Topic: [IPVO] [Multiple Exchanges] Neo & Bee - LMB Holdings - page 152. (Read 658701 times)

I want to cancel my transfer to btct and migrate to havelock.

I agree.  Do you have a system in place for direct shares?

The above are all great points, in relation to the regulators always being behind technology, that is true and the reason why we have provided the knowledgebase to the regulators on Bitcoin, to ensure they know what it is and how it works without having to look it up themselves.

Any business that is stepping into a potentially regulated area, must approach the regulators with a clear plan of their operations and detail exactly how they are going to do everything and literally say this is how/why we should/shouldn't be regulated. Then negotiations will occur to ensure that the regulators are happy with everything before granting any licenses that are required.

My point on things taking time in the real world was due to the fact that everything needs careful planning and the foundations need to be solid, before any visible progress can take place.

A failure to plan, is planning to fail.

Yep. I agree - good questions/thoughts

I think each person has to at some point make a decision on whether to choose to be politically loyal, or loyal to the community as a whole. For instance if you're in a position to make a decision which affects thousands of lives, for example thousands of college students are using file sharing programs to share movies and music, and there are businesses trying to have those students arrested, sued, taken to court, or some other similar policy, then at what point do you figure out that the enforcement policy is doing more harm to the economy and to peoples lives than the file sharing?

The politicians who set regulations often have no understanding of how important a technology is or the consequences. Then their own sons and daughters wind up using it and that is when they get a clue that it's a big thing. At this point almost anyone who has been on the Internet has at some point committed copyright infringement, so if the policy were to sue each person who did that even the whole Internet would be sued. Prior to that everyone who taped songs off the radio or on their VCR were breaking with some rule/law.

Some of these regulations are either technologically unenforceable, or socially unenforceable. I think a decentralized exchange is now inevitable for the same reason that a successor to Napster was inevitable. In the case of Napster you could have said that certain corporations had a reason to want to take it down because of copyright infringement. That same case cannot be made with Bitcoin stock markets, while it is a very disruptive technology the economy is in such a state that it would probably do more to stimulate the economy than the regulations would do.

And if it's about the economy, and about people, and not about legalism that only the best lawyers can make sense of, then the decentralized exchange (at least on the backend) is a good technological solution to improve the state of the economy.

Legalism:
Legalism and Individual Autonomy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legalism_(Chinese_philosophy)

It's true the IRS wants people to pay taxes, that is the one argument I can understand. I think the tax regulations could come later after the technology is built. If people are receiving dividends and cash out then it's taxed obviously, but I also know that if Bitcoin reaches critical mass then it will be taxed. That shouldn't be something technologists, programmers, or users worry about though. The IRS should figure out how to tax it after it's built, similar to how there are now Internet sales taxes but that didn't happen in 1995 prior to the critical mass.

Just so we're clear, I agree with the spirit of your argument. I also believe the technologies you've mentioned have both a positive impact on humanity and are, for the most part, beyond the reach of overt political manipulation. My point is that the realm of business and politics (and really I'd like to divorce the two from being lumped together because it's inefficient, ignorant, outdated politics that are the issue here - business is both beneficial and necessary) always come into play. I don't think we really get away from that. At least not in the way society operates today.  

TCP/IP,WWW, Bittorrent, Bitcoin, Email, Linux, none of these technologies had any business or political side when they were created.

They were created and then after the fact the businesses were built around them. Tor was not created for any specific business or political reason, it was created for military purposes. The Internet was created for military purposes.

We could make a case that Bitcoin and Bittorrent were created with political use cases in mind, but the idea to create cryptocurrencies existed long before Bitcoin. Ask anyone who studies these topics and they will tell you that Bitcoin was not the first attempt, Bitcoin was just the first attempt to get it right and do it in a way which couldn't be shut down.

If you mean political as in politicians deciding whether or not a technology should exist? That isn't how the world works. A lot of technologies exist that politicians never thought possible. Politicians didn't think P2P would become popular. The MPAA/RIAA who were the most politically connected businesses at the time didn't know what to do about Napster, Gnutella, or Bittorrent. Pirate Bay was a technology before there was a Pirate Party.

Bitcoin is a technology which can make people's lives better. Once people figure out how it can make their lives better businesses form around it and then political stances change. The same would happen with a decentralized exchange protocol, at first people wouldn't know what to think of it but then businesses would form around it and pressure would grow to legitimize it. Sooner or later it would be regulated in some fashion, but the point is not to let regulation get in the way of progress. If 500,000 lives will be at risk because of regulation preventing a technology which could save 500,000 lives then at what point do you figure out that the regulation is putting the lives at risk more than the technology?

If regulation for instance is completely unworkable, how long do you think it will be before the regulation hurts the economy? The case we have here is a situation where politics and regulation are hurting the economy, negatively impacting thousands of lives, and because of the slow rate of politics in DC (not talking about politics on Bitcointalk or elsewhere), the ignorance of DC on how important a particular technology is could cause hundreds or perhaps thousands to go out of business, result in losses of jobs, and then politicians in DC will complain about high unemployment rates, expensive social benefit programs, and big government.

