Topic: [CLOSED] S.DICE - SatoshiDICE 100% Dividend-Paying Asset on MPEx - page 97. (Read 316363 times)

I have decided to add some features to make my offer a bit more lucrative.
I will offer trade free off charges with a 1:1 ratio between GSDPT and S.DICE, I will also offer to for free of charge sell the equavilent amount of S.DICE on MPEx and then transfer the amount received from this trade to you
For more detailed info check the GSDPT thread.
//DeaDTerra

Btcx – Thank you! Your comments are much appreciated, and it is refreshing to see some genuine, valid critique of the offering. As you took so much time to craft your concerns, I’m happy to address each in turn.

First, on your comment above that I’m taking “the vast majority of the money to reinvest personally in Bitcoin” – let’s remember that this is the vast majority of only a small minority of my ownership of SD. I am not trying to sell this casino in any way, shape, or form. I’m selling a tenth of it – basically a tenth of my claim to the future profits. I will be receiving the money raised in the form of Bitcoin, and of course, as I have a deep passion for Bitcoin, I’m not selling this for USD. This indicates my investment preference for BTC over USD, indeed, but it does not indicate a serious preference of BTC over SatoshiDICE. Again, I’m only selling a tenth of the later in exchange for the former. And, I’m only willing to even let that tenth go at the price starting at .0032 per share.

So it is thus accurate to say that I prefer 32k BTC instead of 10% of SatoshiDICE, but I would not prefer 15k BTC instead of 10% of SatoshiDICE. My investment preference only shifts to the BTC at the 32k for 10% exchange rate. Further, I wouldn’t sell another 10% for an additional 32k btc, for at that margin my preference shifts back to SD.

If some portion of the Bitcoin investment world has a matching inverse time preference to to mine, and is thus willing to pay 32k BTC for 10% of SD, then we all have a deal and the exchange is made. Otherwise, my exchange preference and that of the market do not align, and we continue on as we were.


Perhaps. But so are a large number of Bitcoin businesses, including both MPEx and GLBSE themselves. The site is not hosted in the US, nor registered in the US, nor does it hold any bank accounts in the US. There is no reason to claim it is a US entity – it’s not an entity at all, it’s just a website that enables wagering with cryptographic coupons. Zynga Poker is legal in the US, because it doesn’t use “real money.” I think a fair argument can be made that SD is similarly legal.

With that said, there is no denying legality risk. If there were no legality risk, the offering price would be higher.



It is not a registered legal entity. It’s a website. I’m not sure what “properly allow investment” means. The terms are stated, they are clear, and I have signed them with provable identification. Bitcoin is a free market, and this is a voluntary contract. I understand most of the world does not operate in this way, but that’s part of the problem, and I’m spending my life fighting it. Not by protesting with signs and letters to congressmen, but by building alternatives and living by my principles.



This is true. According to the prospectus, 10% is going to a very large European print campaign, and the new website has already been paid for. Beyond that, the funds are my own and I’ll do with them what I wish. Some will inevitably be spent furthering my remaining 90% stake in SD (my incentives in that regard are not changed at all by such a small equity offering), some will inevitably be spent on other BTC projects. Most of it will be saved for possible future opportunities in this world we’re trying to build.




Full time, no, but yes I’m actively involved in growing it. Everyone reading this knows about SD because I’ve grown it and I will continue to do so (it would be quite silly to work on a site of which I own 100% only to stop working upon owning 90%).  And indeed, the site doesn’t require full time management. Part of its charm is the low overhead in time resources. My full time job is with BitInstant. SD is one of a handful of projects I work on. 



This is false, the company has over 7k BTC in reserves currently. If there were legal challenges to SatoshiDICE, it would be deducted from net profits. Let’s remember here that the site currently earns 33k BTC per year in net profits, and can certainly afford legal assistance if needed, but if harmful legal attention was brought to SatoshiDICE we’d probably have bigger problems within the BTC world as a whole. Legal risk is part of the business – though investors in this IPO are not liable for anything, other than potential lost profits.




The site has been DDoS’d a couple times and this has not been a problem. By the nature of the structure, let’s remember that bets to the site are placed via the Bitcoin network, not the website, so in case of some massive attack on the site, we just post the bet addresses somewhere else temporarily and most players can continue playing without a hiccup. The only real attack against SD’s playability would be if the BTC network was under attacked and in that case, again, we have bigger problems.




No idea… depends which country we’re talking about. SatoshiDICE needn’t exist in any specific country. It is not tied to a bank account.

