion, I.E. for it to make sense to my shareholders, and for my shareholders to trust that this is a sane plan. With community backing, I feel I can succeed.
2.
First, though, you need to fix the math here: [...] Repurchase there should be 1250+125=1375 unless I've totally misunderstood something.
Fixed! Thank you. I was working from 200,000 bonds when I wrote that then decided to cut the issue lower.
3.
From a BMF shareholder's perspective BMF would lend you 5 BTC then receive back at least 0.5 BTC/week from Jan next year until total payment of 100 BTC had been received. With the risk that if listing were denied or the offer was less than 50% subscribed the 5 BTC would be lost.
The problem then is that we CAN'T put the property aside and just discuss whether it's good for BMF - as how good/bad it is for BMF depends very much on how likely it is to be listed and sell out. And that depends very much on the detail of the property.
Sure, but all of that detail comes from me (I can explain the details but the conclusion won't change). The problem is, obviously, the more information I reveal the more it becomes apparent I'm revealing personal details to people who are not qualified to evaluate real estate. So what I am willing to do beyond just explaining details and throwing out numbers is to contact people like Rentalstarter (or yourself -- for example) and explain details and offer a sort of "information escrow" -- information escrow with someone who understands what the information represents. Then that person can act as a reference and say "Ok, usagi is telling the truth, it's real" and we can go from there. But until that can be done, when I say it's a good property, please take that on faith.
4.
As a BMF shareholder I'd vote to approve the motion if you can convince me there's better than about a 20% chance that it would sell out. Which pretty much, ignoring detail, means convincing me that the property deal is real and profitable. More accurately, it means convincing me that you've convinced the forum in general that the property deal is real and profitable.
I think the best way to illustrate this point is to discuss the bond issue as if we were going to bond the entire property @ 300,000 bonds (instead of 150,000). I still may want to do it this way, just for the sake of accounting. After all, we have already put a significant amount of money into the property, which can be documented to the information or identity escrow. So, for the money we have already placed onto the property, I will immediately receive 25,000 of 300,000 bonds. Further, we have approximately 11,000 bonds worth of capital sitting in the mortgage account which represents another 1 year of mortgage payments on the property. That raises the total interest I already own to 36,000 of 300,000 bonds. Now, in 2014, interested parties will donate (as in bestow) 50,000 bonds worth of capital to us towards the construction of the new structure. Why are they doing this? Because they have a vested interest in seeing this project come to fruition. Again, this can be documented to the identity escrow. This will bring the total number of bonds I own to 86,000 by mid 2014. During 2014 I will be buying approximately 1000 bonds per month out of my own personal paycheque -- which does in fact turn this into some sort of personal loan -- but one which I would have no trouble paying in any case given the strength of our bank account and projected 2014 cashflow.
Again, this property has already been bought. We've already paid 1/3rd of it and will likely end up paying off the land before summer 2014. But that means we can't build the house until next year, and that causes "problems". Then there is the issue of neighboring property "A" which I want to acquire and which may easily be acquired by someone else if we have to wait a year or so before we can buy it.
Point being it /is/ selling out, one way or another, before 3 or 4 years is up -- because I can and will buy it out all myself given enough time.
The question is, how much interest can I raise from others? Well, let's hope others chime in and give their thoughts
5. Anonymous via PM (letters added to questions for reference)
a) This is a bond denominated in USD (or we could say tied to initial BTC/USD rate) with interest 52% per year (in fiat, paid in BTC).
b) It will end after paying 200% of initial value or by the formula: (IPO - (payments/2)) + 10%.
c) This is backed by actual house - what is the probability for investor that the backing will be lost/without (fiat) value?
d) Will there be any option for redemption any time?
e) I would prefer listing at BTC-TC because of much lower fees - 0.4% vs. 1%, also at BF there already competition for you: Ukyo.Loan and Graet.Loan.
