Topic: Critique of the various businesses run by usagi (Read 5421 times)

I believe CPA and nyan should both be closed down - that's not JUST because usgai is running them.  Here's why:

CPA:  I don't believe the bitcoin market-place is developed enough (or regulated enough) to be place to run an insurance company.  With the majority of busineses being incompetent, scams or run by individuals unable to do their job properly there's just no way to run the type of insurance company CPA set out to be profitably.  The risks would be high - and there's pretty much nowhere that the funds can be invested safely enough (and with sufficient liquidity) to be able to make large payouts in a timely fashion AND offer reasonable rates.  Depositing the funds in a non-BTC deposit-taker (such as a bank, buying treasury bills or whatever) isn't an alternative due to exchange-rate issues.  Which leaves the only safe option as being to hold all (or nearly all) funds as liquid BTC.

There's also the issue of regulatory issues - insurance is one area that falls within the realm of "must be properly licensed/authorised regulated" to conduct in every developed country I can think of.  If GLBSE becomes regulated by the FSA then there's absolutely no way it could continue to list an insurance company that didn't comply with the relevant regulations.

Nyan: This was badly structured from the start.  Six things were wrong with it:

1.  The minor issue of having the pretence of 3 funds while it's in reality 1 fund.  This has caused confusion over valuations etc - which SHOULD be totally irrelevant (the only value that matters is what you get back when you sell at the end).
2.  No settlement date.  There should have been a date at which all nyans would be liquidated and paid out - then restarted (if desired).
3.  No fixed amounts of each nyan.  This meant that no informed investor could actually calculate the relative merits of each nyan choice - as that depends on the relative numbers of each type.
4.  The CPA guarantee.  This is no problem for nyan.a investors - but I can't see how it was ever in the interests of CPA shareholders to offer it.  I must be missing the bit where they get a hefty payment in return for their exposure to it.
5.  Although 4 isn't a problem for nyan.a investors it IS a problem for nyan.b - as every time a nyan.a unit is bought back it reduces their overflow from nyan.a without reducing the benefit they give to nyan.a (in fact it increases it on a per/unit basis - as their protection is spread over less units of nyan.a).
6.  Investing in non-liquid assets.  With the model used this was bad - as it couldn't withstand a spate of withdrawals.  With a proper model (fixed expiry date) then all investments should be such as to be realisable at the expiry date.

In short it should have been:

Defined in size (# of each type or ration of each type),
Fixed expiry date,
Zero buy-backs before expiry (meaing no need for the CPA guarantee).

If CPA underwrote the offer then they should have got a small cut of the pie in return for taking up the slack on whatever units didn't sell (the role nyan parent was supposed to do - but didn't).

Right now, if nyan.b closes down then nyan.a pretty much HAS to close down as well.  Without nyan.b (and with nyan.c essentially asset-less) there's zero reason why nyan.a investors should want any cut of their profits (if they make any) going to a nyan.c that contributes nothing in return (it has no assets to back them with any more).  This situation is a direct result of the 3 points I just listed not being followed.

The MPEx similar offering is much better structured - though it IS completely hilarious that they invested in nyan.a.  I nearly fell off my chair laughing when usagi pointed that out.

Incidentally, one of the biggest problems facing ANY offering on GLBSE is the completely irrational (to the pont of being delusional) expectations of investors here for a ridiculously high rate of return.  The only things offering high rates are ponzis/scams, loans (which often default) and minng operations that devalue - making the real ROI way lower than it appears.  There ARE ways to make high returns - but typically only on a tiny amount of capital.  The mistake, of course, is trying to run something 'real' AND pay the same sort of rates - you're pretty much certain to fail on one of the other of the two objectives (or both, as is the case here).

Your comprehension skills are saldy lacking for someone who claims to teach English.

I said a "tighter noose".  My view is that you deceived and lied to your investors and that at least some of them lost coins as a result.  You refuse to ackonwledge your various conflicts of interest - despite some of them (e.g. the insurance poicy between BMF/CPA) being pretty much textbook examples of what a conflict of interest is.