Your question is more relevant to Bitcoin as a whole, and this of course is the great question we’ll all face in the coming years. By NOT investing in SD, you don’t really escape the risk you’re mentioning here, because in the case that BTC gambling was under legal attack, the value of the BTC you hold will drop substantially.



If Bitcoin goes bust and is not replaced by another cryptocurrency, SD is probably worthless… but so are the BTC you chose not to invest, no?

If Bitcoin goes bust and another cryptocurrency arrives, SD would almost certainly adopt it and continue on (and this is fundamentally why Bitcoin, or the Bitcoin concept at least, will almost inevitably win against its competition).



The brand name and massive ubiquity of the site are not easily replicable. The free advertising and word of mouth discussion the site gets from its current position is not replicable. Holding 6 of the top 7 addresses in the Bitcoin blockchain is not easily replicable. The business relationships and reputation I have with people are not easily replicable. The integration into blockchain.info’s wallet and mobile app are not easily replicable.

Beyond that, the concept can be (and is) copied.




Can they do a lot more than SD if SD also raises 300k…? Ponder on that a while and you’ll discover one of the main reasons I’m doing this



I fully agree with the first part of that statement, I say the same thing to lots of people. Betting on a Bitcoin company is almost certainly riskier than betting on Bitcoin itself. If the return you expect doesn’t justify it, then it’s best for you to stay in BTC. We can both agree that it is SatoshiDICE’s future which will dictate whether the investors at the IPO get a good return. At zero growth, perhaps it’s a wash given the opportunity cost of the coins. However, with even small growth in the site the dividends + share appreciation should make any investor who’s not seeking 7% returns per week happy.



In the prospectus and contract it states that SD doesn’t pay salaries and salaries wouldn’t be deducted from net profits. Good question, though.


See question 9, above.


Only if SatoshiDICE doesn’t grow and perform to a standard that the future investor would find attractive. There’s always a price for everything, and the price to buy 10% of SD today won’t be the same price in a year, and I can almost guarantee that. The gamble will be whether it’s higher or lower. Further, if not all the shares are purchased at this price, I wouldn’t call that “botched” – it just means the market disagrees with me on the valuation, and that’s fine. If the market disagrees with my valuation, life goes on, and I keep the shares and the profits in that case and will continue building it as I have been.



This is a risk for all businesses everywhere, no? Holding your Bitcoins as you are now exposes them to acts of god… though I hear CoinBase’s new ewallet has a feature to protect against deity risk.


I respect your opinion, and greatly appreciate your questions. You say you’d gladly take my end of the deal all day long, but of course, the only way you can be in my position is to own a piece of SD so that when the Macau casino buys it you’ll be on the selling side…



This is a good point, and primarily I chose to release this a bit early because of the Pirate issues. I thought it’d be wise to offer an investment to Bitcoinworld that had transparency and profits which were A) verifiable and B) sustainable. If Bitcoiners are only looking for investments paying a few percent per week, I unfortunately have no idea how to offer such a thing.

Again, btcx, I sincerely appreciate the intelligent comments.

If every share went through the pass through you would stand to gain 10.1493 BTC per month given the "Avg. Actual Profit per 30 Days" in the prospectus. Using the same numbers, shareholders using the pass through would receive 213.66947368 as a whole.

I find this amount acceptable given the projected dividends without growth.

Which is why I asked, what admin fee would be appropriate.
What's your opinion, I can still get Nefario to change the contract
//DeaDTerra

If I made significant dividends or capital gains from the shares, I would probably consider making my own account on MPEx or using a more economical broker.

First of all I doubt I will be able to sell all bonds, second of all a quadruple sounds like a lot xD
I am not doing this out of greed because I want to make money out of it, I am doing it as a service for the community and for the people that want to invest in this IPO but might not want to get a MPex account
Management will be manual, I am not sure if it even can be automated?
What would you suggest as a admin fee, I am up for discussion
//DeaDTerra

The pass through management should be automated of course. The only manual process would be verifying the registrations and associating them with GLBSE purchases.

So the question becomes, is 5% of an ever increasing dividend (we hope) worth it? Right now it comes out to $1,370 a month if all the shares sell.

If S.DICE quadruples its dividend, then can you justify $66,000 a year in fees to administer this pass through? I guess the answer to that depends on whether you are a holder of the bond, or the operator of the pass through 

I would like to know the answers to these questions (specifically).

I'm not sure about these statistics Erik.

•   Since Satoshi Dice started, there have been:
Blockchain Tx:  3365999  :  SatoshiDice Tx: 1943703  (57.7%)
Blockchain MB:  1405.6  :  SatoshiDice Tx: 795.6  (56.6%)

i.e. even since Satoshi Dice has been running it has 'only' been 57.7% of the transactions, so there's no way it's over 66% of all transactions ever.  Also, the blockchain is about 2600 MB and Satoshi Dice accounts for 795 MB of that.  That suggests that Satoshi Dice represents roughly 30% of all transactions ever, not 66%.

