Topic: I'm done with Bitcoin Securities... (Read 6340 times)

You are very rich

True enough.
It's not Libertarians like Proudhon, who believed private property (as in factories, "means of production") wrong, but the ignorant forum users who think "Libertarian" is a fancy word that somehow justifies rabid, sociopathic greed.
Thanks for bringing that up.

FWIW, forthcoming exchanges are going to have a lot more involved with systemic DD than what we've seen before. The reality is that self-policing doesn't work. Exchanges can adapt the frame and structure as to how federal exchanges work for listing requirements without government oversight.

The problem is that you can't have amateurs with 2-3 members on staff (if that) doing it. Its not just about coding, but verification.

Yes. Blame the Libertarians. It's all their fault! Those filthy Libertarians. Down with all lovers of liberty!

Most Libertarian types are jerks. Unfortunately until BTC and BTC Securities are regulated, jerks will prey on those that want change and are willing to believe. Libertarians are either extremely naïve in thinking that men will not take advantage of each other, or they simply are evil and want anarchy so that they may take advantage of others without penalty.

They spout off that it is up to everyone to exercise due diligence, blah, blah, blah, but there is nothing to stop someone from lying or someone from simply becoming corrupted. Some sort of regulation and vetting is required either through a citizens committee or government regulatory body. Punishments are required for those that intentionally harm others. A well ordered and just society is not achieved through anarchy.

I smelled scam/incompetence early on and my displeasure with both the way TAT and Danny were managing NEO were posted here and on reddit.  In both cases I was basically down voted to non-existance.  

Both TAT and Danny are completely incapable of managing other peoples money at ALL.  I sold at a loss and moved on months ago before the launch.  The writing was on the wall early, no one wanted to listen.  I had a large stake in NEO.  TAT is a huge jerk, and should hardly be managing a McDonalds let alone millions of dollars and Danny is just completely naive.

of course, that's a triviality

100% agree

I think if we expect the price rise we should not invest our bitcoins in conventional companies like real states, casinos, etc  because their incomes are in usd and in the future it would be harder to pay dividends for them. In those case it's better hold btc

Rating agencies are only as good as the people making the ratings. everyone needs to start doing their own due dilgence and start asking themselves the important questions.

The most important question is "how will this company make bitcoins?" If their plan relies on the price of bitcoin going to the moon, you should just hold onto your bitcoins because you will be in a better position and have much less risk by holding onto your coins instead of giving them to someone else.

I too have lost alot (for me) due to my negligence. What I think could change the landscape significantly are rating agencies and decentralized exchanges.

I'm also worried about securities in bitcoin because we have a little information about any company's owner


I think that we should invest only a few cents or a little amount of coins in each security that we trust, so we can atomize risk in case it were scam


Unfortunately, in my case I found only a very few companies for invest in which I could expect a real profit in bitcoin (not in usd)




Sorry for my english

I lost only a few and in general I profited quite a lot but during the last 2-3 years I dodged so many bullets (Pirate, GLBSE, Ukyo, Cognitive, MtGox) that I definitely decided to keep away from these investments. I consider to be very lucky to always spot the right time when to get out. BTW, this market is so illiquid that investing 100+ BTC in anything is certain recipe for disaster.

I feel for you since I also played with those securities

Not really on Bitfunder since I never used that exchange Weexchange ate my free ripples so no real loss there
BTCT however was interesting since I did walk away from Labcoin and even Activemining fairly intact and got into Labcoins messed up IPO with my shares cut 1/3rd from the initial amount and sold early on that pump, even declared it publicly to the chargin of some who were arguing 10x the price not 5x was a good exit point lol, then played the speculators roulette after seeing that wave go up and down a few too many times all in all I pretty much started off where I was initially plus a little gain.
Neobee however I did lose a bit in but I sold most of my shares a bit too soon and then the rest on the March 17th News at the 0.003 and some range when it went to 0.006 and was buying a bit back on the drop to its IPO price only to find to my surprise a few days later that in the span of two weeks it went from being a super star to dead in the water, so quite the turn of fate.
Not really sure if it was a scam yet although it did get Mircea banned for swearing at the mod and writing off topic posts lol.

That said AM was the one that caught me ironically since I had an average weight at 2.5 BTC a share which after Gen 2 got delayed pretty much left me with a modest gain instead of a large one. That said unlike the other securities AM pays out honestly and is still a good company even if it dropped down in price so my own fault for speculating to high.