My quoted comment referred to aomeone's intent to report you in the scammer forum - not whether you were a scammer or not.  The criteria for getting a scammer tag are NOT directly related to whether someone IS a scammer - rather whether the mods can be convinced that it's proven beyond reasonable doubt that they are a scammer.

Being acquitted in a trial does NOT mean that someone is innocent (just that the jury concluded there wasn't enough proof to be CERTAIN that they were guilty).  Similarly, not having a scammer tag is no way proof that someone hasn't scammed (it just indicates that the mods aren't SURE that they scammed - or, for other reasons, don't want to give the tag).

I was in no way saying I believe you're innocent of scamming (I prefer to avoid the word scam as it is open to debate what it actually means).  What I WAS saying is that I think it's hard to build a case strong enough to persuade the mods to the give the tag - but that if we let you carry on a bit further I'm sure you'll make the case much easier to build (by continuing to lie, deceive and blatantly ignore conflicts of interest).

For the insurance company, part of their operation is deciding how to invest the float. I view that as very much related to the contracts and building appropriate models, but not directly so. Thanks for pointing that out.

FWIW, it hasn't lost value through insurance, at least not most of it anyway. Though I completely agree with you that it's a very hard task.

Motion to liquidate everything, pay off creditors, pay remaining proceeds to shareholders. That is my advice.


Could you please provide the models you created to calculate past insurance contracts? I would love to see your math that you believe is so simple.

Creating contracts is not terribly complicated. Creating insurance contracts that are based fully on proper math and assessment and on a whole benefit a company and it's shareholders can be quite complicated. This is evident in CPA losing around 80% of shareholder value since inception.

So what you're saying is you have absolutely no proof, after all this time, but you are determined to trash me and my companies every chance you get, in the hopes that I'll actually scam someone?

So in other words I haven't done anything scammy yet? Oh this just keeps getting better and better.

In all honesty, it will not matter. The basic idea of insurance ins quite simple, but it is quite difficult to perform successfully and consistently. Doing it in an unregulated and murky market such as bitcoin compounds the difficulty. The risk models that insurance would be based off of would likely never represent anything close to reality; even if you had a large group people focusing on it. This is why it is clear Usagi is foolish; he thinks that he (an individual with 0 experience or advanced education in math, finance, or business) can operate an entire insurance company. This isn't even counting the fact that he also manages NYAN and BMF. No one with a a reasonable understanding of these matters would have done what Usagi has.

Removing some of the conflicts of interest is only a portion of the overall problem.

Yes. I say, let's do it.

If anyone is interested in this we can arrange for them to run it for 1, 2, 3 months, or even permanently. We don't even need to motion on it because the business operation and contracts would not change.

Sure, I'll step down. Let someone else run the company and do a better job.

This is the only way to solve the conflict of interest.

Companies acting on technicalities such as "accelerating payments to cancel each other" makes it apparent that there is a huge conflict of interest.

The only way I see these issues getting resolved is getting fresh managers on board. Would usagi be willing to let us appoint different managers/CEOs to some or all of these funds/companies, if any suitable candidates come up? I'm asking both usagi and the shareholders.

Its true that if you make people money they dont care as much if youre an asshole.

True, but it's more about how you react to the critique than the trolling. Patrick, Victor, Kluge and a few others have set good examples on how to respond to criticism.

The only measure is how successful your businesses are, so focusing on the critics and even blaming makes you look more guilty than you really are. One of the methods us investors use is to gauge people's trustworthiness is to observe their behavior here. I've invested in CPA before the "trolling" began because of the reasons you say. However, ahem, coincidentally, the "trolling" intensified as you started losing money. It is nothing but an expected part of business. The fact that you don't (at least seem to) look at it that way made me lose trust.

So why don't you go ahead and make us money? That's the only way you will show them (or us, depending on the criticism).

Because you got trolled. Everything I did was according to my contracts, I published everything I did and wrote letters to shareholders. Before this little trollfest took root I was getting compliments, daily, for how I was running CPA, NYAN and BMF.

Get it? I don't have a scammer tag because I'm not a scammer.