•   What is a 'top address'?  There are so many ways you could sort the addresses.  I guess you mean by number of transactions involving the address, but that's not clear.  Maybe by balance held, total coins moved through the address, etc.

•   I thought the millionth bet was in the 4th month not the 3rd.

•   9,300 bets per day times 31 days per month times 3 months is only 864,900 bets.  So how do you get a million bets in 3 months at 9,300 bets per day?

The performance of the site is certainly very impressive, but it would be better to have your statistics be correct too.  There's no need to exaggerate them.

The 5% is to cover the fees that occur during the signup on MPex, the lisiting on GLBSE as well as the trading/transfer fees
Is 5% to high?
I thought it's quite reasonable considering the effort I am putting in to enable this pass through, but I guess it can be discussed.
//DeaDTerra

I was referring to the payout for the GLBSE pass-through, it's 95%.

I was not talking about the fee for purchasing the security on the exchange (which is quite reasonable).

Great answer. I think you should be the PR person, not the porn star.

In the case of S.DICE I will open communications with evoorhees in an effort to ensure my clients still receive their dividend and are able to buy or sell the asset as they wish. I would also keep aware of the community reaction to this event as there will likely be a better solution proposed by another person.

Smickles, what is your contingency plan if the porn star is skipping town?

I apologize, I mangled the message a little bit. I charge 3% or .5 btc per buy or sell order. So if you buy and hold, you will essentially buy my services perpetually unless I cannot meet my obligation (at such a time as that I would of course make arrangements for you to receive you S.DICE shares personally or transfer them to another broker/holder)

One time as in, I buy your services perpetually?

nope, i offer my services for a one time 3% or .5btc (whichever is lowest) fee.

First, let me say that SatoshiDICE is awesome and I wish it the best.

High risk doesn't always mean high reward.  The fact that Erik is taking the vast majority of the money to reinvest personally in Bitcoin should tell you what he thinks the better bet is.

Now, I'm all for diversification of one's portfolio but there are a lot of negatives here that have me failing to see the 10x valuation.

Apologies in advance if any of these have already been addressed in this thread:

1.  Service is potentially illegal in many jurisdictions, including the US.
2.  I can't tell if this is actually a registered legal entity, nor whether the paperwork has been properly done to allow investment and protect investors.
3.  The deal structure doesn't resemble so much a company taking investment as it does an individual shareholder selling shares.  Your money, by in large, won't be reinvested in the company.
4.  Is Erik actively involved in growing the business full time or is he devoting the majority of his time to other projects?
5.  It sounds like the company hasn't been keeping any reserves so if it does get hit with a big lawsuit or other expense, what happens?  Does Erik come out of pocket?
6.  If the site is targeted for attack, as other gambling sites are, your hosting bill could quickly become $10k/mo, eating away 1/3 of the profits.
7.  Is it more likely or less likely that if Bitcoin is still around in 5 years it will have faced some form of regulation?
8.  If Bitcoin goes bust, what of value is left for the shareholders?  Does the business have any revenue streams not entirely dependent on Bitcoin?
9.  Does the company possess any assets that are not easily replicable?  Any especially valuable trade secrets, patents, trademarks or other intellectual property?  How about even user information?
10.  Just because the clone attempts so far have failed, that doesn't mean future ones will.  For $300k, someone could do a lot more than clone SD, and own 100% of it.
11.  A bet on a fully Bitcoin-dependent business is generally riskier than a bet on Bitcoin itself, and in this case the expected return doesn't justify it.
12.  What prevents Erik from taking a salary or hiring someone to replace him, or taking on other expenses that will drastically reduce profit?  Is there a board of directors he works for?
13.  Low barrier to entry.
14.  Botched funding round eliminates any possibility for a serious company to purchase SD in the future.
15.  Acts of god.

As someone with experience in investing in startups, I'm going to have to steer clear of this one.  Even if all the business stuff were above board, I'd think that for all the negatives, the valuation wouldn't be greater than 2x, and even that's a stretch.  Again, I'd much rather just put my money in to Bitcoin or save it for a promising Bitcoin business that actually needs it to grow, not just to cash out the owner.  Anyway, can't blame Erik for trying.  I'd gladly take his end of the deal all day long.

Oh, and why raise the funds before the new site is launched?  Usually, you launch your thing and then use that as a basis for raising money at a higher valuation.