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5a) No, it is not denominated in USD. It is denominated in bitcoins. However because I am buying bitcoins to pay the coupon, the bonds will tend to float against a basket of various currencies. To be absolutely clear the US Dollar, Canadian Dollar, or Australian Dollar will
never be in this basket. I did say it would be tied to mtgoxusd, but now that I think of it, that is actually impossible. It may be close to mtgoxusd but it won't be mtgoxusd. Maybe mtgoxjpy?
5b) Yes. The point is, you will get roughly the same purchasing power sent to you per bond per week until the bond returns 100% in terms of bitcoins. However, I will probably include a clause that caps the payout should bitcoins rise more than, say, 100%. I think that's more than fair considering what the investment represents. As you see, it wouldn't be possible to build a bitcoin economy with a highly volatile price without such a clause.
5c) Well, we already own the land. The great thing about this property is we bought it at 50% off (considering what people are asking for neighboring properties). If we have to sell it, we can pay off the bond. Keep in mind we have already placed a substantial amount of money into the property which we will get back when we sell. And we will likely be able to sell for at least 50% more than what we paid if we have to sell in a rush (100% more if we wait). I don't see any way for someone to steal a title in this day and age, so unless I stop making mortgage payments we should be fine. But there won't be a mortgage if we float any significant portion of this bond, so barring an act of god I don't think it is possible to lose all your money. There is a chance of loss but I feel it's really remote. I mean, the house could burn down. But we would still own the land, and we will be getting house insurance obviously so... the chances of losing the principal investment into the house are exceedingly remote in my opinion.
5d) Yes and no, because once we sink the money into the house the only way to redeem bonds would be to sell the house. The "yes" is if I launch with 300k bonds instead of 150k and don't pay a coupon (but instead, sell at under-face-value). For example, if I state that the bond is guaranteed to be repurchased in full after 1,200 days, and 120 days pass, the bond would be worth 0.011, After 240 days, 0.012. I could just repurchase any bonds listed below that price. What I would do is just add bids to the market instead of paying the mortgage (which wouldn't exist if we floated as much as 50,000 bonds). There are other issues. As I've alluded to, we will be receiving a large payment towards the development in early 2014. In theory I could use that to repurchase bonds. I am not sure how I will structure it but I will review what you have said deeply and come up with something that I am comfortable handling. I just don't want to get into a situation where I have to default on a clause. I definitely will not sell this house at the whims of bondholders, so the terms have to be clear in expressing that. This bond is not the kind of vehicle where you are going to be able to sell it back to me personally before the house is done. On the market, sure, at what price I don't know, but I can not afford to repay that much money until 3 or 4 years.
5e) I understand the desire to list on BTC-TC, however, I would like to consider myself closer to Ukyo because of our shared interest in Anime. Burnside is a really cool guy and I guess in terms of look and feel BTC-TC is better, but BitFunder has a lot of money going through it, and I wouldn't mind being on the same exchange as RentalStarter, too. Time will tell. Maybe we'll end up on Havelock or Crypto::Stocks? C::S is severely under-rated.
Thanks for the comments and questions.
Right now I am going to work on a re-hash of this with the following in mind:
1. Who wants to be the information escrow wrt. the title to the property, etc? (I am planning to provide a video walkthru of the property as well, for public consumption).
2. Issue of the full 300,000 bonds, with myself holding up to 1/3rd based on documents showing I've invested that much worth into the house already.
3. Some kind of repurchase clause.
4. Possibly issuing the bonds without a coupon (i.e. traditional bond) whereby the bond has a face value of (say) 0.02 but it is sold at 0.01 This would require guaranteeing a date upon which the bonds would be bought back. (This might be the most convenient thing. Actually, Deprived suggested it in PM).
5. Some kind of clause which limits my liability should BTC go to $5000. The fact is, you're not investing in BTC here, you're investing in a property and merely transacting in BTC. I may decide to tie it to gold, I may decide to tie it to case/schiller. Something realistic. If I do it that way it would be coupon (payment) based.
6. I wanted to make this into a super-duper bond but it may turn out to be another BTC-BOND copy with a high rate simply because I think it's more popular.