It is beyond me too. The positive thing is that some community members keep questioning and analyzing his "businesses" and eventually you would expect him to give up, his investors dry up or he makes a mistake after which even forum moderators will feel comfortable tagging him a scammer.

Also we have to wait and see what happens with GLBSE. If the plug is pulled, the problem solves itself (for now). I even think that would be the best outcome for most of these asset scammers. That way they can get out of their mess before it completely implodes with only one black eye.

Usagi and Diablo have already started to blame GLBSE and Nefario for their failures. Most of them will probably even profit from GLBSE closing down (i.e. if they didn't keep their BTC there) because they can keep the investors money they still have left and blame it on Nefario that they cannot pay it back.

I'm just catching up on all this, but I am ASTOUNDED by what usagi has going on here.

The conflict of interest is patently true, the NYAN accounts are being shut down out of order, CPA is an absolute scam, and all he has to say is that folks with questions are 'IDIOTS' and then demand they stop posting.

I'm really amazed at how little leverage ya'all have against someone that is so obviously fleecing the hell out of your community. How he doesn't have a scammer tag is beyond me.

Missed that little gem.

Trading 10 BTC NOW for 10 BTC NOW definitely doesn't make anyone more or less solvent.  Trading 500 BTC NOW for a promise to repay 500 BTC over 2 years definitely DOES make someone more solvent.

Further to that:

1.  If the time element is irrelevant what was the purpose of the insurance contract again?  Wouldn't that make it a loser for BMF whatever happened - as they were agreeing to pay 550 in return for 500.
2.  If trading bitcoins now for bitcoins in the future doesn't make anyone more or less solvent why did usagi make a thread specifically to borrow a few hundred bitcoins?
3.  What has "10 bitcoins when you have a market cap of 2500" have to do with a debt of 500 bitcoins?

Predictions on how long before usagi suddenly remembers/realises/is told by someone it listens to that getting 500 bitcoins now and only having to pay them back over 2 years is actually very useful.

At least we've progressed past the "it was a joke, it wasn't an actual contract silly" stage.  Now we're on the "well yeah it was a proper contract but that's not really a good reason to actually stick to it" stage.  Wonder what act 3 will be - maybe the "well CPA can't pay it so there's no point us making a fuss about it" stage with a brief intermission of "let's vote on it as I control most of the shares and can vote as many times as I want with them".

My predictions for any motion:

Option 1 : Let's claim our 500 BTC from CPA.
Option 2 : Let's just forget about it as noone's been hurt by anything.

With option 2 winning by Y votes to option 1's X votes where:

X is slightly smaller than the number of shares controlled by anyone other than usagi.
Y is larger than the total number of BMF shares in circulation (as in the last one).

LOL, why do I get the feeling usagi misread "staying out of your threads" as "staying out of all threads about you".

Bit premature for that in my opinion.  Let usagi build a tighter noose for itself by blatantly trying to get BMF investors to act against their own interest via a motion.  When usagi's properly ripe for the picking on this one I'll see if I can motivate myself to properly document one of the nyan conflict of interest scenarios that's happened - and make any scammer accusation rock-solid by demonstrating that this insurance mess isn't some one-off occurrence.

Thank you and goodbye (hopefully).

You should have done this 3 weeks ago.

Thought I made it plain already.  I'm NOT interested in hearing any more of your crap anyway.  I don't WANT any more responses from you LOL.  You won't tell the truth and I've no interest in your lies.

I'm just gonna discuss stuff in here with others who are interested in it - some of them may share my views, others may not: all are welcome.  And if any of them happen to be share-holders and want to take it up with you then that's their business.

And no - you won't control this discussion (if you mean the discussion in here).  Noone will control it (unless a mod chooses to) - and definitely someone who isn't going to post again in this topic isn't going to.  If you mean some other discussion in one of your own threads then go ahead - control it.

And no - I'm not playing your silly little games of being sent from thread to thread and each time being told I'm a troll or "banned" etc.  I'm doing you the courtesy of now staying out of your threads (unless you make an inaccurate statement about me).  You can stay out of this thread, post in it, ignore it - do what you like about it.  I really don't care.  If you post in here I will likely respond - and help you dig your hole deeper.