Playing the speculators roulette after an IPO is always a challenge.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1khGADbJeu0efCNZ13lnz8BucG7PfS5Cl9lBZ1sncY-4/edit?pli=1

On non security things I always emptied my inputs.io balance in tradefortresses sig campaign and the reason I made an account was because of those double payments and I never used coinlenders myself I consider myself lucky not to have invested Bitcoins there.

With vircurrex my 10 bucks in litecoins are frozen lol but I call that a loss even though the site still runs for now.

Left a small balance in the Blockchain app wallet but learnt that cold storage is safest less the amount you leave in exchanges which are always at risk. Also made an instantwallet account to put faucet funds into but of course it closed operations a week later lol... So that was my 101 into downloading the QT client.

Bitfunder I got lucky since I did not like Weexchange it just was too bloody clunky for my tastes even though Ukyo and other users said it was designed to act as a seperate unit if the exchange went wonky on btct burnside closed his service professionally securities aside although it is worth noting that Labcoin and Activemining were Voted in, so the gamble now is in trusting havelock and for now they seem ok the only real exchange really to survive of the last three, (mpex living through it all but with scarcely a few securities lol) but hopefully I see the signs again if something changes, been fairly lucky overall but it only takes one mistake to lose a fair bit.

Touché. At a certain point, it became blazingly clear that TradeFortress's operation did not have the capital to cover potential withdrawals; I alluded to this publicly when TF first floated the idea to start clearing out his "investment" fund via Inputs.io, only to be brushed off, naturally.

As for Ukyo.Loan, I had originally been an aggressive buyer on behalf of the BTC Growth fund, eventually holding nearly 12% of the entire thing; but once it became very clear that the operation was headed south, I took the fund out of that position swiftly and entirely.


Neo was not worth touching with a barge pole: regardless of whether it was actually intended as an outright scam, it was a transparently atrocious business plan. IMHO, no experienced investor would have gone near it in the fiat world, yet in Bitcoin land many folks seem willing to overlook all manner of flashing red lights that would otherwise be deal-killers.

Most people would tell you only an idiot would but some nonexistent currency from some website in Japan that used to sell collectable nerd cards.

At least that's what people told me when I bought my first bitcoin a year and a half ago.

These days they are asking me why they I didn't tell them to buy any when I first bought in.

So I think you had to have been kind of an idiot to take a risk on Bitcoin to begin with.

You are correct. It still however leaves us with the problem of trying to establish trust. I do not think the threat of violence is the solution, or that violence should be the punishment. Unfortunately some people are evil and will try and scam or hurt others. We need some way to keep these people in order. Perhaps with the internet, and the Block Chain itself or a variant, a trust based system could be created. Those that do business with you could assign a rating or leave feedback. Those with low ratings or proven scammers would not get business. Still however people can go bad. How do we deal with punishment in situations such as those? Do they simply get a negative rating so that people will never deal with them again? Do they pay higher insurance rates somewhat for like bad drivers etc.

It is an interesting problem and we definitely a Block Chain based hashing solution could solve the issue of establishing trust levels.

Most Bitcoin users are not investors; they are average folks who got lucky and now have access to more wealth than they know how to manage. Handing your money over to a stranger doesn't make you an investor; it makes you an idiot. How do you think individuals make a living out of investing if any nobody could do it from home on his iPad?

The Banksters definitely need to be held accountable. Perhaps as dpb suggests a privately run or sponsored citizens/investors coalition could be formed that we could all trust to do the basic vetting for us.

dpb I did not mean to suggest that a simple criminal background check was all that was required for due diligence. My example was meant to point out that it would be crazy to expect 1000's of investors for a fund to have to each carry out the same process of vetting the funds. If you think of securities in general there are probably thousands if not millions of funds, and thousands if not hundreds of thousands of investors in each one. Without a central place, either public or private, where vetting can occur it would make it very wasteful for all these people to individually exercise due diligence on each one.

A simple credit rating check is often a better indicator of character than a criminal check, but even then there is no simple answer as a good man can become bad.

The system is not yours to "let." It does not need your permission. You are hiding behind collectivist language: "we need to," as if one individual's conception of a greater good is justification for the use of violence against his neighbor. Take the initiative and do it yourself! It's disgusting that you would substitute hard work for laziness at the expense of others. You are worse than the accused scammers; at least their victims had a choice!


Some estimate that the ratio of scams in Bitcoin is not that far off from the ratio of scams in the traditional financial institutions:
http://trilema.com/2012/the-bitcoin-drama-timeline/

a background check would have prevented Labcon.  Those guys had scammed before.

I'm not in favor of govt regulation, but I'd like to think there is a way to improve the space here on our own (besides just due diligence, which doesn't stop all the scams, either).