You cannot have it both ways. Either you believe in science and technology or you believe in politics. Business is neutral and will use any tool, but many politicians are luddites who don't even know how to make sense of what is coming. They are too busy fighting over the budget to pass a law to make Bitcoin exchanges fully legal.

To be totally fair, that's a pipe dream pure and simple. Science and technology don't advance without the business/political side. I'll agree that one is usually better at keeping mustard off its shirt, but as a whole, we're only as fast as the slowest member.

Right but the problem is compliance may be impossible for a Bitcoin stock exchange. The SEC does not have Bitcoin specific laws and doesn't even seem to know what Bitcoin is. Congress has not figured out how to regulate Bitcoin.  There simply does not seem to be a way to be compliant with crowdfunding laws as vague as these. Maybe in a year or two but a year in the Bitcoin space is an eternity.  

I agree we need a legitimate and compliant stock exchange but if it's not possible to have one then the decentralized exchange will come online due to the demand. If the SEC makes it impossible to comply, and if Congress does not create regulations which make some sense, then it's an unavoidable consequence.


I understand your feelings and constraints. The business and political world move a lot slower than science and technology. The only thing I advocate is that the business and political world do not interfere with scientific or technological progress. This is why I say the decentralized exchange technology should be built, not because I think society will instantly know what to do with it but for the same reasons Bitcoin had to be built to push society forward.

Politicians aren't the type of people who can push society forward. They don't like to change anything even when science and technology make the old ways obsolete. Business is restrained by the politicians who wish to suppress technological progress to win political points with corporations and special interest groups that back them.

The best solution for NeoBee investors from the USA at this time might be to sell their shares and buy back at a later time. Havelock represents too much risk and the only way to mitigate or reduce that risk is through technological innovations such as a decentralized exchange. I intend to buy shares in NeoBee when it's possible to do so but there is no compliant exchange and probably wont be for a period of several months.

Just know that I intend to buy shares immediately when the option exists, just as I intend to be a customer when the option exists.

It has been considered from the outset and things are progressing as fast as the business world outside of Bitcoin operates.

No one wants a smooth long term solution that isn't just a band aid more than me. I would much rather spend my time (I assume all those invested would too) building and running the business without additional time being demanded from my days with having to problem solve on this front too.

This is the truth.

When we had a handful of exchanges to choose from, this wasn't as big of a concern. We could do precisely what we did - migrate from exchange A to exchange B. Once all our options are either closed down or made unavailable, what are the options then? I believe this needs to be considered because Havelock going the way of BTCT/BF seems absolutely inevitable.

Field experience -- the kind an engineer like myself most respects -- indicates that any centralized securities platform might get shut down, hacked, or simply disappear without warning.  These events have all happened in the past.  This is not idle speculation about vague threats.

All respect to Danny and TAT! You sure seem to be doing a good job out there.
It's a little unfortunate that this happens with BTCT and Bitfunder BUT...

Please listen to your fellow investors.
Convert to direct shares is the only way to go from here.

Keep your investors pleased and listen. The investors are also potentional customers.

this.

I finding it worrying that companies can't anticipate threats to their shareholders like this.  Why didn't you put a plan in place after the BTCT announcement?

Pushing everyone to Havelock is a band-aide that shows us a legitimate solution is not available.

Direct shares is the only way forward, at this point. The fact that you have not put together a direct share system shows the short-sightedness of management.

I have the opposite response. At this point, the market needs a real, legitimate bitcoin stock exchange that is compliant.

Your focus on what might improve about a decentralized exchange completely ignores all of the things that would be made worse.

A request with the details of BTCT account or Bitfunder? I had previously requested from BTCT to Bitfunder.

Apologies but I have to be sure!

Sounds like you are describing the way MPEx works?

This is the same argument used to defend Facebook. Privacy being sacrificed for convenience...

We need security over convenience in this particular demographic. How many exchanges have to shut down or implement region locks before people understand that the model is insecure/failing? Also with thousands of Americans locked out the centralized exchanges aren't a realistic option long term.

Sure for a month or two Havelock could work just fine, but then it could lock out Americans too and each time this happens money is lost, trust is breached, and these people aren't going to be going back to centralized exchanges. So when you say convenient you must mean for the people who aren't region locked. You must mean the people who weren't using btct when the order books got wiped clean and the site announced it's shutting down. That kind of stuff never happens on a real stock market.

What about when MtGox did that cool down period, when the Bitcoin price was hacked or collapsed this April? Look at the response to that event where MtGox went from being the number 1 centralized exchange to the situation now. The market share has changed drastically and it will be no different here. The consequence for region locks and midnight shut downs will be felt because that is the way of the market.

At this point the market is demanding decentralization because central exchanges cannot be trusted. The only options for US investors are a Canadian exchange which most likely is going to region lock US citizens at some point, an obscure exchange somewhere in China which only has Asicminer shares and which most Americans don't want to have to deal with, or the decentralized exchange. Sure you can build a web front end for a decentralized exchange, but that is the only way it will work for everyone without unacceptable risk. If no one can wipe the order book because it's the blockchain, if no one can region lock and leave it up to each individual issuer, then you have a lot less risk.

The ideal format would simply be:

fwzd
2000
[email protected]




with the subject of the email being: NEOBEE