Topic: post - page 6. (Read 13616 times)

I have been talking with usagi about investing in CPA, he seems to know what he's talking about and I am going to personally make sure things are run correctly. I have been helping and supporting CPA as I think it's something the community needs and it could potentially be very successful. Gamma Bitcoin Fund will potentially invest a big amount of Bitcoins into CPA, the exact details has not yet been decided but I can vouch for CPA and Usagi, so far Usagi seems to know what he's doing his planning and idea is sound and I hope that his execution will be so as well.
//DeaDTerra

In the event of castatrophe it will probably look like this at the office:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUoAC5msF-U&feature=plcp





Exactly, and we've not seen where giving money to CPA is any safer than giving money to Pirate or any other random bitcoiner.

If you have large investors who can vouch for CPA in any way, especially if they are "known members of the community," that would undoubtedly help reassure your potential customers that the company is sound.

A customer's perception of how much CPA reduces their risk will be what drives the number of customers you receive and the premiums you can charge them.

Speaking of "making the numbers work out"...

Do you plan to run the company with "open books" so that customers can see exactly what their exposure to risk really is (assuming "good faith" on the part of the insurer)? e.g. what assets have been insured, how much bitcoin you have backing them, etc.? I think this would be invaluable.

There may be some customer confidentiality issues here, but in general I think adequate information could be made available without inconveniencing customers. (e.g. if I personally take out a contract to insure PPT bonds, you wouldn't need to reveal that it was I specifically who did it; if a company insures its hot wallet, it probably WANTS that fact to be public; etc.).

Disclaimer: As someone who is "just asking questions", I am assuming "good faith" on the part of the OP. I don't want this to be construed as lending undue credibility to the OP. tl;dr: I'm not saying it's a good idea for people to participate in this (I wouldn't risk too much money, since I don't know the OP personally), just saying it's a (very) good idea in principle.

You could think about using Judge.me. I.e., working it into client contracts.

A client may want it in their contract, for obvious reasons.

You may want it in a contract, in order to help counter people's ability to say that you were unfair in responding to a claim. E.g. if someone tries to drag CPA's name through the mud after a claim is denied, you could reply: "If you don't agree with CPA's decision, you can appeal to Judge.me, and CPA will honor their judgement."

I have no affiliation with Judge.me, and can't speak to their credibility. Preliminary observation suggests that it's a very professional setup, though. And they have expressed an interest in working with bitcoin.

There is probably a limit to the monetary scope of their judgements (e.g. it's a small claims "court"), but the vast majority of your customers are probably going to be taking out relatively small policies anyway, to begin with. (This hypothesis probably deserves its own post, but anyway, here it is. Yes, you should try to get some "big fish," but I think small investors who just want to make their investments "somewhat less risky" are going to find CPA most appealing in the early stages, before you've really established a track record of credibility. That is a business plan I could get behind, if you can make the numbers--i.e., risk vs. backing--work out.)

Usagi's responses to valid questions and criticism has been incredibly articulate and thoughtful, and that certainly helps to inspire confidence.

Usagi, how much time to you intend to devote to this endeavour? Do you intend to take this up as a full-time occupation?

FTFY

This will never work. You rep in bitcoin community is basily zero and you want to run this huge insurance business on a word of mouth

In most cases Insurance companies have harsher regulations on their clients than governments. While no government could make bitcoinica move their service to dedicated servers if they failed to do so under an insurance contract which stipulates it then they will lose their cover....


 

So what is it? Can you be sued for not paying on a claim and will you sue for fraudulent claims?

And one more thing, here is the IMDB description of the short film from which you draw the name, "A group of down-and-out accountants mutiny against their bosses and sail their office building onto the high seas in search of a pirates life."

And this company is going to insure against a default by...Pirate. There is definitely an in-joke here. Some people might even get it in time.

10% off of 5000 shares would be 450 btc. Sorry I thought that was the minimum buy in.


If you cannot take even the name of your business seriously, why should anyone else take you seriously? And for the part that you cut, I am a miner turned investor with ~2000 btc spread on and off GLBSE. You have an interesting idea, but not a working business.  You're right though, its not me you need to prove yourself to. It is everyone.

Do you or anyone you plan to employ have *any* experience in the insurance underwriting business? You never answered my question about jursidictions. If you are dealing with assets worth 5 or 6 figures sooner or later a court is going to enter into it. The first time you deny a claim that high you are going to be sued (rightfully or wrongfully). You attempting to be the final arbiter of any dispute does not bode well. Anybody with more than pocket change invested should care about such things, as it will have an effect on your bottom line. Anybody with more than pocket change insured with you should also care, as it may compromise your ability to pay claims. If your answer is that nobody should have any legal recourse with you at all, then why should anybody trust you to insure their money? If Pirate defaults and then you in turn default on the claims then what good was the insurance in the 1st place, especially if clients cannot try to get anything from you in court?

Do you plan on underwriting against a Gox or Bitcoinica type of hack where the entire site is compromised? If so you offer potential thieves a double payout. Once someone finds a security hole they simply insure themselves for the maximum btc they can and then they get paid both for stealing as much as they can from the site and for the claim afterward.  I am curious how you would be handling Bitcoinica right now, if you had a number of clients with insured accounts there.

Oh, and in the above examples with GLBSE and Authenticator, what if somebody is using the desktop authenticator (GAuth) and their desktop gets compromised? And how do you prove someone uses a unique password on a site? Ask them for their passwords on every other site? If you don't have criminal mind and can't think of all the ways you can get defrauded, you are going to get taken for a lot of money.

Good to see you have such grace under fire with potential clients and investors. In the event of massive event happening you are going to have a *lot* of angry and pissed off people trying to get ahold of you. Good to know that customer service is at the very top of your list.

Sorry, I don't have a criminal mind, but this is bitcoin and I feel there will be a lot of fraudulent claims.

This concerns me as well.
Assume that I have insured my GLBSE account against hack/theft.
What will prevent me from selling everything and withdrawing bitcoins, then asking for compensation?

Good luck, but how will you account for fraudulent claims?

So let me get this straight, In order for someone to be an 'insider', you want them to pony up a minimum of 450 btc. You have nothing worked out as far as rates of return, profitability, etc. and you are apparently a one man operation with an idea and nothing backing you as far as real world assets. What jurisdictions do any legal matters fall into? US, EU, Lithuania, Belize, Panama?

This part is nitpicking but the name of your insurance company sounds like something a high school death metal band would call themselves. Take some of the vast sums you raise from your ipo and hire a marketing consultant and work out something that sounds a bit better.

You're asking for a massive amount of btc from the community, might be better if you set your sights slightly lower and started a bit smaller, work out the bugs, and then issue more shares.

There is no obvious way for them to diversify their risk here, so insurance is not a viable business.

However, as a scam, well full speed ahead. Insure against rare events and then disappear when a big payoff appears. That's the plan, right?
Is pirate is running this? Looting from both ends is pretty sick! There are plenty of people here who deserve an investment with you.

I feel this is gonna be big.

Also, 100k BTC?  That's over 1 % of the total BTC in existence!

I must be missing something. Why is the rate of return relevant? Someone insuring 1999 btc & someone else insuring 2000 btc - difference in risk is 1 btc, not "next-interest-tier". Or not?

When do you plan to open for business and start negotiating contracts?

Also, personally, I feel that IPOing on the 7th is rushing things.
 
I do still have some questions/concerns about the material you've posted (mainly in the first 3 posts), though I'm not sure if I'll have time to raise them. (Not because of the impending IPO, but just due to being busy.)